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JordanAt the border I met with two Austrians, Chris and Katrin - travelling to Africa in a Mercedes Unimog, quite a vehicle. The coincidences started with our journeys, a similar route, although I can’t enter Egypt due to the crazy 800% carnet requirements. Chris works in a similar field to me, plays guitar badly and is also contemplating driving home via the West Africa route by December. After the border we decided to camp together in the nearest national park. Here are a few pictures of our dinner and our first camp in Jordan.
Chris and Katrin’s Unimog is quite a beast. Built from scratch by Chris (with the help of two friends) it has everything – toilet, shower, kitchen, double bed, and even a small dining area – large enough for 3 people. I’m very envious. The national park was beautiful, being Friday however it was only just starting to quieten down at 8pm after the throngs of people had left. We were greeted by a ranger named Mohammed, who not only insisted on giving us tea, made with some herbs collected from the forest but also I found out in the morning had checked on us every hour until dawn. They seem to really care in the middle east that visitors are made to feel welcome and to ensure that nothing bad happens – Mohammed insisted it was safe, but he “just wanted to make sure”! Chris, Katrin and I chatted about routes, exchanged contact details and in the morning (well late afternoon) I was off to Amman, to find a hotel for Daniel and I to stay in that night. Looking at the screen I cursed myself that I was in fact in the wrong arrivals hall – there are actually 2 here, despite there being only one sign for “Arrivals” from the carpark I left M in. It’s great to have him here – and I was the first (if you don’t count the customs officials) to greet Daniel with a big “Welcome”. Something he’ll be hearing a lot for the next few weeks.
The next morning we were up fairly early, and off in search of the Sudanese embassy, with a view to obtaining the apparently elusive Sudanese visa. It took a good 5 hours to find the damn place – hidden away on a backstreet near the 7th circle. For those trying to find the embassy of Sudan in Amman Jordan, here’s the GPS Coordinates: N31 57.874 E35 51.254 The British embassy is totally bomb proof; set behind a large wall, the embassy itself has been built in a large hole – ensuring that any blast that occurs outside the walls beside the car bomb barriers won’t seriously harm the internal structures. They’re hot on security, you’re searched and all electronic equipment must be stored away before entering. It’s not exactly a welcoming place – especially with the clinical white lights and a raging hangover which both Daniel and I are suffering with after a heavy night. The previous evening consisted of many beers, a few whiskeys, and a splash of the local drink ‘arraq’, which is almost exactly the same as [Perno??]. A few water pipes with apple tobacco and about 40 cigarettes each on top of an obscene amount of alcohol ensured we were feeling pretty awful for the entire day. We were told after submitting our applications by Ahamed, the extremely likeable face of the embassy, that within 3 days we’d be in possession of the visa, and free to travel onto our next country. He asked us to wait whilst the consular reviewed the applications – sometimes it can happen the same day. So we waited, chatting rubbish to each other with our stinking hangovers. The conversations included shooting (clay pidgeons), many stories of other terrible hangovers and the evenings that caused them, women (of course), and we were sure later many other subjects that may be of offence to conservative Muslims. Turns out, unknown to us, someone important from the embassy staff was in the waiting room with us for at least part of the day, oh dear. Don’t ever go to an official government building with a raging hangover and gibber rubbish to your friends all day – you never know who’s listening…
The next day we were back at the embassy, and on best behaviour. It’s the third day of messing around with the embassies, but only the second day since the applications were submitted.
Daniel was keen to play chess – which helps pass the time, it’s been a fair while since I’ve played, the last serious chess I played was at a fairly high level, but like riding a bike, it never really goes away… Daniel will help me with guitar and I’ll help him with chess. At 3pm, the embassy closed, and we had no visa, so off we went to a different campsite – upon leaving our bush camp north of Salt that morning Daniel and I were accosted by two stick waving old men. Presumably annoyed at us camping on the mountain…
The mountain east of Madaba, is famous for being the place where Moses died, he saw the Promised Land – wasn’t allowed in, and died.
