Cairo to Amman

Tuesday May 3, 2011 Cairo to Amman

Our travel day found us hustling to the airport in various stages of health. Don was about on his last day to Cipro he was taking for stomach distress; Luanne was a bit shaky digestively, I had not been sleeping well for the past three nights and everyone was tired.

Getting through security at the airport was yet one more time to be hit up for tips. Getting from the curb to the security scanners we had three to four porters for our seven checked bags; for the thirty feet from the scanners to the airline counter there were at least 3 or 4 more. It was borderline ridiculous. Anyone who could get a finger on our bags was looking for a tip.

Besides are physical ailments the strain of travel and being with each other 24 hours a day was starting to cause small flare up of our character defects. When I discovered that the LED screen on the back of my camera was not working properly I was beginning to feel demon possessed; I was fearful the camera was not functioning properly. On the flight into Amman my throat became raspy; I later learned Rodney was suffering a sore throat as well. Larry seemed to be the only one not dealing with some physical ailment.

The flight was quite short, even as the plane made a slight detour around Israeli airspace. As we came into Amman we flew over the Dead Sea which gives off a cloud of salt vapor haze that confounded the auto focus on my camera which locks onto contrast.

But landing at Amman was literally a breath of fresh air. The day before in Cairo had been both hot and humid, but Amman sits about 1000m above sea level and the air was noticeable cooler and drier. No one hounded us touch our bags at the airport; Mundir our driver picked us up and we took a nice modern highway where people actually used the lane lines and drove relatively sanely. Although we only saw the nicer areas of Amman, the city seemed a bit tidier than Cairo. By mid-afternoon we had settled into our rooms on the second floor of the Hotel Commodore, a nice enough place although it had been around a while. I had visions of Lawrence of Arabia hanging out on the front veranda.

Wanting water and some throat lozenges I wandered a couple of storefronts up the street and met the Palestian proprietor of a small convenience store who spoke enough English to take care of my needs. Later in the afternoon Rand, who organized the Amman conference, dropped by to make sure we were comfortable and to take us for a short spin to learn nearby landmarks, like the Safeway, and take us for some pre-dinner ice cream.

We enjoyed a relaxing and delicious meal at the hotel and retired early for we had made arrangements for Mundir to pick us early for a day of relaxation and sight-seeing as we went to see the Dead Sea.