After visiting 19 countries so far on this trip, our next and final countries are new to us, as in we haven’t visited them before. Drum roll please… Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Jordan and Qatar!

Now, I have to say that the decision to visit Jordan was almost accidental! What this means is that, when we were booking our flights, there was no Business Class flight from Cairo to Amman, except with Jordanian Air. But that would mean a transfer in Amman. Almost in unison, we said, well, lets stay in Jordan for a few days and we can visit Petra! Soon Gerard was back with a 4 night itinerary and Voila! Jordan was on our itinerary.

And, boy! Were we glad with that decision. To start with, we were met at the airport and discovered that we would not have to pay our Entry Visa or Departure Tax – it had all been handled by the Tour Company. Then we were taken to the car and met Mohammed, our driver. And didn’t he turn out to be an absolute gem!

On our first day, we were driving down to Petra, but nothing is ever direct! Our itinerary included a stop at Madaba to see an old church with some ancient mosaics, including a mosaic map from around the time of the first Crusade. Then we were heading to Mt Nebo – no, not the motorbike Mecca near Brisbane. This is the location where Moses is reputed to be buried as he never got to the Promised Land. And our final stop before Petra, was the River Jordan, at the spot where Christ is alleged to have been baptized by John the Baptist.

At this spot, there are the remains of 5 churches that were built and minutely described by Pilgrims. Apparently Archeologists have asked the question “Why build churches at a location where there was no community to serve and at a location where earthquakes and floods destroyed one church after another.” And apparently the answer was that the churches were built for the Pilgrims who came to see the spot where Christ was baptized. A bit like “Build it and they will come!”.

Nick walked down to the bank of the Jordan River, which isn’t very deep, not very wide and stood there, looking at Israel which was about 3 metres away! We saw absolutely no sight nor sign of any Israeli military presence, but there were about 3 Jordanian military standing around, as a deterrent… maybe? And, if you are interested, there were no thunder crashes nor lightning strikes with Nick being so close of a religious destination!

We arrived at our hotel and had a meal. Poor Nick is a little bit tired of the exotic cuisines of the Middle East and the ever-present “Do you want fries with that?”. And let’s not talk about the ongoing issue of hot weather, cold air conditioning and hot doonas on the bed at night!

After talking with Mohammed, we had made a slight adjustment to our itinerary. On Day 2, we visited Petra in the morning and then drove down to Wadi Rum, returning to Petra for the night. That would give us a day free and we opted to spent a half-day at a Resort on the Dead Sea, enjoying almost Western cuisine for lunch and having a swim in the Dead Sea and then in the hotel pools. This turned out to be a very nice interlude, I got to throw mud at Nick and on the way to the Dead Sea, we introduced Mohammed to Geocaching and he was very useful with helping us to reach and find some caches.

But I’ve jumped ahead and missed describing our day at Petra & Wadi Rum. We were heading down to Ancient Petra early, by Jordanian standards where nothing starts before 10am, and met our Petra guide. Because we were there early, there were almost no other tourists around as we walked down to the Back gate, called the Slaves Gate, of the old City. We learnt about the Nabateans who built Petra up as a major trading center and stayed there because of the water and fertile ground for agriculture.These were the people who were responsible for building the Ancient City, including that famous backdrop, “The Treasury” which was a major star in the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. The movie was filmed in 1989 which was only 4 years after Petra was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Apart from “Lawrence of Arabia”, which was filmed in 1962, Last Crusade was the first Hollywood film to use Petra & Jordan as a film set and this has brought so much to the economy of Jordan. The Jordanian people are very proud that so many films have been filmed either around Wadi Rum or in Jordan, such as “Dune”, “The Martian”, “Aladdin”, as well as a myriad of made for TV or Netflix productions.

But, back to Petra… one of the things that makes Petra fascinating is that the Nabateans took influences from all of their trading partners. So when you look at the Treasury, you will see the Egyptian Goddess Isis, you will see Greek twins, Castor & Pollux, you will see Mongolian horsemen, as well as Greek Corinthian columns and triangular pediments and Roman arches. On their tombs, you will see a repeating theme of steps going down to earth and back up to heaven – this is something they borrowed from the Assyrians.

And then when the Romans took control in 2nd-3rd Centuries, they just couldn’t resist paving the road through the Canyon, the Marketplace and making additions to the Nabatean Theatre. And then the Christians took over and the Byzantine era began and they turned some tombs into churches or a Monastery. And then the Muslims took over in the 7th Century. But the whole conglomeration leaves a fascinating place to visit!

After almost being History-ed out, we got into the car and headed further south towards Wadi Rum. And, of course, we made a stop on the way, to see the Hejaz Railway. This is a narrow gauge train line that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia.  It was ordered to be built by the Ottoman sultan in 1900, opening in 1908 and it was closed by 1920.

But it is probably best know for the wartime campaign of T.E.Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, as well as Arab forces, commonly known as the Great Arab Revolt which drove the Ottoman Empire from that part of the world. Anyway, at the Wadi Rum Train Station, which is about 45 kms from Aqaba, there is a Steam Engine and a number of carriages that were used in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” to represent the Hejaz Railway. And apparently there is a semi-regular run down to Wadi Rum on the train, and the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” is shown for the passengers.

