Before the border I stopped at the gas station and filled up everything I had. First in the place where everything is dirty on the floor and you have to be careful not to fall and then the other place, where it smells of acceleration. That’s where I also carefully cleaned the fuel tank hole with petrol. I only paid about 18 euro for 50 plus 35 litres. It was eleven in the evening. Perfect, I'll make a full use of the Syrian insurance and take out the Jordanian one with the beginning of the new day.It was cold on the border (-2°C), the customs officers were keeping themselves warm next to the fire, with tee, playing cards in the nearby bar. That's where their chief signed and filled out the papers, nobody felt like going out to see the car. However, we did have a goat Sharon, Bush and the cold. They were quite happy to see the Europeans share their opinion. And they agreed with me when I said I had nothing against the sons of Israel but that their politics and politicians made my hair stand on end and made me want to... to... scream out loud.
Twice.
Diab then stamped the papers in the office (I came in there with chattering teeth, carrying a message – if you go out to ransack the car you'll be cold), and then I only had to stop at the police and the ramp a kilometre later, where the officer looked at the licence plate in amazement and then wished me a safe trip. After that came five kilometres of no man's land, where the Syrians can still come after you if you stopped one time too little. Despite all the permits that I got, coming back to Syria is going to cost me 33 USD again, unlike the Swiss, who get a multiple entrance visa for as little as 15 euro. While - instead of building banks – we now went and joined the “Intihad Bushi” (I realized later this is their view of the matter). Mamlaka ash-shoojairatia (bush kingdom). Sounds neat.
In the Jordanian side we first made a technical inspection of the underneath of the car and I wasn't hiding a bomb in the KTM either. And again, the young customs officer had no clue as to what the useless thing with the exotic name “slufania” might be. The more I tried to tell him to write down the code 362, the more persistently he was asking me: “Amreeka?! Young man, if you don’t want to listen to me, I'll type it in myself. 3-6-2 and سلوفانيا appears on the screen. He looks at me, amazed, and I can see how I just rose in his estimation. This is important information for every Slovenian that's planning a trip to Jordan with your vehicle: the code for Slovenia is 362. Knowing this will shorten the procedures on the border for about an hour for you. I then had to transcribe everything from my name and address to the place of birth to Arabic writing. Fortunately, because he was even slower on the Arabian keyboard than me. However, the chief of customs, to whom I took some money for the state treasury, surprised me by asking: “How are things in Slovenia now – better or worse than in Yugoslavia?” A three-month car insurance cost about 43 euro and 32 for the motorbike. Very nice.
The wind was blowing all night, it was cold in Amman, so I descended to the Dead Sea, which is famous for being warm. The 30 kilometre descent took me from about 1000 metres of altitude to -400 (or 400 metres under the sea level), where the wind was still howling. There were wooden boxes lying on the road and plastic bottles everywhere. In the morning the wind became even stronger and every time the rocking woke me up I prayed not to get a crate in the windscreen. Before that could happen I was chased away by security of a close-by hotel (later I passed two luxurious Mercedes cars with strange licence plates which were headed towards the hotel – they probably didn't want their passengers to see a vagabond behind the fence) and I returned to Amman. It was also cloudy and depressing.
Driving in Amman and Jordan in general is a major relief/balm. The manners are European and so are the roads. They wait for you before they drive to your lane, whoever is inside the roundabout has the right-of-way, trucks drive on the lane and move off the overtaking lane as soon as they get past the car, the radio picks upa lot of stations, I was listening to MOOD FM all night with music from the 80s (not Arabic), in short, neat. I took the quickest way to Aqaba, only to be welcomed by a depressing low cloudiness and wind. Unlike last year, when I really enjoyed the great German company (Klaus and Barbara with a Magirus 4x4, travelling on the same road, and Oliver and Sandra with an old Landcruiser, who arrived to the Republic of South Africain August), this time I stumbled upon a couple of weird and not very friendly Germans who came here for the winter with an ordinary camper on a Ducato and somewhat less weird Belgians (they're all retired), who are doing a similar thing with a similar vehicle and have a weird deaf mutt of about 25 cm of withers height, who was leaping at my legs and tried to bite my shoes. I thought it was playing, but they told me it's “guarding” them.
Luckily next day I also met two young Swiss, who came crossing Iran, Oman and Fahd's kingdom of covered women with their Landcruiser year 1997 and are going to stay here three months, until the monsoon in India quiets down and are headed there afterwards. Beside them there is also a nice Swedish couple with a seven-metre long ship on a Ducato, who are thinking of Sudan (after talking to me, they gave up hope to go to Libya because of the bureaucracy and the costs). In town I drove in front of another Swiss Landcruiser in a roundabout on the KTM, but they just drew past me. I follow them, drive alongside of them, I wave and the driver nods wearily. I was tempted to use the one-finger brotherly salutation, but instead decided to just wave my right wrist. Some really strange people are rambling about this year.
But it's beautiful here! It's currently 27°C (it's 11 am), the large flag of the Arab Unity, fluttering over Aqaba, very well seen from the neighbouring Eilat, is bashfully drooping the last couple of days. Perfect! The KTM is raising dust in the beach, while the Partner is getting its rest. We all have time to do those small repairs on our cars (and me on my bike also), which until now we've been putting off.
Considering the absence of my loved ones in a radium of 2000 km, I decided to go with a Desert Soul variant on December 24th and on Christmas I'll go camping somewhere deep in the desert between Wadi Rum and the Saudi border.
Translation from Slovenian:
Maja Simeonov