After 4 km of border, we are already in Jordan and with the thumb up waiting for a lift. As we are in border area we must to be careful and ask if the car is a taxi… when a car stopped we asked him, and he thought it was a good idea to be a taxi, so he said, yes! We left, but in a second he said: - ok, ok, no money! He left us quite near of our destination, but we had to walk even more to take another road. The people like a lot the tattoos, and they stop us to see mine, they called us to drink tea and speak, we accepted again in a shop with a mechanics, a really good meant tea; the pity that afterwards we had to refuse other offers, otherwise, we will never arrive.
Without hitchhiking, a car took us up to Irbid, where we met the guys of CS, who live in the university area, in a street that is in the Guinness World Records Book, because in just 1km, there are about 120 Internet Café.
The guys of the club are Yemenis, and they introduce us their friends, a Syrian, a Kurdish and another from Gaza; with who we exchange our different ways of life.
From Irbid we moved several days to different historical places, a very important was Jerash. The student card in Jordan, it doesn’t work, and the entrance fee to Jerash ruins is 8 Dinars (8 €), of course we didn’t pay it; another thing not, but Roman ruins we have seen...a lot. Besides, we are thinking and saving money for the super-expensive entrance fee of Petra (21 Dinars each).
It was very interesting to meet and to speak with a young boy who sold postcards, and who is learning Spanish with the tourist. He was sure that those prices for us (Spanish) are very cheap, that it is nothing... this is the image that have the Europeans, Euros with legs…
We turned back to Irbid by hitchhike; here it is like “hitchhiking a la card”, we only need to wait to the vehicle that we need, and put the thumb. Besides, the man that picked us up, left us in our street in Irbid, such a good luck!
Another day we spent the day in Umm Qays, an ancient Greco-Roman city situated in the triple border of Jordan, Syria and Israel; due to this controversial area we must pass plenty of military checkpoints, which reminded us to our days in Kurdistan.
The city is much destroyed but we enjoyed the nice views over the Tiberiades Lake, (Galilee Sea) and the Golan Highs, a very troubled area, disputed between Syria and Israel.
We continue to the Jordan capital city by hitchhike; here it happens the opposite of other countries, if you are foreign it is easier that someone take you; we place ourselves after other local hitchhikers, and the cars that didn’t stop for them, always stopped for us. A nice guy brought us up to Amman, he insisted all the time to teach us Arabic, and all the way talked to us in his language. And once again, like a private taxi, he took us up to the door of the house of Nour, the guy of CS.
The days in Amman were very calm due to the shortage of interest of the Jordan capital, in the ancient part of the city, the houses are piled up on others, and among them, a small Roman theatre.
One of the days we went to the Dead Sea, placed at the lowest point of the planet, 395 meters below the sea level. The truck driver who brought us, chose a special place for us, a free beach, solitary, and with hot springs. As everybody knows, this sea contains so much salt that people float, it is impossible to sink; the stones of the shore are entire with crystallized salt and the water is like oily, very dense; the hot springs were perfect to bathe afterwards, because after swim in the Dead Sea, the body prick.
A man that came to give a bath too, brought a handful of mud from the Dead Sea, and cover us with it, people say that it is very good for the skin...
Crossing the desert towards the south, we stopped at Petra, an obliged stop in our journey. We knew that the prices are exorbitant, so we were investigating how to "pay less". Nour, the guy from Amman told us about the existence of a shop in Wadi Musa (Petra) that organize clandestine entries in Petra; this shop is find by a sticker over the door; and we went there without think twice. We didn’t know with whom we should talk, but it was supposedly to the shopkeeper; after buying something we talked to him, but the guy didn’t speak English well, and didn’t understand us. When we thought that everything was lost, we went back at night to the shop and we found another person that told us "I am the one who keeps the secret of Petra"; we organize everything, and we made an appointment at 5 am. The car left us in one side of Petra, and in the middle of the night, we went down through the rocks of the mountain in a great descent.
Our "guide" got lost for a while, and the daylight was coming over us; finally he managed to find the canyon that broght us to the heart of Petra. When we arrived to this point we had to be more cautious, because at that point of Petra, the tourists hadn’t arrived yet, so we hid in one of the tombs, and later we went up to a hill to control the main canyon until we saw the first tourist. It was amazing when we saw the most important monument of Petra from the top of the hill!
Later, we introduce ourselves in the touristic group. In 9 hours we visited all Petra, a visit that normally is done in 2 or 3 days. Here we leave the photos of the Eighth Wonder of the World, which the Nabateans left us 2.200 years ago.
The day after, we left Wadi Musa by walk among the whistles of the taxi drivers, all of them wanted to bring us, even they cheated us telling that we were going by the wrong way to Aqaba. The last taxi driver came with another passenger, and started to talk to us in Spanish, of course we didn’t listen to him... but the guy insisted, and talking with him, result that he lives in Spain and he is married to a Cantabrian girl! (Where we live)
In Aqaba, we finished the Jordan travel; the city is in the south end of the country, in the only exit to Red Sea, and where 4 countries are together in very few coastal kilometers; Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. The people of the HC received us as old friends, and in these days Mohammad, Ahmad and Shameh, showed us all the area, they even took us by boat to see the corals and they prepared a lunch in the sea.
We did some shopping and we saw 100% how the sellers cheat the tourist. We went with Mohammad and he asked first; when we went alone after him, the price of the product increased 75%, and the quality of it as well... Knowing the real price, we tried to bargain, but they don’t want; the tourist have a different price, that’s all. So we made the shopping as the rich people, seating in the car, and Mohammad helping us to buy it…
This night we pass to another stage of the journey, we change the continent in a very expensive boat. There are only 7 km from Jordan to Egypt by Israel, but if we tread this country, it means not to go to many Muslim countries, so we had to take this boat for 50 US$.
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