Right after I’d finished my last bite – and at the moment I’m always the last due to still needing second and third helpings, fireworks started down in the valley, presumably from one of the many 5 star hotels. Perfect timing after a perfect evening. We woke for Dawn, hoping the wind in the night and the fresh morning air would lift the smog from the valley to allow us the same view to the east that Moses once saw, but alas the smog remained, which makes the photo’s poor. Actually seeing it with our eyes, not hindered by our camera’s optical limitations was absolutely spectacular.
After our hot chocolate, a renewed campfire and after checking the car, we headed down the mountain to the dead sea.
It’s 400m below sea level here – and the distance to the sea is quite deceptive, what we thought may be a 15 minute drive turned out to be over half an hour – and as it’s downhill all the way, we were going pretty quickly.
But wishes soon after diving head first that he hadn’t… The salt content in the water is extremely high – hence the floating about like you’re parachuting, but the salt is also so concentrated, that any tiny amount of it on a cut or in your eyes is extremely painful… After our guinea pig had done the hard work, the rest of us ventured in for a 15 minute float around…
After showering (thankfully Chris and Katrin’s Unimog has an outdoor shower), Daniel donned his Dame Edna shades and imitated some local fundamentalists.
Once again we were heading towards the Sudanese Embassy – seeing the 7th circle, near to the embassy really doesn’t fill us with joy. Hopefully today though they’ll have our visa’s for us.
No dice. Ahamed, the gatekeeper here was very apologetic, but it seems our applications have been sent to Khartoum for approval. This is sounding ominous. Petra is vying to become one of the ‘new’ 7 wonders of the world. I’ve seen photographs of the treasury, and seen the Indiana Jones movie, but apart from that I know fairly little apart from it’s reputation. We arrived late – around 9pm, diving into an internet café before Chris and Katrin caught up in their slower Unimog, I was surprised and disappointed that no-one previously on any of the sites I check for such information had found a decent bush-camp site nearby. Not wanting to pay through the nose for a hotel in this overcrowded entrance to the site itself, we drove off with a hope of going to find that which others had failed to find. It was surprisingly easy to find – take the road north, bordering the Petra site, and take the first dirt track to the right – about 1.5 miles from the visitor centre and the tourist area. We appeared to be on a road (dirt road) to nowhere – we couldn’t figure out where it was going, but it was certainly going up! After 20 minutes of crawling up in low ratio 2nd gear we found an adjoining tarmac road – coming from the residential area to the east of the main entrance… it seems they’re building restaurants here – which with the view to the valley below will surely be a success. After parking, we found another track, going further up the mountain, so off we went, the only problem being a large crevice open on one corner – Using my waffle boards the unimog crossed safetly, although it did fracture the waffle board in the process. The 6.5 tonnes was a little too much I think…
Safely over, we’ll worry about coming down tomorrow – we can’t use the waffle boards again. We’re keen on setting up camp and relaxing ASAP.
In the morning, I woke early – ventured outside and was surprised by the incredible view. We’ve parked on the mountain directly above Petra, with bionoculars we can see the ancient city below us.
All we had to contend with before being able to get into one of the new potential 7 wonders of the world was get over that damn crevice. With the landy it’s no problem, but the unimog is a fair bit bigger, and needs some help.
It made it over with no problems – which is good, because there was quite a drop… It was done with just an inch to spare,
What is there to say about Petra? It’s by far the most impressive site I’ve seen in the middle east. Easily surpassing the Syrian sites we’ve seen in terms of how impressive it is… One of the first major sites you see after walking past many tombs and canyons formed by an earthquake is the famous Treasury.
It really is something to turn a corner and be faced with the view of this incredible structure. Carved from the cliff face, in one piece, it’s amazing – not to mention it’s where Indie fought the Nazi’s. The treasury is only a small part of the site, but it seems many people see this and turn around – certainly the concentration of people further on decreases rapidly.
