|
The day begans with a little delay. Mohammed, the manager of the Palace Hotel felt asleep and we had to wake up him in order to prepare the breakfast. We were the only guests in the hotel this day. We had breasfast quickly and Ahmad came with us to the restaurant in the surroundings of the city where stop the buses from Deir ez-Zur and go to Damascus.
We arrived in time and we said goodbye to Ahmad, who before the bus leave the restaurant, passed twice near us to be sure we are safe. The trip costs 50 SYP (for both) and spent two and a half hours. In Damascus we discovered that the bus doesn't stop in Baremke but in other station far of the centre.
Another passenger of the bus who travels with his daugther and his sister, to come with her to the hospital, kindly insisted in help us and came with us about 500 meters until a place where there were taxis to Baremke. For 75 SYP we were on the way to the caotic station of the centre of Damascus. We arrived at 12:00 and the next bus to Amman set off at 15:00, so we prefered to take a shared service taxi, from the same place we were last week.
Again, the taxi drivers screaming us, but we already felt like at home and it resulted easy to choose the correct car and discuss for a fair price. During the waiting until the car was full we met the kids of the last week, who when they swa us came running to us to say hello. It was a very pleasant moment while we practiced our few arab phrases. Charting kids who tried and earn one's living in a hard environment. They didn't allow us to take them a photo, because they scared about the police if they thibk the kids were disturbing us
We paid 30$ for the three back seats and shared the car with other two passenger in the front seats. The trip was boring and it was some amusing during the border crossing, where the driver got the advantage for contraband tobacco, putting two boxes to each of us and anothers boxes hidden in the car. Very curious the inspection of the car by the custom agent, who after he touched variuos hidden boxes, gave the ok. When we passed the border, the driver stopped in a road shop where he interchanged the cigarrettes by a bottle of gas oil.
Near 15:00 we arrived to Ammam and we went to the chosen hotel of our guide, the Mirage, which was closed for a month. A taxi driver who saw us, stopped us and convinced to go to a near hotel of 3 stars, called the Firas Palace, that costs 20 JD and hadn't bad aspect. We decided to be in that hotel and after have luch in the lonely restaurant of the hotel a pizza and two frezzing lasagnas we rested a little in the room, because Yolanda felt bad with her cold. At 20:00 we walked in the downtown in order to change monye and have dinner. In the gate of the hotel approached a man called Jabr, that apparently works like taxi driver for the hotel and who offered himself to come with us next day to the border with Israel, visiting before the city of Jerash and its roman ruins for 20 JD.
Also we dealed with him the return trip from Israel in the border and the trip to Petra by the King's Highway for 60 JD. He moved us in his car to the centre near a money change office very good.
We had dinner in the Cairo restaurant a pair of Massaf courses, was better in Palmyra. By 3$ we can't expect any more. The returning was exhausted due to the steeped and endless stairs until we arrived to the hotel located in the jebel (hill). By the night in the toilet we discovered that we had company... a cockroach. Tomorrow we will be in Jerash and Jerusalem, and we will try to get lodge at the Jerusalem Hotel, a littel expensive but it worth.
|
