While our time in Egypt had been exhausting due to the intense schedule mandated by our limited time there; it had also been equally exhilarating and rewarding, largely because of the dedication of our Collette Tour Manager, Sahar Hammad and her staff.
For those in our tour group who were continuing on to Jordan, we were equally excited about our impending journey to Petra. We looked forward to several more days of sightseeing before beginning our journey home. IMHO, I can only say when we arrived in Jordan our tour guide there, “Steve”, left a lot to be desired for some in our small group. After listening to him for a couple of days as we traveled from site to site by bus and hearing about all the things he had done in his life, we concluded that he must be about 140 years old. He never tired of letting us know how good he was being to us. In addition, the logistics for this part of our adventure must have been planned by someone who dislikes tourists.
Example: On our last day in Jordan we began early in the morning, visited several places during the day including Wadi Rum, and then traveled four hours by bus back to Amman. We stopped for dinner at a local restaurant and then checked into our hotel about 8:00pm. That part was OK, except that we had to leave our hotel at 10:00pm (yep, same night) to go to the airport for our 1:00am flight home via Paris and Atlanta. We arrived home about 9:30 the next night. Not counting a short nap here and there during our flights, we had been awake 40 hours! Arriving home totally exhausted, Norma and I went straight to bed. About two hours later, I heard a knock at our front door and got up to see who it was. It was my rear end dragging in behind me—that’s how tired I was!
In spite of my ranting above and our less than stellar guide, our time in Jordan was breathtaking and well worth the journey, mostly due to Petra. You may remember it from the Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, part of which was filmed at Petra. Even if “Steve” was our guide again, would I go back to Jordan? Perhaps, even if another horse knocked me down and stepped on my foot again. Petra was that awesome (who am I kidding, of course I would go back).
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