October 2023: We went somewhere we would NEVER go on our own, and we LOVED IT!

Sometime early this year (2023) Janet, over early morning coffee, asked if I wanted to go to Jordan?  Jordan?!?  That's the Middle East!  She had received an email from her women's pilot organization, The 99's, announcing the 2023 International Conference in Amman, Jordan.  We spent the rest of that morning noodling over flights, details of the conference, etc.  The conference was reasonably priced, and included transportation and lodging from Amman to Petra, Wadi Rum, and Aqaba.  After Indy Jones 3 featuring Petra's Treasury, I was hooked.  We do a lot of independent travel in Western Europe, but I'd think hard before traveling to the Middle East on our own.  So, the prospect of being on a guided tour with tough, independent travelers (you can't say women pilots are timid at all) in a place we'd never see on our own sold us!

A few hitches arose: the first was in checking the dates of the tour and my Passport expiration showed my Passport would expire within six months of the tour, and the interwebs was full of Passport renewal horror stories!  But, we were leaving soon for our month in Alaska, but the Windstar cruise we booked started and ended in Vancouver, so I needed to delay getting my Passport renewed until AFTER that trip, leaving only 90 days or so to get it renewed.

Day One on returning from Alaska, I go into the State Dept website and run through the online wizard to renew my passport, with a demand for $65 at that end, which I assumed (silly me, in assuming anything with a government website) was a "discounted rate" for the renewal since I did it on the interweb.  So I go to AAA with the printed results of the completed application, get my (this guy looks like a criminal) passport photo, then head to the post office to mail it all in (releasing my passport to the whims of the USPS and State Dept).  Two weeks later, a package from the State Dept shows up in the mail and my old passport was enclosed with a letter saying "you didn't include the $130 application fee!"  WTF was the $65 for???  For the honor of running through a gommint wizard?

Argh...now I am two weeks in the hole so I now order up a $195 "expedited" renewal, with another $11 to USPS to send my passport and application (and now a check) to the expedite center.  So now I'm up to $65 phantom fee, $20 passport photo at AAA, $11 for the original mailing, and now $206 for the expedite package.  Fingers crossed!

After all the angst, my brand new passport came about a month before the trip...whew!  I guess the interwebs stories kind of exaggerated things...

Second hitch was Hamas: a little over two weeks before the trip, Hamas decides to butcher Israelis and now with World War Three on the horizon, everyone and their mother starts to second-guess the wisdom of traveling to a country about 100km east of all the fighting, including us.  We kept checking travel and State Dept notices, and the organizers kept us informed as to the safety of travel to Jordan.  In the end, we decided to go, and of the 280 or so that signed up to go, 200 showed up to the conference in Amman.

Our Itinerary:

• Tuesday, October 24 to Thursday, October 26: Fly SFO-Frankfurt-Amman, arrive at 2:30am
• Thursday, October 26 to Saturday, October 28: Dead Sea Marriott for the 99's International Conference
• Sunday, October 29: Travel to Petra, tour Petra, travel to Wadi Rum lodging
• Monday, October 30: Wadi Rum hot air balloon and Hijazi train
• Tuesday, October 31: Travel to Aqaba, stay at Hyatt Regency
• Wednesday, November 1: Farewell Ceremony and Awards
• Thursday, November 2: Travel to Amman, stay at Grand Hyatt Amman
• Friday, November 3: Free day in Amman
• Saturday, November 4: Redeye from Amman-Dulles-SFO

On October 24th, we took an early evening flight from SFO to Frankfurt, and, with a six-hour layover in one of the Lufhansa Lounges, we arrived after the second leg in Amman, at about 2am local time.  We waited in a short line to buy our visas, go through immigration and customs, and we caught a cab for the one-hour-plus ride to the Dead Sea Marriott.  All along the way, the driver kept pointing out that just over there, to the west, on the other side of sea, was Jerusalem.  Yeah, thanks for the reminder!  I kept the compass app open on my phone, making sure we were continuing in a southwesterly direction, and I was rather surprised that we got up around 5,000 feet heading out of Amman, then descended to over 1,000 feet BELOW sea level...I thought Death Valley was the lowest spot on Earth, but checking that trust ol' Interwebs, sure as shit, the Dead Sea is the lowest spot on Earth.