But this is what’s it’s really like:
Still amazing, but further on in the day we had many other treats in-store.
En route – Daniel dropped my camera – which subsequently failed to focus, thankfully when we reached the monastery the focus had fixed itself, this picture the first good one in over an hour. The monastery is worth the 1 hour hike uphill in the blazing heat, it’s another incredible sight, carved out of the rock, in one piece.
Daniel was able to enter with no problems whatsoever – there’s a large step but a decent size doorway. I had to duck a little.
On the way back we passed the royal tombs, the sun was starting to set, and the moon was rising, a pretty amazing sight – and the tourists were leaving in their droves. The later it was, the fewer people we saw. Just before sunset, we had all of the tombs to ourselves.
It’d been a long day, we were tired as the sun set.
I scampered around trying to make the most of the light…
At the end, we were completely knackered – waiting for Chris and Katrin we reflected on what now seems rather surreal. Petra is outstandingly beautiful, it’s one of the places I’ve been set on seeing – it’s far more impressive than I ever imagined.
That evening, exhausted as we were, we drove south, to the desert of Wadi Rum. No-one was at the visitor centre, so in we drove, through the gates, and through the now sleeping town of Wadi Rum to a campsite listed in our map of the desert.
We knew in the morning the view would be spectacular, but we weren’t expecting this.
We also weren’t expecting the heat, it’s absolutely sweltering here – and obviously very very dry.
After breakfast, we went to play in the sand. Both me and Chris got stuck before letting some air out of the tyres – after which, we had no problems in any part of the desert.
It wasn’t long before I had my first overheat of the day. Any major effort from the engine at slow speeds causes a very quick rise in water temperature. I’ve also now a problem that when the turbo kicks in, the engine smokes. And I mean SMOKES. No power, just smoke. I’m worried.
I contuinied to overheat that day, many times, whenever a hill was climbed, or soft sand found. Not a bad place to have to stop – and as the Unimog’s with us, I’m not too concerned about not being able to get out under my own steam.
That evening we cooked up a great meatball and tomato pasta – played guitar and had a fairly windy night as the breeze swept huge sand clouds between the valleys.
I think the sun may have gone to Daniel’s head today – he seems to think now it’s a football – and he’s Michael Owen.
We had to move M before sleeping to avoid the wind, and the sand which was brought with it… In the morning, the breeze was still strong, but thankfully no sand storms.
We really didn’t want to drive back to Amman again to be disappointed, so decided to stay another night here – we all love it. I could spend weeks here!
It was decided, Daniel and I would climb the rock just ahead of us… It’s easy to underestimate things here – so we ensured we aimed low. A good choice it was too… only 5 minutes walk and 5 minutes climb and we were at the top… even though we drank a lot though – by the end of the day, we both had had too much sun. Maybe next time we should do it late in the day…
As the sun started to set, we were in the shade – and cold, so we moved to our next camp for the night. In an incredible rock formation that once inside felt like a huge cave.
Before setting up the camp, we stopped in the sunlight for a game of chess, quite a venue for a match.
I’m sorry to say that Daniel played very very well, no unforced errors the whole game – I on the other hand played extremely badly, and every mistake was pounced on and maximised by Daniel. He won easily.
I’ll have to stay on my toes with this one… the current total is 1-1. We’re going to try and play quite a few more games this trip. In our ‘cave’ that evening, it was as though someone turned a light on as the moon rose over one of the cliffs. On leaving the desert, we’re inflating our tyres – and off once more to Amman – we have to get our visa’s soon if I have any chance of meeting Karin in Nairobi on the 1st may.
On the way back to Amman, I had some serious issues with M, the smoke was pretty bad after any sustained speed. For the first time, it failed to start after one major hill. We weren’t going to make it in time for the embassy at 3pm, and I need to find a garage urgently.
