Jordan Day 51 - 52 We passed through the border with little problems - much easier than coming in to Syria although it still managed to take nearly 3 hours (perhaps because Rich spent so long choosing beers in the duty free shop!) We are meeting our good friend Jonny in a couple of days who is joining us for the Amman to Cairo leg of our trip so don't want to be caught short on the beer front... We drove to Umm Qais in the North West corner of Jordan overlooking the Golan Heights in Syria and Sea of Galilee in Israel. This is such a holy place which such tremendous biblical history - it seems tragic that now the commandment 'love thy neighbour' is not adhered to. Driving through the Jordan Valley we were stopped at countless checkpoints where snipers in armoured Hummers traced our approach. After a few words in Arabic and us admiring their Hummer, and they admiring our Land Rover, it was all smiles and we were ushered on to cries of 'Welcome to our country'. After visiting more ancient ruins at Jerash (we're approaching the point of being ruined by ruins!) we rough camped in a forest overlooking the city. Apart from the odd stray cat and shepherd herding his flock we were undisturbed throughout the night - we intend to do more rough camping now we are in Jordan and throughout Africa. We've just arrived in Madaba after a great day of driving out to the desert castles - although dating from the first century they were more recently used by TE Lawrence during the WW1 Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. This landscape really is straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. We're meeting up with Jonny early tomorrow morning so are looking forward to more desert driving over the next week or so. Next up...The Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum then on to Egypt for the start of our Africa adventure... DAY 53 - 54 THE DEAD SEA We met up with Jonny at the excellent Black Iris Hotel in Madaba - it was great to see him and we felt it was like Christmas as he came laden with gifts from home: whiskey, marmite, fruit pastilles, the Sunday papers and the Little Britain sketches for our IPOD! He had also had to bring the 'jump seat' for the Land Rover (apparently the officials didn't think this object was an usual thing to bring through customs!) so after a fantastic hotel breakfast which we made the most of, we took out the cubby box and bolted in the third seat - it was going to be cosy in the cab for the next couple of weeks! We had a fantastic couple of days at the Dead Sea - at over 400m below sea level it is so salty that you can literally can hardly stand up. We had great fun floating and reading all the papers Jonny had brought out - from The Sunday Times to the News of the World - whilst floating effortlessly on the surface. We found what we thought was an excellent bush camp right next to a natural fresh water infinity pool that fed into the Dead Sea. This meant we could wash off all the salt and watch the sun go down as we sipped the beers we had bought at the Jordan Duty Free! Due to the salt content our crisp bowl floated on the surface which made 'passing the crisps' all the more enjoyable. It was so peaceful, that was until about 1am when we were asleep in our tents and woken up abruptly by car headlights glaring through the canvas. Blurry eyed we soon realised that the two men shouting at us were soldiers carrying rather large guns! We had apparently camped right between two military checkpoints, presumably checking for movements between the Israeli and Jordanian coasts, only a few hundred metres apart. Jonny and Rich sweet talked them and gave them a packet of Marlboros and luckily, rather than having to move out of the area as originally suggested, we were advised to move the tents to a slightly more discreet location about a hundred metres inland under some trees. The following morning we realised that the soldiers had asked us to move as they themselves had wanted a swim in the infinity pool. Quite an adventurous first night for Jonny's Coope Tours experience! The following day, after a morning's floatation, we drove south towards Petra, stopping at Karnak for lunch to visit the castle. The castle was made famous by Saladin in the third Crusade where he fought Richard the Lion Heart on several occasions. The highlight of that day was an amazing drive along the Kings Highway which cuts through the craggy landscape of central Jordan. The tarmac gleamed like a silver thread through the valley - fantastic scenery backed by a sound track of Jonny's classic drive time tunes. DAY 55 - 56 PETRA We stayed at a wonderful spot outside of Petra - Amarin Bedouin Camp, Little Petra - run by a Bedouin called Hussein and his family. We and a camel were the only guests staying there and we had a great couple of days cooking Bedouin inspired meals on open fires, star gazing at the incredibly clear sky and enjoying the Hussein's hospitality. We even did the school run for his two children! Petra was fantastic - it definitely lives up to its reputation of a must-see site in Jordan and we would highly recommend anyone to come and visit. It was awe-inspiring walking through the Al-Siq gorge and arriving at the Treasury, bathed in the morning's sunlight. We felt like Indiana Jones exploring all the temples and tombs of the area. We had a wonderful day walking in the area and climbing up steep paths for incredible views over Petra. The only downside