Jordan, stunning place....

Afternoon all,

I'm back safe and sound from Jordan. I went there last week to do a camera job for Jordanian Cement in Rashadiyah. I got to Amman international airport at 20:00. When you arrive it's one of these places where you have to buy your visa upon arrival. I went straight to the desk and gave them my dutch emergency passport and my 10 jordanian dinar. Well, I don't think they had seen one of these temporary passports before. To cut a long story short, they made my life hell for an hour and a half and then decided to give me my entry visa anyway. The poor taxi driver of the customer by this time had been waiting for over three hours... He then swiftly raced me into Amman to the Crowne Plaza. The piccie below is the view from my room. I finally got to the room at 22:30. So needless to say the first thing I did was sling my bags in the room and the second thing was to head down to the bar for a few swift Corona's. They had some caterwauling karaoke act on that sounded like they were skinning cats but as they all looked rather tasty with very short skirts and ample bosoms I didn't give a toss....

The view from the Crowne Plaza in Amman...

The next morning I was picked up by the company rep who took me to Rashadiya. This place is about 200 kilometer south of Amman. They put me up in the most fantastic guesthouse I have ever stayed in. They put me in the Ecolodge in Dana Wildlife Reserve. The piccie above is the view from my balcony. It was absolutely stunning. The place looked out over a massive canyon where they had Ibex deer, coyotes, striped hyenas and all sorts of other critters.

This was the sun setting over the mountains over the Dana Wildlife Reserve. Again, beautiful. As place was about 4000 foot up in the mountains, even though it was in the Middle East and very sunny, the temperatures were very nice. About 25-30 C during the day and about 20 at night. Very nice when you compare it to Saudi Arabia where it is 50 C at the moment....

This was the old village of Dana. It was originally ruins but they have rebuild it and are motivating the original people to come back here and work in the tourism industry.

One of the great culinary experiences that I had here was trying the national Jordanian dish of Mansaf. This is goats meat braised in goats yoghurt. It took a bit of getting used to but the goat meat was excellent! I didn't have the opportunity to go to Petra which was only 40 kilometers up the road but as I have to go back there in September I will make the effort to go there next time as that is one of the seven wonders of the world.

All in all I really enjoyed my visit to this Middle Eastern country where you really do feel safe.

Cheerio,

Alex.