Had a game of chess, and two beers (the first in over a week), boy did it taste good… almost as good as recovering the score to 2-1, although only due to some late errors on Daniels part. We went to a hotel, to save time in the morning – we want to be at the embassy at 8am and I need to find a garage, but also we need a shower. The chap on reception said 24 hour hot water. It was cold in the evening, and cold at 6:30am. No shower today. Only an argument with the hotel staff… fuming, in more ways than one we left, annoyed at the poor service…. The day was worse as we were still not in possession of visas at the end of it.
They’d initially thought along the same lines as me – which is encouraging (for my understanding of mechanics), but after breaking down on the motorway, the main mechanic was able to identify the problem as a faulty air hose, into the turbo charger, the lining had come away from the elbow joint, stopping the air supply, and creating a vacuum – meaning no air was reaching the engine.
Daniel arrived with Chris and Katrin at around 1pm, smiles on faces – we have our visa’s for Sudan, after 9 days of waiting, we can get on the road again… Karin won’t be pleased (putting it lightly) if I’m not in Nairobi on the 1st May. We’re spending the next two days chilling on the red sea – swimming, camping for free on the beach, waiting for Friday afternoon,
we’ll cross (hopefully) into Saudi on Friday night at 00:01, drive the 10 hours to Jeddah, and get the hell out of Saudi on our ferry at 17:00. Daniel doesn’t want to stop once if we can help it – Saudi Arabia is not the most welcoming place for westerners – there are reports of many being kidnapped, intermittently killed – it’s quite a nasty place to have to travel through… Last night Israel fired across the red sea – tracers could be seen shooting across the water – from where we are camped, you can see Saudi, Egypt, Israel and Jordan (obviously), we were camped next to the equivalent of the scouts I think – their chants of “ALLAH”, made it feel more like a boot camp than scouts… Anyway, we’re off to the Saudi border now, with everything crossed. After getting up fairly early, we decided it would be best to look smart to enter Saudi Arabia, I have few formal clothes, so we headed into Aqaba to buy shirts and change all our Jordanian cash into Saudi Rials. The choice wasn’t great on the shirt front, and I certainly chose badly.
We left Jordan, passing through the filthy industrial estate which borders Saudi, pumping out plumes of acidic yellow smoke, not a nice final image. Arriving at the Jordanian border post, we paid our 15JD exit fee (around £12), and crossed into Saudi Arabia. We don’t have a visa for this, the Saudi embassy in London said they issue transit visas at the border and we couldn’t even enter the Saudi embassy in Amman to check. We’re winging it, and we won’t take no for an answer. The first border guards we met were friendly and welcoming, one even smiled. After taking our passports and offering us a seat they took off into the office and started looking for the Saudi visa. After a few minutes of checking, they figured out we don’t have one – which if we were able to communicate, we would have told them when we arrived. Our confidence is starting to dwindle, the nice border guards have left, and we’re stuck with some snide, rude offensive little Hitler’s, another bad sign. We crossed back into Jordan absolutely raging (an apt word I’ve learned from Daniels Scottish vocabulary). We were forced to pay our entrance fees once more, use another page in the carnet and obtain new visas. The last hour was very expensive. Oh and we even bought those bloody shirts (VERY bad shirts) for those rude Saudi idiots. We drove back past the industrial estate, dejected and depressed. Our only consolations were being very very rude about Saudi Arabia and taking off those ridiculous shirts. We returned to the campsite, buying some beer on the way (believe me we needed it) and found Chris, Katrin and some German and Swiss travellers enjoying the last of the sun, The shipping option or trying to blag our way into Egypt then… It’s Friday today, the day of rest. Most businesses also close on Saturday – so we’d have to wait 2 days until doing anything. Chris tells us (after investigating ferries to Nuweiba in Egypt for the unimog in a few days) that there’s a ferry tonight at 1am. Daniel and I exchange glances, smirks, and laugh at how ridiculous that idea is. We drove into the port, paid for the second time in one day the departure fees – hoping we wouldn’t have to, but knowing that we’d have to come back and pay the entry fees if this doesn’t work. It’s worth mentioning at this point a little about the carnet de passage – it’s a customs document, intended to ensure that travellers and haulage companies don’t sell their vehicles or goods in the countries they pass through on the way to their final destinations. The carnet de passage for motor cars ensures that if I was to sell M in any country en-route that country can claim from the RAC the sum of money that I’ve guaranteed. Our first hope is they don’t notice (ha!), secondly that they may be easy to bribe, and errm that’s pretty much it. Not a great plan – but it beats sitting on the beach waiting for freight companies to open on Sunday – only to be told that the ship is prohibitively expensive and won’t leave for x weeks. We waited for what seemed like forever
played a few games of chess (the score’s now 3-1)
And we were generally an amusement to many of our fellow passengers; we finally boarded the ship at around 1am. We were the second last on board – the last being a man and woman from Germany, who’ve walked for 7 years with their two donkeys, two dogs and a cat from Cologne to Jerusalem – even more of an amusement to our fellow passengers.