was that Camilla's camera battery ran out and she'd left the second one in the car.... In the afternoon we returned to the camp and found a local guide to take us back into Petra via a hike to the Monastery for sunset. Abdulla, wearing his full Arabian regalia including black leather shoes, danced up the rocky path like a mountain goat. We, with our sensible clothing and sturdy walking boots panted behind him trying hard to keep up the pace. The hike was amazing - one of the best ones we've ever done - the sun was setting and turned the rock a beautiful red colour. The path was pretty hairy in places but the desperate rush to reach the Monastery before the sun set spurred us on. We just about made it and it was an incredible sight. Abdulla, however, wasn't content with us just seeing the monastery and instead led us up a very dangerous route that meant we climbed right above it, onto the roof! We later read in our Lonely Planet guide that this was illegal since a woman fell to her death a few years ago - I was glad we hadn't read this before we did it! We had just enough time to enjoy a few beers watching the sunset and watching the moon and stars come out. The view was magnificent (and the beer wasn't bad either!). Luckily we had brought torches as the climb back down was done in the pitch darkness - although the sky was filled with the largest amount of stars each of us had ever seen. We ended the day gobbling Camilla's Mansaf (a traditional Bedouin meal) cooked on an open fire with the use of our grill and our Pojki pot. On a practical note we have had a bit of a stove disaster...we stupidly left our Coleman petrol burner at the bush camp in Jerash and when trying to fill up our gas cylinder for our second stove, we managed to break the regulator. So it was just as well we were able to cook on open fires at Petra. Jonny put in a call to a friend, called Heidi, who's coming out to Sharm el Sheik in a week to ask if she could buy a replacement Coleman stove for us in London - so we will be detouring to Sharm to pick it up when in Sinai! DAY 57 - 59 WADI RUM We didn't want to leave Petra as we all loved the area so much, but were really excited about getting to Wadi Rum. It was our first real desert driving experience. After driving through the impressive gate into the Wadi Rum area and passing through the small village of Rum to stock up on supplies of bread, eggs and vegetables the tracks ran out and ahead of us was only sand... In Wadi Rum you are allowed to camp in designated areas, however after we had driven for half an hour or so we didn't have a clue where we were on the map and it was getting late so we found a great spot where we spent the evening eating, drinking and star gazing. It was like being at a Planitarium - we could see the Milky Way, all the constellations we knew and watched as shooting stars darted across the sky - it really was magical. Thanks to Jonny bringing out some great Ipod travel speakers (thanks for the early Christmas present Dad, Caroline and Tim) we were able to listen to chill-out tunes and Brahms 9th Symphony whilst watching the stars in the evening - a great experience. Our second day in Wadi Rum was spent driving around the dunes. We tried to remember all the tips we had read about how to drive in these conditions - we let air out of out tyres and worked on keeping the revs up. At times the sand would change from thick to very thin and we would feel the car sinking fast. As we hadn't seen anyone in the park for two full days it would be up to us to work on our recovery. However, we still managed to get completely stuck which was a great excuse to use some of the equipment we had - namely shovels and sand ladders. We managed to get unstuck but nearly lost one of the sand ladders for good...it is amazing how far they seemed to fling out from under the wheels and get completely covered up with sand. We found the ultimate camping site for our second bush camp in Wadi Rum - a natural cave where we all slept out under the stars. It is difficult to describe how incredible it was - we hadn't seen anyone for two days, we felt completely isolated in this desert which turned a wonderful red in the evenings, and we had half a bottle of whiskey left which we polished off whilst watching the sun set to a background of opera on the Ipod! The following morning we all woke up with the sun and had an early breakfast. We were startled by a small explosion and amazed to realise that this came from a cigarette lighter which was lying in the sun - it had burst out of a cotton pouch scattering bits of plastic and cotton several metres away. It had obviously got too hot...but it was only 8am - we will have to get used to this desert heat! We drove to Aquaba, not to take it by force like TE Lawrence, but to cross from Jordan over to Sinai by the daily car ferry. The ferry was due to leave at midday but we were told it would leave in the evening and to be at the port by 7pm....we were and had a long wait since it didn't leave until gone midnight. It was only a four hour crossing and we managed to get a little sleep in a tiny cabin although the regular out of tune call to prayer was blasted into our cabin over the tannoy system. Once in Nuweiba, Sinai we didn't have too many problems in customs and having heard horror stories of vehicles taking 8 hours to clear customs, must have been lucky as we were through in under 4 hours. We have now made it to Egypt! Hurrah!