Ha! Maybe spoke too soon?

 It's a very good thing that we liked the lounge, as our six hour layover evolved into something significantly longer. Our plane to London had mechanical issues, so another plane was brought in. Instead of leaving at 6:20 p.m., the flight was delayed to 7:50, which meant our time to connect in Heathrow would be a little tight. However, instead of leaving at 7:50, it was further delayed to 10:30, which meant we had no chance to get on our flight to Amman.




We thought we would call Air Canada so that we had some say in the rebooking process. After waiting on hold for two hours, I was finally able to talk to an agent. Sadly, no matter what she tried, she was unable to "uncheck" us from the London to Amman segment because it was operated by British Airways. So, we had to trust that when we got off the plane at Heathrow, all would be well. It was a big ask.




It finally came time to get on the plane but when our boarding passes were scanned, we were reissued with ones that said "Standby" instead of our seat numbers. Then we were asked to step aside for a few minutes. We were not happy, and we weren't the only ones. Apparently, the replacement plane was smaller and offered fewer business class seats and so they had to reassign seating to more than a dozen people. Not everyone got back into business class, but we were lucky. (Although when the agent initially showed us our newest boarding passes, I saw D52 and thought that was my seat and began to have a meltdown. I quickly recovered when I realized it was gate D52 and not row 52.)




The flight was actually great. We slept well and woke up unsure of what was about to happen but prepared to make the best of it. As we disembarked, we received new boarding passes. We were rerouted through Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. I was not too excited about that prospect, but our luggage apparently was retagged and on its way so we decided to follow along. The plane to Istanbul was actually really quite nice and I slept again. We didn't spend much time in the Istanbul airport so were soon en route to Amman. 









We made it! Our travel agency (based in Jordan) arranged for a guide to meet us at the gate, and he took us through the shortcuts to obtain our visas and go through customs. Even better than that, our bags were the first two on the carousel!




After five years of planning, and an extra five and a half hours of travel, we were in Jordan. We met our driver for the next two weeks and he brought us to our lovely hotel where he woke up the desk staff so that we could check in for a couple of hours of sleep.




And so the adventures began sooner that we had expected, but we were finally ready to explore and learn and eventually see those Pyramids.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feb. 26th- Um Qais, Al Himma Hot Springs, and Ajloun Castle

Image
 This was a long day. Our driver has been setting a slower pace to allow us to adapt to this time zone, but today we went full throttle. Our first stop was Umm Qais, located in Jordan but the Syrian Golan Heights, the north Palestinian plains, and the Sea of Galilee are visible from the viewpoint. (On the way there, Akram offered to drive us into Syria (which was only 10 kms away) to go shopping. We politely declined.) Gardera, the ruins at Umm Qais, is different from most other archeological sites in that much of the rock is basalt rather than limestone or sandstone. Gardera has been of importance to the Greeks, Romans, and then the early Christians because of its ideal location on the trade route between Syria and Palestine and its biblical significance, as this is where the miracle of Jesus casting out the Gardera swine is said to have occured. Our next stop was at the village of Al Himma, which has about 27 hot springs. Akram has contacts, so he booked us in the private hot spr...
Read more

The magical lost city of Petra- One of the Seven New Wonders of the World

Image
We were looking forward to Petra as a highlight of our trip and were surprised to be even more impressed than we anticipated. From the entrance (where tour buses abound), it's just a bunch of rocks. Quite attractive rocks, but ones that give no hint to what is behind them. Our driver excorted us to the ticket booth and arranged for a certified local guide. Sakher recognized that we would have problems pronouncing his name, so he told us we could call him Rock, as that is what Sakher means. It was a good start. As we walked along the narrow 1.2 km pathway from the entrance into the lost city, Rock explained the known history of the city built and eventually abandoned by the Nabateans. It's believed to have been home to about 30,000 people. I asked Rock about the current number of inhabitants of the town around Petra- it's about 30,000.              Although it flourished for the first centuries BC to AD as a vital trading centre because of its idea...
Read more

More Wonder and a Minor Accomplishment

Image
 After much discussion with our guide and with Barry yesterday, I decided the give another hike a try. Our driver had told us it was a much more difficult hike than the one that had defeated me, but Rock said no, the path was renovated and not too scary. They both promised to hold my hand when/if my fear of heights came into play. So, off we went. We arrived at the Visitor Centre at the main entrance to Petra and requested that Rock would be our guide again. Luckily, he was available, although we had to wait about 20 minutes because he was not scheduled to work and was still at home in bed! When he arrived, we took a shuttle to Little Petra, the base of the Back Door to the Monastery Trail. There we had a choice to take another bumpy truck bed ride to cut off a couple of kilometers. It was a no brainer for me.  Soon we were on the 2.5 kilometer path to the Monastery. It was usually wide and had lots of berms along the sharpest drop offs, which gave me a lot of comfort.  T...
Read more