As we loaded up at the Amman Airport, the driver asked if we wanted coffee...uh, not at 3am; we just want to get to the hotel (knowing it was still over an hour away) and get some sleep.  To our surprise, there were these retina-searingly lit up "bodegas" on the side of the road every few miles, advertising coffee-coffee-coffee and various eats and soft drinks.  At 3am...  And, lest you worry about safety and security, in roughly the same intervals there were small shelters with a police or military vehicle, with an officer handy of you need one, again, every few miles, even in the wee hours.

As we arrived, we were met by a hotel security guard who checked his clipboard that we were legit guests, then he passed the mirror under the cab, and he then signaled the policeman/soldier to drop the bollards and open the gates to let us in to the resort.  Coming in towards the resort, there really wasn't any "town" around, just another gated resort or two nearby.  The tight security put our minds at ease, and it was obvious that we'd be hanging at this resort for the three days with nothing really to "walk out to."  

A random couple using the provided Pot of Dead Sea Mud for a DIY mud bath.  Janet swathed her face; I begged off

The resort had a small beach area down the hill and we went for a dip, but since the water is nearly ten times the salinity of the ocean, all you can do it float on your back, careful not to get the water in your eyes or any open wounds.  It was an odd feeling as I couldn't get my legs under me to stand as they kept popping up to the surface.

We spent three days at the resort with Janet attending the sessions and me hanging out reading, mostly.  It was still pretty warm even in late October, in the high 80s/low 90s, but the locals we talked to say we just missed a 110 degree-plus heatwave the previous weeks.  The hotel had a huge buffet for breakfast, the conference had a large buffet for lunch, and one or two of the dinners were ANOTHER buffet; we did eat at the resort's Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner one night where I discovered a nice Jordanian Blonde Ale: Carakale brewed in Amman.

Travelers' Tip: If I see flies buzzing around the buffet, I generally do not partake of the raw food items like salads or fruit.  We ate breakfast inside but there were open doors to their patio tables and flies were free to travel in to the buffet.  There were plenty of veggies in the cooked items, and many of the attendees reported GI issues later in the trip.  One isn't sure of where those flies visited previously, so seeing them crawl around on the raw salads, then you load up on that salad, you are just asking for it.

Leaving SFO early evening Tuesday, October 24, we REALLY didn't arrive until 4:30am Thursday, October 26, and the actual conference was only from the 26th through the 28th.  We had an early bus ride date on Sunday the 29th, so we checked out of the Dead Sea, had another huge buffet breakfast, then headed to the buses.  As we gathered, we saw a police car and an ambulance along with four buses (those fancy luxury kind). from Alpha Bus Company, Jordan.  Those four buses stayed with us for the rest of the trip, and we were assigned to Bus #1.  And again, lest you worry about our safety so close to the developing war, we had a police escort at the front of our caravan, and an ambulance following.  It turned out that we were "Official Guests of the Jordanian Government" with a Captain in Royal Jordanian Arlines, Alia, as the host and organizer, hence the "royal" treatment.

Our caravan went nearly all the way back to Amman before heading south on the Trans-Jordan Highway to Petra.  A twisty, windy two-lane road got us in to the town of Petra right about lunchtime, so, guess what, we got another huge buffet in the fanciest Movenpick I'd ever seen.  Our experience with Movenpick's in Germany was decidedly low budget, but this one, right across the street from the Petra Visitors' Center and Museum, was quite impressive.

