The Widow and the Spinster: The Search for Adventure, Enlightenment, and the Quest for Forbidden food - Bacon, Bacon, Bacon, and New TR Link! 4/2

[Nora03]

This is very exciting! I’m so happy for you Allison. Others have mentioned following you on Facebook. How do I do that if you don’t mind? Safe travels home.

 

[Flossbolna]

The problem was getting me to DC by 4:40PM. We tired both Southwest and American and this was the only flight that got me to DC in time for the Turkish flight. Everything else wouldnhave cut it too close.

I think I would have opted for an extra night in DC. But I thought that the interesting travel arrangement might have been due to you being added later.

For our WBTA I'm flying into London a day before her (if we get the flights we want). She was like "you're OK with that?" And I was thinking, I speak their language. She was relieved that I wasn't afraid to fly by myself, it was just to Jordan that made me uneasy to be alone.

London will be easy!! No worries there! Would love to hear what you are planning for that trip since Michael and I are booked on the same cruise, but not totally sure we are taking it - there might be a bit of a shortage of vacation days on my part. But we have lots of other travel planning to talk about as well, once you are back!

Well I find Michael has a lot to complain about wherever he goes!

You say?!?

We really aren't pool people. We haven't been in one pool on this entire trip though we brought our swim suits.

I am a water rat, but Michael tops me by a million!! I am sure we would have tried out every single hotel pool!

 

[Magical_Suitcase]

I am finally here! Now to go back to the beginning. I have been following on FB but I love reading "the story". Thanks for sharing.

 

[bcwife76]

Definitely a long travel day....or two Glad you got to experience it with class

 

[Poolrat]

Lured back to the DIS by your adventures. Looking g forward to reading all about it.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

I dont think i realized you moced to Houston. Did you start a new profile on FB? I got a friend request from you but i wasnt sure if it was a hack. I feel like we had already been friends on FB before.

Yeah - my old profile got hacked back in 2021 so I made a new profile after I was unsuccessful in getting it recovered.

 

[franandaj]

Depends? Do you pay monthly or do you have an older version that you bought outright?

I believe I have an older version that I bought outright. Then again I don't know. I had to download something the last time I got a new computer. I may have paid an annual fee.

Might take some adjusting to.

I hope not. I'm ready to get back to normal sleep in three days.

Sugar on top and then torch. Like a crème brûlée.

Ah. I have a torch but no fuel. Probably could fix that with Amazon.

I’ll get you some smoked goldeye and you can test that.

As long as it's not a big gold eye staring back at me!

Nice. You left your mark wherever you went.

Sure looked nice.

Hmmmm…
A: Let’s base it on who’s been up longer.
J: Yes!

A: Let’s base it on first name alphabetically
J: Yes!

A: Let’s base it on who lives farther South.
J: Yes!

A: let’s base it on who’s been married.
J: Yes!

A: Let’s base it on…
J: Yes! Yes! Please go shower!! Please!

I still win!

How did it taste?

Actually that’s a good point. If you’d taken a bath it probably would’ve knocked you out.

Yup. That's exactly what I did when my head hit the pillow. Too bad it didn't last.

 

[franandaj]

Safe travels!! And hope you will have enough time to enjoy that massive lounge in Istanbul again!

Actually our flight home is on British Airways through London so that lounge in Istanbul will have to wait until another time.

 

[franandaj]

This is very exciting!

I’m so happy for you Alison. Others have mentioned following you on Facebook. How do I do that if you don’t mind? Safe travels home.

Thanks. Send me a PM with your first and last name and I'll send you a friend request when I get back to unlimited internet.

 

[franandaj]

I think I would have opted for an extra night in DC. But I thought that the interesting travel arrangement might have been due to you being added later.

Well I couldn't leave until Wednesday because I had to go to band Tuesday night (I've already missed two rehearsals as it is). We have a big concert next Sunday after I get back. I also didn't want the extra expense of another night in a hotel. It may seem like we're spending like fools, but an American hotel just wasn't in the budget.

London will be easy!! No worries there! Would love to hear what you are planning for that trip

I'm sure you will hear all about it when I visit. For now it's just all ideas on the chalkboard.

Michael and I are booked on the same cruise, but not totally sure we are taking it - there might be a bit of a shortage of vacation days on my part.

I get that. At least from Jill's perspective.

But we have lots of other travel planning to talk about as well, once you are back!

Yes! Lots!

You say?!?

I am a water rat, but Michael tops me by a million!! I am sure we would have tried out every single hotel pool!

Jill and I have only put on our swim suits once this trip and that was at the spa. As I type this we are the closest to a pool than we have ever been this trip. It's the last day and we are dining in our street clothes.

 

[franandaj]

I am finally here! Now to go back to the beginning. I have been following on FB but I love reading "the story". Thanks for sharing.

Welcome Kate! Glad to have you following along!

 

[franandaj]

Definitely a long travel day....or two Glad you got to experience it with class

This is going to be the challenging part of mine and Jill's travels! How to do it with long haul flights paid for with credit card miles!

 

[franandaj]

Lured back to the DIS by your adventures. Looking g forward to reading all about it.

Welcome back Pat! I'm glad it was interesting enough to bring you back!

 

[franandaj]

Yeah - my old profile got hacked back in 2021 so I made a new profile after I was unsuccessful in getting it recovered.

OK good to know. When I'm not in transit or at a good place for internet, I'll look for the request and approve it.

