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Jordan Leaving Dahab finally we headed for Nuweiba hoping to be on the ferry that afternoon for Jordan (USD $70pp plus USD $190 for the car). We had our tickets and then had to endure typical Egyptian red tape to clear the car. We had to pay money for everything. Every office had a fee, every slip of what we are now using as emergency toilet paper cost money. We were shunted from office to office as we had our paperwork stamped, handed back our Egyptian plates and generally contributed to keeping the Egyptian unemployment rate lower than it should actually be. The system in Egypt for driving through with your own car really stinks. There is excessive red tape, huge costs and actually reflects very badly on the country given that every other place we had travelled through were able to let us enter and leave without having to endure such expensive and frustrating bureaucracy. Poor effort Egypt. The big kick in the guts was having to pay registration on the car again. We had overstayed our visa, which we knew we had a 2 week grace period before they would do anything to us and had left the day before our insurance on the car ran out, thinking we had a month from the day the car arrived in Egypt. Unfortunately the car was dated from the day we arrived, and as the car had overstayed its time in the country we had to pay again. Needless to say we were not impressed. If we had have known that we would have stayed in Dahab for another week. We argued the point but they knew that we had to be on the ferry soon so we could not afford to wait it out and call their bluff. We finally boarded the ferry late in the afternoon and arrived in Aqaba in Jordan in the early evening. We were supposed to get our visa and passport sorted on the boat but we were unaware of this, so the official had to take our passports to the immigration office to issue us with our visas after the ferry arrived. In the meantime someone comes up to us to tell us they are waiting for us to take the car off the boat, as we are the last ones to do so (and the crew wanted to go home we suspect). “We have been calling you over the P.A.” he says. “That’s fine but we don’t speak Arabic,” I informed him. “Sorry, that’s our fault. Anyway, come, come hurry.” We got the car off and processed the paperwork and had our visas issued. The staff at both the customs and immigration were incredibly friendly and professional, a big change from many African countries. The only drama was the young guy inspecting the car after it passed through the x-ray machine. He wanted to look through everything (in between chatting up Jacinda). He couldn’t find anything to get a bribe from us with and resorted to questioning us over a small rock Jacinda had bought from some kid several months and countries ago. “In Jordan, this is lots of trouble,” he informed us. “Why,” Jacinda and I chorused, now feeling very tired and hungry. “Big problems,” he persisted. My bribe-a-meter was starting to ring as the guy persisted with the stupidest thing we had seen in nearly ten months away from home. I had had enough. “Why is it a problem?” I repeated for the fourth time. “You can’t just say it’s a problem if you can’t tell me why?” He kept making an issue of this worthless little stone. “This is a problem?” I asked pointing to the stone in his hand. He nodded, so I picked up the stone from his hand, hurled it to the far corner of the building and said “now its not a F^%$ing problem. We are going now!” We got in the car and then left. Both of us were not in the mood for his games and were definitely not prepared to pay a bribe to get on our way, no matter how late in the night it was. Fortunately he was not to be a reflection of the people of Jordan. We found Jordan and its people to be incredible. Jordan also has had the honour of being the first country in which we have not bought fuel. We ended up driving from Dahab to Damascus on our fuel reserves, as the price in Jordan was considerably higher than these two neighbouring countries. Our fuel bill for Egypt was $57 for 2,615km. We stayed at the Bedouin Moon, around 10km south of town for 5JD/pp including breakfast to camp. We ended up staying two nights and spent our first real day in Jordan snorkelling over coral reefs and working on our tans. Our only drama was awakening to heavy artillery fire in the near distance. As we were within sight of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel, our first assumption was that Israel was not happy with something and was ‘negotiating’ a settlement. Jacinda though Jordan was being invaded. It turns out that the Jordanian navy was conducting training drills. Jordan is a big change for us. The roads are good, the drivers adhere to rules and generally drive very well, the towns are clean and the people seem very friendly and devoid of corruption towards tourists. We headed to Wadi Rum to see where Laurance of Arabia spent his time. We 4wded through the desert, over dunes and camped in what we would have to say was the quietest place we have ever been. Except for the very rare bird and the sound of the wind (excluding the other 4wd’s that went past) there was no sound. It was incredibly eerie at first, but after a while, the silence was beautiful, the opportunity to reflect on things in peace (something that the constant addiction to noise that characterises Africa does not allow) Leaving Wadi Rum behind us we headed for Petra, made famous in the third Indiana Jones movie. We stayed at the Petra Gate Hotel (18JD/double inc breakfast) and saw little Petra first before spending the next two days at Petra itself. Walking around (and up and down, they loved paths that lead to mountain tops) it is hard not to start whistling the Indiana Jones theme as you gaze in awe at the beauty of the place (except for hoards of curio sellers and people offering donkey and camel rides). Heading north again we stopped into Shobak Castle (a relic of the crusades) for a look. You soon realise that not much has changed in the Middle East. In the 13th century you had Christian armies trying to reclaim the holy lands from the Muslims who lived there and now days we have George Bush. We found our way to Jerash by early afternoon, the remains of an old Roman city that has been under excavations for some eighty-odd years. We treated ourselves to an “authentic tourist experience” of the chariot races. This involves people in roman costume re-enacting life as a roman soldier and racing chariots around the hippodrome. While a tad tacky it was an interesting insight into the day. Chariot racing was the most popular sport of the day (and proportionally in history). The hippodrome in Jerash seated 15,000 people in its day in a city with a maximum population of 30,000 people. The races were run seven days a week. The equivalent venue in Rome seated around 157,000 people. As it was getting late we decided to stay at the Olive Branch resort. LP stated that we could camp for 4JD. They ended up charging us 19JD to camp, the showers were not great, there were no facilities like water and places to wash up, the staff were aloof and rude, internet incredibly expensive (USD $5 per hour) and generally overrated and not worth staying there. Unfortunately there are no other real options around Jerash to stay. The next morning we headed for the boarder with Syria. Over-all, Jordan was a little gem. A friendly and beautiful little country.