We find ourselves with a plan to get up early and be at the border early which is typical when you are cozy inside the pod and it is freezing outside. It actually was with frozen droplets on top of the iKamper. Well we brave it and after a scurry of activity we are packed and booted before 8am heading back up the road. We head west and with only a practically short drive we turn right and head along the Red Sea coast line. This is Becky’s first time seeing the Red Sea which is next and we take a little time to take in exactly where we are.
We do see a magnificent herd of camels numbering at least 150 in this valley and they all seem to be knowingly heading somewhere in the chilliness of the morning.
We finally see the KSA border port and nearly empty. This is great we will skip through. NOPE! There were other plans and we are told to park up and wait. Once again we get to watch the small bunch of borders guards discuss your documents and glance backwards and forwards at your vehicle without any real understanding what the problem is. I must note at this point I had given them the passports of course and both vehicle licenses. When we entered KSA this was a miss in my part and then had to ask me for the trailer license. After 45 minutes a very distinguished border officer with a walking stick beckons me out. He apologies and explains that the border officer when we entered KSA had made a mistake and missed the zero off the car registration and this was causing a problem. We first go into the small gate office where he presents me Arabic coffee and then he takes me to his grand office where I sit with him as he writes an official note explaining the situation and tells me to present this when we return insh’Allah.
As soon as this is done we are ushered on our way. By this time a hundred plus cars had gone passed us, but it had quietened down and we quickly move through no-man’s land to Jordan. The first sight of Jordan’s border was a little confusing, but we reach a single military guard with a rifle who asks us for our passport on a rather gruff way and as he flicked through the passport he was noticeably shaking with cold, he asked our nationality, we say British and he suddenly smiles and says “welcome, welcome, welcome to Jordan, have a great visit”. The next building looked a little nondescript where a man leaning out a window and not a border guard tells us to come in to have our passport stamped. We both head inside and a guard with the speed of lighting checks, photos us and stamps the passport with a happy smile and sends us on our way also saying “Welcome to Jordan”. No Carnet needed so far it seems!
The next stop was a little stranger. One side is cars and the other lorries. This was the customs and tax stop.
A guard in military uniform stands in front of the Jeep and starts completing a form. He waves me out and as I stand with him he asks me where I am from, where we are going and how long? Then as I am telling him a group of gentlemen arrive they greet each other and he leaves without a word. I am left stood there holding up traffic! You should note that with a trailer you feel very self-conscious. After 5minutes you could tell that there was discussion between the remaining guard to why I was still stood there! Another guard comes over asks me my name completes a new form, shows me what my names looks like in Arabic, does not ask me the other questions and directs me to the Jordan insurance office. Well that was simple!
We drive over the large cabin that is the insurance bureau and I head inside. There is a simple set of desks but obviously this is both the gentleman’s office and living area. He tells me a minimum of one month and quickly processes it. The good news is Zain the telephone service that I used in KSA is also here. I pop into the office and get a SIM card before heading back to the customs and tax office. Here I stand in a very smoky halls and complete the import registration which costs me 20 JOD and we are once again on our way. The whole border crossing took three hours but could have been much faster as we were held up for 45 minutes.
There was no real sign or greeting into Jordan except a ridiculous amount of pigeons and rubbish. Sad really, but we got to drive along the Red Sea glancing across at Egypt that Becky thought would be much flatter. In the distance mount Catherine looms over the Sinai-Halbinsel coastline.
We soon arrived in Aqaba الْعَقَبَة and this place was a bustling town with an obvious scattering of tourists. A late valentines and early wedding anniversary treat, we pull up to the Kempinski Hotel
on the Red Sea and only one with a white sand beach, to take stock and refresh before Petra. We are warmly welcomed and after a very long reverse with the trailer I am helped by the hotel engine and a super friendly front door man to top up with water and plug into some power. I am blown away by the interest and kindness that the hotel show us. A little treat and yes not purist overlanding, I treat Becky and myself to a massage. Let’s be serious now, any Overlander that has just driven over 2500km would not turn down a massage. The crazy thing is, we both feel even more spaced out after and with dinner done we are both ready for bed by 8pm. One rather embarrassing mistake was not putting a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door so when we returned to the room we found that the hotel staff had come in to turn the room down, and obviously seen all our washing hung around the room like a laundry house lol. They had even pulled out the over bath washing line that we completely missed and hung some washing on there for us. This hotel have gone above and beyond.