 

[franandaj]

We went to bed at around 8PM the night before, but I didn't sleep very well, neither did Jill. I kept waking up for bio breaks. I woke up at 11PM thinking it was close to morning, and tried my best to fall back asleep. I think I slept until 4:30 or 5AM when I just gave up, and started working on the TR on my phone. I had brought a computer, but I didn't plan on getting it out until we checked into our room in Cairo. We were basically going to be Nomads for our time in Jordan going from hotel to hotel every night.

I did get up and take a picture from the room before the sun rose. I wasn't getting any sunrise pictures here as our room was not facing in the correct direction. I certainly wasn't going to get all dressed to find where I could get a decent picture. I might not even get one.

We had agreed to go down to breakfast around 7:30, so I was ready in plenty of time. We had breakfast in the same restaurant as the night before. This morning it was a buffet. They had a ton of choices. There must have been 10 kinds of cheese. There were cooked to order eggs and omelets, all sorts of traditional British breakfast sides, salad fixins, juice, yogurts, pastries, just about anything you might want. I was shy about taking pictures of the buffet itself, but most of the food was around this art sculpture.

The coffee here was really good. Nice and strong, good flavor.

I got an omelet cooked to order, some fruit, chicken sausage (so far no pork products, but we keep hoping), cheese, and pastries.

By the time I finished almost everything I was stuffed. Jill had a carb fest.

Then we went back to the room, put the last bits in our suitcases and headed to the lobby to meet our guide. Goodbye Hyatt Amman. See you tomorrow night!

Our driver/guide showed up right on time and after a quick pit stop for gas we were on our way to Wadi Rum. Here’s a common sight that we saw along the road. Herds of sheep and makeshift shelters.

We saw a lot of encampments along the side of the road. Clearly people were living in them, I saw children there. Laundry was drying on clotheslines. They were made of corrugated metal, and other scraps, pieced together with whatever was on hand. It made me sad to see all these little "towns" that were littered along the side of the highway.

Some of the things I noticed along the trip were how everything along the highway looked so abandoned. There were "strip malls" along the side of the road (for lack of a better term), and many of them looked like they hadn't been used in years.

The day before, on the way to the hotel, our guide had mentioned that our desert jeep trip was scheduled for two hours, but if we wanted to extend it to four hours we could, for a small additional fee. We decided to take this option and considered the other options for excursions that he offered us.

The drive outside Amman past the airport was super boring. It was almost like driving through the central valley of California on I-5 or the I-15 to Las Vegas.

What livened up the journey was camel sightings along the way. This bunch in the middle of the road were a fun sight!

At quite a few points along the road there were police stops. Evidently there is someone on the road clocking your speed and if you're exceeding the limit when you reach the police stop they flag you to the side of the road. Otherwise they just signal you to move on. It's easy to stop people because the highways have speed bumps strategically placed. When you pass through the cities on the highway you'll traverse three to five bumps as you pass through town. As you approach a police stop, everyone slows to about 15 mph. Our driver got flagged at one such stop. Evidently he was going 100km in an 80km zone, he got a ticket.

After a couple hours of driving we stopped for a break. The place we stopped was a restaurant, bazaar, market, and rest stop, all in one. I would have taken pictures, but there was a sign at the entrance reading "All photography prohibited". Our driver grabbed something to eat from the buffet while Jill and I used the facilities and then grabbed some snacks for the road. Jill got some Vanilla wafer cookies. I got these. They weren't bad and hit the spot, but I never finished the bag.

We still had another couple hours to go. Did I mention that this was a 4 hour drive? It was at this point that Jill pointed out that the motto of Jordan should be "Land of the speed bumps."

The terrain became a little more interesting as we continued south.

[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]


Eventually we turned off the main highway to Wadi Rum, soon we came across these characters.

And we're almost there!

We stopped at the visitor's center to use the facilities and the guide mentioned there was a restaurant if we wanted lunch. Jill had eaten most of her cookies and I had snacked on enough crackers that said we would pass on lunch. We knew that dinner was a pretty big event and wanted to be good and hungry for that. I took a few snaps of the flagship rock feature of the park while we were there and also saw this kitty cat.

While we were on our way, our driver said that he had a spot where we could get good camel shot for sure. As we approached our camp Sun City Camp, here's that shot or two. This is when I decided that I like naked camels better than the ones all saddled up.

Here’s approaching the camp. These are the standard Bedouin tents.

This is the main dining room where meals are served.

We unloaded our luggage and went to the check-in desk. This is the area where folks would hang out in the evening.

There was this room inside the check in area.

Here’s our guide doing the check in.

They offered us the opportunity to upgrade to one of the Martian tents. The figure was $120, but neither of us were clear as to whether or not that meant total or per person. Either way we were happy with our standard Bedouin tent, so we went to move in for the night.

Our luggage was transported to the room via 4WD pick-up truck.

Here is our room.

Not bad for one night in the middle of the desert in a National Park! This was our view of the Martian tents out our front door.

I think I’ll wrap this up here for now.

Next up: Our jeep tour in the desert.

 

[jedijill]

Jill here chiming in! I had booked flights over New Years using credit card miles. These flights worked best for availability and to minimize PTO days. I was really impressed with Turkish! I was glad to get a shower and real bed though.


Beef bacon is an abomination!

Jill in CO

 

[bcwife76]

What an interesting drive. Speed bumps in parking lots annoy me, I can't imagine them on a highway Those views though
And hey, just random camels hanging out on the side of the road, no biggie lol

Love the tent hotel idea, pretty swanky for the middle of the desert - that dining dome especially, how pretty!

 

[jedijill]

Oh and I want to defend my carb fest breakfast…..there were two pieces of cheese on my plate!!!!!


Jill in CO

 

[Alison S]

Very interesting trip report! Can't wait for more updates!