The lobby of the aforementioned Petra Movenpick

After ANOTHER buffet lunch (did I mention they continuously fed us well the entire trip, but we will need a bit of a break from hummus and pita when we get home!) we took a while to gather in the big plaza outside the Visitors' Center...too long as it turned out as we "burned daylight" and missed going through the Museum.  We broke in to four groups as we started the walk in to the slot canyon, and after listening to a couple of the guides, we hung with the guide with the loudest voice and clearest enunciation.  Golf Carts were provided for those less mobile and we started hiking along the trail to the main sites.  Janet heard a couple of ne'er-do-wells at the plaza giving her the stink eye while proclaiming "Fuck Israel, Fuck America" but she didn't mention it until later.  And, that folks is the only morsel of negativity on the entire trip.

Petra is famous for the Indy Jone 3-featured "Treasury" but there all all sorts of carved temples, churches, and tombs all along the trail and in the slot canyon leading to the Treasury, and beyond in the larger canyon beyond the Treasury.

The slot canyon went for about the first mile of the trail

The weather was perfect, not too hot, and the crowds, despite it being a Sunday, were not bad at all.  Our 200 (mostly) aviators were by far the largest group, and breaking us into four groups of 50 made the short trek pleasant and the guides pointed out any additional carvings and geologic features of the canyon.

I half expected to have the area in front of the Treasury to be packed like the Louvre's Mona Lisa, but as our groups filtered in, there were a few camels and a some dozen other tourists.  The camel drivers weren't aggressive at all, with only a couple of people opting for a ride.

A Final "Money Shot"

There are continuing "digs" all around the canyons: they are digging in the Treasury "basement" as we speak, and there was a Roman Forum uncovered at the end of one of the canyon arms.  From the Treasury, the canyon opens up 

As one continues down the main canyon trail, the trail is lined with all these vendors, and this one 12-year-old boy impressed with his very articulate, polished sales pitch!  But the stalls weren't intrusive nor the hawkers/barkers annoying at any point.

None of these pictures give justice to the scale of the place, nor of the vastness of the trail network around the canyons and their carvings.

There were several more churches, temples and tombs carved in to the canyons; these about another mile down the main trail

The recently uncovered Roman-era Forum

Another huge ruin at the end of the main tail.

As we said our goodbyes to our guide, his parting words were, "And now get on these (smaller coach) buses for the 5 minute ride back to town and your buses!"  That "5 minute drive" turned in to 45 minutes on a very twisty turn up and down and all around ride through the hills around Petra until we finally made it back to the Alpha buses to head on down to that night's lodging at Wadi Rum, famous for the gathering of the Arab tribes for the assault on Aqaba in Lawrence of Arabia, and most recently, the opening scene in John Wick 4 and the proxy for Mars in the Matt Damon movie The Martian.

To sum up the Petra visit: despite the challenges of travel to the Middle East (as compared to renting a car in Western Europe and tooling around), I would consider returning to Jordan and spending several days in Petra.  There is an extensive network of trails through the canyons, several miles in fact, and we were only able to hit the main 3-mile trail.  The site was so stunning that we didn't feel cheated at all, but we certainly could've spent a few more days there were we on our own.  And there are several castles and ruins all along the Trans-Jordanian Highway, that traveling back on our own wouldn't be unthinkable.  Except for Amman, traffic seemed reasonable and everyone seemed sane behind the wheel.  There weren't many personal cars on the highways; most of the traffic were trucks and they drove relatively slowly.

On to Wadi Rum!

