Desert Castles, Dead Sea, & Back to Chicago| Jordan, Days 8 & 9

Day 8 & 9 - Monday, October 9, 2023 - Tuesday, October 10, 2023

I had an awful dream about Francisco getting attacked by a cougar in the basement that shredded his hands, so this day was already off to a not great start. We got picked up at 8:15 and met our new guide Nadil. We had 5 of the original people from the tour group - 3 were staying at the Ibis with us and 2 we picked up at the Crowne Plaza along with a handful of other English-speaking tourists. Nadil also explained that we would have three French people joining us and asked us to move to the front of the bus and they would be in the back. The French people were running late, so we were a bit delayed.

After talking a bit over the microphone, there started to a bit of a commotion from the French people behind us. An older heavyset French woman had sat behind me and refused to move. She said she felt unwell, which we took to mean motion sickness, but her and her friend coughed regularly behind me, so I was starting to get worried they were going to pass their bug to me. She threw a big fit about the guy talking too loud on the microphone, so they had an argument about that. We finally officially introduced ourselves to Pat (Francisco had heretofore referred to her as the mean lesbian lady) and Janice.

We learned that Jordan is the 5th poorest country in the world in terms of rainfall as we headed out to the desert. It was rather hot today as we went to three desert castles, Azraq, Kharanah and Amra. Qasr Kharana is located in an arid part of the Syrian-Jordanian desert.

Next, we went to Qasr Amra, one of the best-preserved monuments and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

Qasr Azraq lies in the middle of the Azraq oasis, the only permanent source of fresh water in approximately 4,600 sq mi of the desert.  T. E. Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia fame made the fortress his desert headquarters in 1917. We were able to go into the room he stayed at here. 

We started driving to the Dead Sea around 1:00 PM, so we didn't get there until 3:00. There was a sharp decline in elevation, and as we approached the Dead Sea, I started getting a massive headache. The pressure gets higher as you go lower.

It didn't help matters that we hadn't had a lunch stop. There was a restaurant on-site at the resort we were visiting to gain access to the Dead Sea beach. We went there first, but it was a 14 JD buffet.

We asked if there was a menu we could order from instead, and we ordered a fajita sandwich after verifying that it was vegetarian. We waited a rather long time, and we were getting anxious, but I was feeling really ill, and I knew it was important that I ate. The sandwich finally came out, and it had chicken on it. Everyone was already leaving to get ready for the sea, but with my killer headache, we went up to see if there was another sandwich, but it seems like everything came with meat. I was getting very frustrated and they could tell, so they ended up giving me a free small buffet. I was rather nauseous so I wasn't trying to eat much anyway. Plus, the Dead Sea flies were everywhere, since apparently they like the heat and salt.

We went to our changing rooms and then walked down a long ways to access the private beach. It was pretty cool but very rocky getting in. You will immediately float as soon as you lean back.

We each went in separately and then together but didn't have a ton of time before starting the long uphill climb since I was walking slowly because of my head and stomach pain. We stopped at a shop again which was just annoying. Everything had been pretty expensive in Jordan, so I literally left the country with only a single magnet as a souvenir.

We weren't back to the Ibis hotel until after 7. Thankfully, our next pickup time was at 8:00 the next morning, not 5:00 AM like some others in the group. We went straight to dinner, but I didn't have much of an appetite. I ate some veggies and some creamed parsley soup. Francisco called down to get ice for my head, and he went down and got that and a 7-Up. I showered, and we got a bit situated for our flight out the next day. I called Mom to update her, and Joe texted to see how our trip was and if we were safe.

On Day 9, our last day waking up in Jordan, we woke up around 6:30 AM, showered and had scrambled eggs and bread and jam for breakfast. We went downstairs shortly before 8:00. We shared a taxi ride with 3 other people - 1 American and 2 Canadian - who were on the same flight to Chicago. We kept an eye out for the water tanks on the roof that Nadil had explained is where the twice-weekly water deliveries are stored for everyone's homes.

We picked up a representative from Exotticca who helped guide us to the check-in line at the airport. They needed to swab all of our electronics, and since we were headed back to the US, we had the extra security queue to get through. We bought some little treats at duty-free, but I was disappointed that we weren't able to find anywhere that had knafeh available.

Our take-off was a bit delayed. The return flight was largely uneventful, but annoyingly, they gave us the same meal twice.

I played a lot of solitaire to pass the time along with reading my book.

Unfortunately, it was the getting back to Chicago part where things got really annoying.

We waited impatiently for an hour to get our luggage. We were both so hungry and there are apparently no conveniently located Taco Bells in this part of the city, so we went a bit out of our way to find one. It took about an hour to drive home, and we cleaned up a bit, showered, and went to bed. We had been up for about 24 hours, and we were both thoroughly exhausted.