The trip that almost never happened

 9pm Saturday -Amman, Jordan

After a somewhat rocky start, we have arrived in Amman for the start of our 2 week trip.

The ride from Listowel to Toronto was rather tense as we were travelling over well packed ice and snow until we reached Orangeville, when conditions rapidly improved. Passing a flipped transport and then later  a transport / SUV rollover attended by multiple emergency vehicles added a little bit of extra tension to the trip.

 Arriving at Pearson we were greeted by an American Airlines representative looking to score points for Most Obnoxious. By the time he served us he had already ticked off one couple over a slightly ( bare ounces) overweight bag followed by a single female who he turned away for some other reason. ( She was clearly pissed off)

 When it was our turn he refused to check us in without a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours, suggesting we take a taxi to the nearest Shoppers Drug Mart to arrange it. ( He showed us a document on his computer screen stating the same, but I already had updated info stating it wasn’t required) 

Seeing our companions having no issues at an adjacent check in, we simply took our passports back and moved to their line, checking in with no issues.

The route to Amman was somewhat convoluted- a 2 hour flight to Chicago O’Hare with a 3 hour layover, then an 11 hour overnight flight to Amman on Royal Jordanian arriving at 3:30 pm (6:30am Ontario time) 

Our fellow passengers were a rather interesting mixed bag of Americans and Middle Easterners with many women in burkas or full head scarves and black garments. Several of the males looked like your typical Hollywood movie terrorists. A few were pulling out prayer rugs and praying right in the departure lounge!

So that combination might have been a little disconcerting to any nervous flyers.

Upon arrival in Amman we were met by a local tour representative who had already obtained our visas and expedited our passage through customs. ( No hint of any Covid test requirement, no masking, not even a look at our vaccination certificates and our “ Cleared for entry”documents)

The wait for luggage was a good hour- the plane was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner with a capacity of over 300 passengers so lots of luggage being offloaded. 

The van ride to the hotel took about 40 minutes passing through mostly semi desert with little vegetation until we reached the city itself, a fairly densely populated centre with an unusual mix of local businesses and the usual American grease pits- KFC, McPuke, Baskin Robins etc.

A light rain was damping things down by the time we reached the hotel. 

Too tired to do anything we stayed in the hotel for dinner- options included fish and chips, curry,  pasta dishes or burgers along with a large Greek Salad- for too much food after 24 hours of sedentary travel.

 An early start is planned for tomorrow with a city tour and visits to Jerash, an ancient Roman site and Ajloun, a castle built by Saladin during the Crusader era.

My plan is to post updates daily or every couple of days but much of our time will be spent outside of major centres ( there aren’t too many) so internet might be spotty when we aren’t actually in a hotel with wifi. 

Tourist season here isn’t really underway yet ( 2 more weeks apparently), so we are hoping our group stays fairly small ( 6 of us so far) and that sites will be far from crowded.

With night time temperatures of 6C and day highs of only 12-14C I don’t think we’ll be needing much sun tan lotion. 

One can only hope.