After a several hour bus ride (I know why I detest these types of tours, as you are stuck on a fairly tight seat, subject to the "group tour" which only makes one stop in all those hours).  We saw lots of signs for other sights, like Karak Castle, but we were Wadi Rum bound.  We did stop at a "tourist stop" which featured a LONG line for the women's bathroom (after all, 190 of the attendees were women, and there were maybe 10 of us 49 1/2ers, which is what the men are called by the 99's), a coffee shop, a cafeteria of sorts, and a large gift shop.  I had one Turkish Coffee in my life previously, so when I saw it prominently advertised, I had to have one, and one for Janet.  Jet Fuel, Baby!  Very strong, very sweet, and even after warning Janet days before of the intensity of it, she took one sip of hers and handed it over to me,  We arrived well after dark at our Wadi Rum camp, exhausted despite sitting on my ass for several hours, and after a bit of room key chaos, we found our little "Bedouin cabin" and headed over to the open air buffet to a light show of lightening and the sound of thunder in the distance.  The storm passing through didn't drop much if any rain, but the cloud cover cancelled the Star Gazing planned for that night.

The storm cleared but the winds continued overnight, cancelling the planned hot-air ballooning, so we had another open-air buffet breakfast at the camp, and mid-morning we boarded our now familiar bus #1 and headed out to the Hijazi Railroad.  One of the climactic scenes late in Lawrence, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif lead the Bedouin army on an assault of a Turkish military train.  This Hijazi Train recreates that assault with locals dressed up as Turkish WW1 soldiers and Bedouin attackers.  

After a short train ride on restored rolling stock and steam locomotive, our train was "attacked" with both sides shooting blanks at each other, stopping the train, and taking a few "hostages" away in the restored armored car.  Hmmm...seems a bit too close to current events in that region...

The train then reversed course back to the Bedouin camp where we were reunited with our "hostages" and treated to coffee and tea, prepared Bedouin-style.  After hanging for a bit in the camp, we reboarded the train and reversed back to the our beloved bus #1 (the total train journey amounted to maybe 4 miles and that is stretching it) to the trip to Sinam Castle, where half of our group stayed at the associated resort, for yet another buffet lunch, eating among the ramparts of the castle.  Bused back to our camp after, we had a free afternoon for poking around our camp, eventually taking in the sunset from the hill above the camp.  Our camp had an interesting small amphitheater event space, several unfinished dome rooms to take advantage of the interest around The Martian, and an old Soviet transport plane randomly plopped in the back corner of the resort.

That evening, the Star Gazing was ON, so we were bused out to another camp where an amateur, yet highly accomplished, astronomer had, over some years, set up a cool lecture room and sheltered area (from the lights of the camp, but unfortunately it was a full moon, so no Milky Way) with several high-end telescopes.  After an indoor lecture, and laser-pointer orientation to the heavens outside, we got to look in to each of the telescopes focused on heavenly bodies like Saturn (always good for an oooo-ah at the closeup of the rings)--all Uber fancy 'scopes that kept pace with the earth's rotation. All in all, a worthwhile bit of education.

The next day we were to head to Aqaba, but we were assured that the previously cancelled hot air ballooning had been rescheduled to the next morning, which would entail a 4:30am departure from Aqaba to retrace today's drive from Wadi Rum. Well, I've never been in a hot air balloon, and the Wadi Rum landscapes are spectacular, so that the heck, why not!

But wait, there was another opportunity to eat before leaving Wadi Rum, so we were bused to another camp with a large geodesic dome dining room, and we were shown how our hot portions of the lunch were cooked in the ground.  Our lunch was extracted from the deep (and I mean deep) pit before our very eyes on a multi-tiered cooker about the size of a 55-gallon drum, with tiers of chicken, rice pilaf, and veggies.  It was hauled in to the buffet and served with more hummus, pita, salads (remember my tip on raw food, dear readers), and a roasted lamb being picked apart by a cook who kept loading more and more shredded lamb to my plate.

The dome for eats, and our beloved bus

We then took the long bus ride south to Aqaba anding up at the Hyatt Regency resort right on the Red Sea.  Unfortunately, the check-in process at the resort turned in to a bit of a cluster as it seemed they had never checked in 200 guests arriving all at once.  Each individual check-in took several minutes, times 100 or so rooms, along with a scan of all our bags as we got off the bus. Seriously, Hyatt, you knew we were coming...WTF?!?!