The only problem with their trip was the Israelis wouldn’t let them in – so they’re heading into Egypt, with a view to travelling back through Italy. Walking for 7 years and then not allowed entry – that must be really annoying. It puts our Saudi experience into perspective. Being the last on the ship meant that all seats, tables and comfortable floor space were taken by the time we embarked, the first thing we did was ask for a cabin. $10 later and we had two comfortable bunk beds and a sink. Best $10 I’ve ever spent. At dawn we awoke, light streaming in – Daniel being in the top bunk confirmed there was land outside - we’d docked. After scrambling around getting dressed and getting our things together we rushed out on deck to find everyone in exactly the same place we’d left them at 3am that morning, asking a sailor if that was Egypt, he erupted in laughter and whilst still laughing violently shook my hand, glad to be of amusement. Confirming we were still in Aqaba by peering over at the docks at the back of the boat, we headed straight back to bed, we have no idea why we haven’t left – but are glad to be able to sleep some more. At 10am we were up once more, finding ourselves now on our way to Egypt, we have no idea for how long we’ve been underway. Finally the boat stopped, outside the port of Nuweiba, we could see the shore, part of the docks, and another ship ahead of us docking. We’ve been on this boat now for far longer than planned, we’re keen to get back onto dry land – but also apprehensive about our prospects of getting through – we’re both sure we’ll be turned away and sent back on another very slow ferry. Seems we needn’t have worried, at least for the time being, the boat just sat there – in the middle of the Gulf of Aqaba, no-one seems to care though, our fellow passengers amuse themselves by eating, smoking, chatting and praying – there’s an occasional argument about the direction of Mecca, which amuses most of us. We sat, for hours, ran out of cigarettes and started to get tetchy. The sun set and still we sat, motionless, bored, fed up with the ships rice and meat cuisine. It seems we’ve managed to get one of the crew into trouble by not handing in our passports when we boarded (they were supposed to take it from us – but as we were one of the last, they left before we climbed the stairs from the car deck). We now had to trouble the Egyptian customs officials for a visa (and they really don’t seem to like having to do any work)
The closest it got to confrontation is when our fellow passengers mobbed the reception asking for the duty free to be re-opened, apparently we’re not the only ones to have run out of tobacco! After meeting a British / Sudanese girl called Farah, who’s living in Damascus studying Arabic we were able to find out that the boat had to stay here because the winds are too high to dock. Daniel – coming from a seafaring family said many things in response, here’s just a few. There’s apparently no harbour at this port, any wind and it gets dangerous – the boat before apparently had two serious injuries whilst mooring – a rope snapped and they closed the port – apparently a common occurrence. Our only hope of getting into the port is dependent on the tides – either at midnight or at 6am can the ship dock – no-one’s hopeful of midnight, and everyone tells us to sleep. The 4 hour ferry crossing has now been 22 hours. They told us it was the slow boat (a 1 hour service leaves once a week on Sunday) but this is ridiculous. At a quarter to midnight, there was a huge commotion – the crew who had been sat around glaring at us were now busy – looks like after 24 hours we will finally dock. |
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