Day 9 – Friday 22 December

5am again this morning, but now I know what it is, the door to the balcony was open & it was very loud, it is the Muslim call to prayer that is waking me up by calling the faithful for the start of the day.  We get organised, pack our bags & are ready for breakfast by 7am, another motel smorgasbord.  We all have our fill and pack a couple of bananas & a few Danish pastries & muffins as we know there is no stopping until the airport & the boys need some snacks – they are so good on these long trips.  We are on the road before 8.30am.  Today is Friday, Muslim prayer day & the traffic is very low so it is a lot easier driving out of Petra, thanks to Google maps as well.  Onto the main roads & again there is hardly a car in sight.  This time we are going on the highway instead of the windy scenic route.  The countryside turns from desolate to bare desert plains stretching to the horizons.  Now & again we come across a village, goodness knows what these people live from.  Near one town we spot some kids out in the desert, they are tending goats, goodness knows what the goats eat.  We turn onto the main highway to Amman & the traffic gets heavier, mainly trucks.  The scenery doesn’t change much, desert on all sides, more towns, unfinished dwellings, poverty, neglect & no pride – many places have rubbish piled up & everywhere plastic bags & bottles are strewn around.  The road varies from very good to very bad, divided four lanes.  We pass the odd police & military checkpoints, a lot of these have armoured personnel carriers, we are not stopped at any of them.

An interesting feature of the roads are random speed humps, mostly near towns, often near mosques & always near police check points.  The speed limit is 110 km/hr & the speed humps slow us down considerably, most of them are signposted.  As we get closer to Amman the towns get a bit larger & there are more houses scattered around the desert.  We come across a patch of green, an oasis in the desert & there are a lot of tents nearby, perhaps the people that tend the gardens live here.  People on the side of the road are selling their vegetables & fruit, it is amazing that they grow in such poor arid land & they look so good (we only see them as we drive past).

We make good time & reach the airport ahead of our plans.  We need to wait a little for our check-in to open, then through to a lounge for some rest, food & drink while waiting for our flight.  The plane is again a new Boeing 787 & we have a very comfortable flight back to Abu Dhabi of 2hrs 40m.  Our exit is one of the smoothest & quickest we have ever experienced at an international airport & we picked our bags straight off the carousel then out & straight into a large taxi.  It is very foggy & 23C & we get back to the apartment in about 15 minutes.  Even driving in the dark in Abu Dhabi you can see a well organised, clean & wealthy city, such a difference.  Jordan was a place where we felt as though we stepped back into history.  However, there is such a contrast, in Jordan there are many very flash new 5 star hotels, new malls & other buildings & very large extravagant rich people’s homes.  Not far away there are many people living in poverty. It has its raw & barren beauty of its own, friendly people who seem to have to struggle to get a living.  We are all tired but happy for the great experiences we had in Jordan.