Janet had an awards presentation, which gave me the night off, so I just hung on the balcony, reading and snacking, not having to head to any massive buffet line.  The next morning, November 1st, came early with a quick breakfast where we loaded up a small pastry box for the bus ride, then a 4:30am bus back up to Wadi Rum.  We stopped in a gas station (oh, where are the balloons?) where about 20 4X4 trucks were gathered (in various states of "brand new" to quite beat to hell) to which we transferred for the drive across the desert to where the balloons were starting to be inflated.

Four balloons were being inflated from "Balloons over Rum" and as the pilots read off names, we were told we were in the second flight, and Janet and I were assigned to different balloons.  Yikes, would I ever see her again?!?  What we thought might have been a bummer, being in the second flight, turned out to be a whole lot of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride mixed in with the Road Warrior!"  I was assigned to a VERY beat up Mitsubshi 4X4 extra cab, and our driver's job was to tear across the open desert along with a dozen or more other trucks zig zagging among each other across the desert, chasing the red balloon that I would be flying in next.  Quite the surreal experience, as the driver's English was limited to a "thumbs up" gesture after recovering from one of the many bangs and bounces and we tore across the landscape.

As the first flight gently touched down, we met Ravi, our pilot who went through the pre-flight instructions.  The high sides of the basket made it a bit of a challenge for some of the older, less limber of the group, but soon we were up, up and away over the stunning desert landscape.  Not being a geologist, I would assume the more monochrome rock formations of Wadi Rum differ from those of Southern Utah by the amount of iron in the sandstone layers.  It was said the area was also built up from sediments from the bottom of a sea, like our Southwest, but our landscapes are much more colorful with various vivid hues of reds and pinks.  Not to take anything away from Wadi Rum; the landscapes are spectacular, especially from 1,000 feet up in the air.

My balloon shadow as the sun rises behind me

Ravi, born and raised in London, living here while his contract continues at "Balloons over Rum"

Big baskets held us all; after our flight and deflation with the chase trucks

I believe the balloon on the right was Janet's
We both survived!

Another wild ride took us back to the gas station where Bus #1 awaited.  A Note: there are really no set road or track through the desert; each truck pretty much picks its way along the desert floor, sometimes following previous tracks, sometimes blazing a new one.  To whit, Janet's truck arrived several minutes after mine as she said a couple of trucks in her group became stuck in some muddy sand.  Janet's bogged down, but managed, with mud flying everywhere off the tires, to regain traction and head back.  Two others had to be pulled out...a wild ride indeed.

Another long bus ride got us back to Aqaba where those signed up for snorkeling or diving on the Red Sea rushed off to change to hop on the boats that were held for them.  Janet and I just poked around the resort and ate at an open air Italian-themed restaurant overlooking the docks.

The Conference closed out with another ceremony at the hotel, notably without a massive buffet, but the breakfast buffet to beat them all heralded the following morning after which we checked out and boarded Bus #1 for the final time for the five hour run back up to Amman on the Trans-Jordanian Highway.  Midway we stopped at another tourist/truck stop where I partook of another Jet Fuel Turkish Coffee; only a single one this time as Janet begged off preferring a couple of bags of crisps.

We avoided a similar check-in mess at the Amman Grand Hyatt as Janet peeled off the bus and I managed the bags, and by the time I snaked through the x-ray machine for the bags we were ready to head to the room.  There was a huge mosque about a half mile away and the amplified calls to prayer were quite clear, though in Arabic.  I awoke at 5:15am one of the mornings at Wadi Rum as the call to prayer came from a nearby village.