After we left the train, we continued down to the Wadi Rum Visitor’s Centre where we had lunch in a restaurant which has also done the catering for many of those Hollywood productions I mentioned earlier. Then it was time for our drive through Wadi Rum. As many of you may know, Nick is very safety conscious, so when we were escorted to our vehicle, which was a dual cab Nissan Ute and we would be sitting on the seats in the Ute tray, hanging on for dear life, then you can imagine his reaction. And when I say that our driver wasn’t slow, believe me – he WAS NOT slow. As we are driving along, Nick was critiquing the driver’s 4×4 driving skill – not enough air let out of the tyres, changing gear as he drives up a dune, going over ridges too quickly, trying to reverse up a very soft dune and digging the car into the sand…

But we enjoyed the experience, we spent a lovely half hour in a coffee shop in the middle of the desert (Lawrence Canyon), and they wanted to see photos of Nick’s Landcruiser and “Did we have a tractor?”, so we showed them photos of our tractor. Needless to say, they were impressed! We were offered something called “Hospitality Tea”, which is a tea made with black tea, dried sage and cinnamon sticks, and sugar! We finished our adventure in Wadi Rum with a stop to watch the sunset – which was glorious!

Our last 2 nights in Jordan were spent in Amman, which included a visit to Jerash, which is an ancient Roman trading city, with all the necessary items of Roman occupation – Theatres, Roman baths, a Forum, lots of shops, a paved road, underground drainage and Temples! And a performance of “Jordanian Scottish bagpipes”! From Jerash, we continued on to visit Ajlun Castle, or Ajloun Castle, in English, which was built by one of Saladin’s generals during the First Crusade as a fortification to protect the trading route between Damascus and Egypt. On a clear day, you are supposed to be able to see as far as Golon Heights – but it wasn’t a clear day when we were there!

We can recommend a visit to Jordan. Sadly, they are suffering a massive drop in tourism due to the situation with Israel next door. Apparently, they can expect around 5000+ tourists per day in Petra and when we were there, they were lucky to get about 500 people visiting! That is having a major effect on the Jordanian economy but, we were happy that we missed the crowds! Now that we have left, I would strongly recommend it as a place to visit and the company that arranged our tour were also excellent!

From Jordan, we were off to Qatar. Oh my goodness, is this the last country on our tour? And will we be home in a few days?

But first, our flight was changed from a morning departure to a 0-dark-30 departure with Royal Jordanian Air and we weren’t happy with that. So our tireless travel agent was able to change our flight. The problem was that instead of flying Business Class, we had to fly First Class! and instead of Royal Jordanian, we were ticketed with Qatar Airways but ended up flying Oman Air. Oh, the things that we have to put up with!

Anyway, we are in Qatar, for 2 nights, and decided to book a guided tour to get the highlights. We have previously been the Dubai and Nick has had a 4×4 Landcruiser for many years, so the option of going out into the desert for some sand-driving just didn’t have any appeal. So we opted for a cruise around the Harbour on a Dhow which was the sort of boat that was used by fishermen and pearl divers. The main difference these days is that the Dhows no longer rely on sails and wind power but are powered by motors. But it is nice to see that nod to their tradition.

One of the things that we did do was a tour through the Souks and we were amazed at the variety of different Souks – there was rather normal Spice and Gold Souks, the Handicraft Souk, but also they have a Falcon Souk and a Camel Souk! They even have a Falcon Hospital! We also got a chance to see “Modern Doha” where there were so many new buildings and also they have an artificial island called “The Pearl”, which is full of mega-expensive hotels and kitsch-copies of European icons, such as the Rialto Bridge.

On our last morning in Doha, we were up early to go to a Geocaching Event which was due to start at 6am. As we are walking along The Corniche, I learned that the event had been cancelled due to a flight delay.Bugger! I needed that sleep-in! But at least we got to walk through the Souk before business began and the tourists were nowhere in sight. And later, Nick got to check off another McDonalds on his list. This is all part of his quest to sample his standard Maccas Go-To meal – a medium Big Mac Meal, in every country that he visits and that has a Maccas. Sadly, Maccas is no longer in Bosnia.

But now, we are at the Hamad Airport and have checked our luggage in. We are sitting in the lounge enjoying a light meal and some Lanson Champagne – well, MJ is! Our flight will board in 2 hours and tomorrow, we will be home!

And then we will go into hock to pay the veterinarian bills for Ginger! Yes, as a ‘welcome home Mum & Dad’, Ginger was playing tug-a-war with Marli, a young Border Collie, but instead of using a rope or a piece of wood, they were using a snake, an Eastern Brown snake, to be precise. And Ginger had the head-end. Anyway, long story short, she was bitten and had to go to the Vet. One of the effects of an Eastern Brown snake bike, especially for dogs, is that the snake venom destroys the clotting factors in the blood. After 2 doses of anti-venom and a round of plasma, and a week of enforced rest to allow her body to regenerate the clotting factors she needs, we are out of pocket several thousand dollars!! But she seems to be recuperating and all the staff at the Vet’s love her and say she is soooo beautiful! So we will bring her home, with fingers crossed, on Friday.