We chilled for the afternoon--it's amazing how a 5 hour bus ride on a high end Mercedes tour bus can be so exhausting--but then headed out and got lost looking for a shawarma restaurant we saw from the bus coming around the corner from the hotel, we thought.  I must say Amman is not a pedestrian-friendly town.  In this hotel area, there were 3 and 4 lane streets, with no controlled intersections, so you pretty much had to walk down to a roundabout and launch you way across each branch when the traffic opened up.  We asked a local walking along with us, "traffic doesn't stop for pedestrians, does it?"  No, sorry!  We went down a roundabout too many and ended up on a different main road parallel to the one that had the shawarma place, so we gave up, gathered our courage to brave the roundabouts back to the hotel, and resigned ourselves to have dinner at the open air terrace at the hotel.

Other than a rather inattentive waitstaff, the light dinner was lovely with a couple of appetizer dishes and my favorite brew of the trip, Carakale Blonde Ale.

Our last day in Amman was a full day since we had a RedEye out on United just after midnight. We were blessed with a 4pm check-out from the hotel which allowed for a largely full day of sight-seeing in Amman.  However, the Concierge warned us of protests in the downtown area, which we were hoping to wind back through on our way down from the Roman and Umayyad ruins of the Citadel and the  Roman Theaters. A winding 10 Dinar taxi took us up to the Citadel, and as we bought our tickets, a bus of Indonesian Muslim tourists were walking in, so we walked opposite the normal flow of the site and came up to the ruins of the Temple of Hercules then took a spin in their museum.

Ruins of the Temple of Hercules

The Man Himself, Hercules
In the hilltop museum

The ruins of the Umayyad Palace complex

A deep, deep cistern as water has always been an issue

More of the Temple of Hercules

After stopping for a quick refreshment as we left the site, we were set upon by several cabbies hanging around the entrance offering us rides with the advice "I'll get you around the protests downtown!"  Lots of "no thank yous" while we descended down steep streets and stairs down to the Roman Theaters.

The view of the two theaters, the smaller on the left is used for plays, the larger one for concerts and other shows

At the entrance, we were greeted by an old docent, with passable English however minimal, who delighted in demonstrating the acoustic features of the smaller theater.  He let us in without a ticket so we gave him a nice tip on exiting.

He spoke into a hole on one side of the theater and we could hear it clearly at the hole on the opposite side of the theater

Impressive columned boulevard in front of the large theater

Once we got down to the Roman Theaters, there was a large increase in the police and military presence.  We had heard earlier that there were small protests at the Israeli and American embassies in Amman (before we left), but a larger protest, as we were warned, was ramping up downtown.  Interestingly, as we came up to the first large gathering of troops, the call to worship was beaming across the area, and about half of the troops whipped out their prayer rugs and were on their knees.  The other half were leaning up against their vehicles and smoking while scrolling on their phones.

As we wanted to avoid any protests, we skirted to the right of the main drag that took one in "downtown" and we ended up a couple of hills, with no direct route, away from the hotel.  Amman, at least between the Citadel and our hotel, is built on parallel long narrow hills, and streets generally go along the valleys between the hills but not across the hills.  After a long walk, we were walking further away from the hotel it seemed, so we said screw it, flagged down a passing cab, and spent 2 dinars to get back to the hotel.  As we checked out at 4, and didn't have a flight until a bit after midnight, we just hung around in the lobby for a few hours and, after fumbling an Uber pickup, we got a cab for the 50 dinar ride to the airport.  The cabbie was funny, talking about the traffic, and how his family was all in "Anaheim, Disneyland, whoohoo!" No issues getting to the airport, unless you call tailgating at 110 km/h an issue.  After going through security, where my bottle of Melatonin caused a bit of confusion for the officer, we were able to park our butts in the Royal Jordanian Airlines Lounge, where, you guessed it, there was a large buffet featuring hummus, pita, and various Arab dishes.

We had an uneventful flight back home, routing through Dulles with a 6 hour layover, but, I'd have to say that we probably set a record for the number of wheelchairs needed to deplane our United Amman to Dulles leg: 17, that's seventeen, wheelchairs lined up the full length of the long jetway off the plane and in to the hallway outside the jetway.  And the Uber pickup relocation at SFO confused Janet for a bit, but soon we were back home, no worse for wear!

General Observations of Jordan:

• The top story of many of the homes and businesses in the smaller towns and villages have what seems to be another floor stubbed out with cement block rising up with four long pieces of rebar sticking up out of the top.  What's up with that?  The interwebs says it has to do with the hopes to keep families together by planning to build more stories to their homes as the family grows.  Interesting...
• All through the trip, there seemed to be random people, smalls groups as well as individuals, standing on the side of major roads.  That, coupled with cars and trucks just pulled over to the side of the road, more often than not pulled off the travel lane, seemed odd, especially on busy multilane highways.
• Every road, except the 4 lane highway in to Amman, had randomly placed speed bumps/pedestrian humps.  Our first night's cab would be flying along then have to nearly stop to go over the bumps.  As they also featured prominently on the Trans-Jordanian Highway, the bumps appeared as you came up on any town or village of any size, then continued through the town, then stopped when exiting the town.  Maybe not such a bad idea...
• Toyotas and Mitsubishi 4X4 normal and extra cab pickups were the vehicle of choice throughout the country outside of Amman.
• There weren't many private cars on the Trans-Jordanian Highway; traffic was mostly trucks with some tourist buses like ours.
• Gas stations along the roads seemed to be a magnet for garbage.  Trash makes it in or near the trash cans but it doesn't seem like anyone picks up the cans or bins, so it all just accumulates, even in places like Wadi Rum
• As we saw coming in the first night to the Dead Sea, there are several garishly lit bodegas in every town and village, with coffee, soft drinks, and Western snack food.  The Jordanians must be highly caffeinated as alcohol consumption is forbidden in Muslims.
• As we were taking a wrong turn to our room at the Amman Hyatt, we heard an absolute MELTDOWN of an American teen daughter screaming at her mother, and the mother in a softer voice trying to calm her down.  I wanted to stay for the rest of the show, but Janet hustled me along.  Having a delightful time in Jordan, I hear!
• Amman is HUGE...roughly 21 million people and nearly 90% of the population of the country.
• We passed exits to Iraq and Saudi Arabia a couple of times...it's all so close.
• Most of the hotel and housekeeping staff in the "American" hotels we stayed were local men.  Very few women worked as domestics or waitstaff.
• There was a separate spray head and hose alongside every toilet in Jordan, even in the Western hotels.  A budget bidet, mayhaps?

My Final Thoughts on Jordan:

• As Janet and I are seasoned international travelers, I wouldn't hesitate to return to Jordan.
• Hopefully it will continue to be a sea of sanity in an increasingly insane region.
• Since we got the Cliff Notes at Petra, we would love to spend several more days exploring more of the sights and trails among the canyons.  The Movenpick was a nice surprise, and looking up rates, a stay there would be reasonable and you are literally across the street from the Petra entrance
• I have driven all over Western Europe in rental cars and our own European purchase vehicles, and if one stays out of Amman, driving along the Trans-Jordanian Highway seems quite reasonable for an American driver.  And with the constant police presence and the occasional road block, safety wouldn't be an issue.
• Wadi Rum was spectacular--we love dramatic desert landscapes.  We could stand to spend more time there as well.
• We read there were many Roman and Umayyad castles and ruins in the country--all could be explored with our own rental car.
• As long as we are still in our Go-Go Years of Retirement, I would certainly go back.  We have a late-2024 Nile cruise scheduled; perhaps we could add on a return to Jordan as several of the people on the 99's Tour had either front-ended or back-ended the trip as long as they came halfway around the world.  Since this trip was so far out of our travel wheelhouse, we decided to stick with the defined 99's tour and not extend...I feel confident we can extend our Egypt trip next year.
• There is too much hate and uncertainty in the region; no other Middle Eastern country seems appealing to us, except our UniWorld trip on the Nile.