Jordan & United Arab Emirates : 28 September - 26 October 2008

This page describes a trip by the Kilfoil family (Paul, Karen and Scott) to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan. Check out our travelogues page for details of other trips we've done.

If you enjoyed reading this, please send an email to Paul. All correspondence is appreciated!

A modified version of the Jordan part of this story appeared in the "Weekend Argus" (a newspaper published in Cape Town, South Africa) on Saturday 8 August 2009.

Jordan   Capital   Government    Area   Population    Language   Currency	Amman Constitutional Monarchy 92 300 km2 5 907 000 Arabic Dinar (JOD)
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is probably the most liberal and open-minded country in the Middle East. There is no conflict between the Muslim majority and a small Christian minority, and relations with the Jewish state of Israel (bordering Jordan to the west) are good. The country is extremely hot and dry, with temperatures in the desert reaching dangerous levels in mid-summer. There is no oil in Jordan and consequently the country is somewhat poorer than several of its neighbours.

[Sunday 28 September 2008 : Cape Town, South Africa] From Cape Town we flew direct to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Emirates Airlines. It was great having a non-stop flight for a change, without a tedious lay-over in Johannesburg on the way. In Dubai we had enough time to walk around the airport before we boarded our flight to Amman in Jordan (also on Emirates Airlines) ; the temperature at 5 AM was over 30 degrees celcius! We explored the transit area of Dubai airport and quickly realized why so much money is being spent on building a massive new terminal - even that early in the morning the airport was uncomfortably crowded, with people sleeping on the floor all over the place, restaurants full, escalators crowded and barely enough space to walk along.

[Monday 29 September : Amman, Jordan] We arrived in Amman, the capital of Jordan, after a short flight north-west from Dubai. At the airport we caught the bus to one of the many bus stations in and around the city, then a taxi from there to the hotel we had pre-booked in the downtown area. Called the Palace Hotel, the place was quite a long way from being a palace (a very long way, in fact). It was clear from this short taxi ride that we could not possibly have walked to the hotel from the bus station - Amman's steep and twisting streets would probably have defeated our legs and our map-reading skills long before we got there.

After checking in to the hotel and relaxing for a while we strolled out to the Roman ruins nearby - an amphitheatre (still in use as a theatre for live shows today, 2000 years after it was built) and a Roman forum. We also visited the Jordanian Folklore Museum and the Museum of Popular Traditions. That evening it was announced that Ramadaan had ended and it was now Eid, which meant there were fireworks, street parties and loud bangs for half the night.

Roman ruins in Amman

[Tuesday 30 September : Amman, Jordan] It was Eid today, and so almost everything in Jordan was closed. At least we could now eat in public during the day, rather than out of sight in our hotel room. The Jordanians are pretty relaxed about foreigners not conforming to Muslim conventions (unlike other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan), but we still tried our best not to be offensive.

The streets were completely deserted as we walked up the steep hill to Jebel al-Qal'a (Citadel Hill), where there are ancient ruins from various eras of human settlement - the Roman Temple of Hercules (2000 years old), a Byzantine church (1400 years old) and the Umayyad Palace complex (1200 years old). The views over Amman from the top of the hill are superb. In the middle of Amman there is a flagpole, on top of which is an enormous Jordanian flag that is easily the size of a large house. Later we visited the Husseini Mosque and struggled to find a restaurant that was open (they were all closed because of Eid).

[Wednesday 1 October : Madaba, Jordan] It was the second day of Eid and again we found the streets empty with no buses operating. We needed to get to Madaba, a short distance south-west of Amman, and eventually had to resort to taking a taxi. After some haggling with the taxi driver (several drivers, in fact), we agreed on a price and were dropped right outside the front door of the hotel we'd booked in Madaba.

Madaba has a sizeable Christian community, and the main attraction of the town is St George's church (the Church of the Map), which contains a mosaic map on the floor which is the oldest map in the world, dating from the 6'th century AD and only discovered in 1884. Madaba is the centre of mosaic art in Jordan, and almost every building contains incredible mosaics. We also visited the Archeological Park where there is an almost perfectly preserved section of Roman road, 2000 years old.

[Thursday 2 October : Madaba, Jordan] We were staying in the Mariam Hotel, a fantastic place a few minutes walk from the centre of Madaba. The Mariam Hotel proved to be the nicest hotel we stayed in anywhere in the Middle East, and I would recommend it to anybody. Through the hotel we hired a reputable taxi to take us to Mount Nebo (where Moses reputedly saw the Promised Land), Bethany (the site on the Jordan River where St John the Baptist baptised Jesus), the Dead Sea and the local mosaic factory. Mount Nebo is close to Madaba and up a steep road ; the views westward across the Jordan valley to Israel are superb. However, the utter desolation of the desert makes you wonder how anybody could ever have regarded it as "the Promised Land" ... On the summit there is a small Christian chapel and a section cordoned-off for archeological excavation - a few artifacts are on display, all incredibly ancient.

From Mount Nebo the road down to the Jordan River is a steep, twisting, nerve-jangling descent through arid, lifeless landscape, although there is a fair amount of relatively lush vegetation on the banks of the river itself. The Jordan River is now a trickle compared to its size even 50 years ago, mostly because so much water is drawn off upstream by the Israelis ; the Jordanians are pretty angry about this but can't do much about it. A few years ago the whole Jordan River "baptism site" was a military area with no civilian access, but now it's open to everybody. The only military presence we saw was a very bored-looking Jordanian soldier on the riverbank opposite a complex of buildings on the Israeli side. You could easily have swum the few metres across the river to Israel, but I'm guessing that anybody who tried this would be confronted very quickly by several heavily-armed Israeli border guards.

At the Dead Sea we all "swam" in the incredibly salty water ; it is literally impossible to sink - all you can do is float and try not to let any of the water get in your eyes. Even a couple of drops of water stings like crazy. So no thrashing about or splashing and it's a good idea to keep your eyes clamped tightly shut ... We also tried smearing on some of the famous Dead Sea mud, but no immediate improvement in skin tone was seen. Back in Madaba that evening we had supper in the famed Haret Jdoudna restaurant, reputed to be one of the finest in Jordan, and indeed it was excellent.

Lunch at a typical Jordanian restaurant

[Friday 3 October : Wadi Musa (Petra), Jordan] We caught a minibus south on the King's Highway to Wadi Musa, the town nearest Petra. The King's Highway is the old north-south route in Jordan and is quite slow because it goes through every little town on the way, over mountains and down into deep ravines such as Wadi Mujib. There is a more modern, fast (but very boring) freeway to the east called the Desert Highway which goes direct from Amman in the north to Aqaba in the south, bypassing all towns on the way. The King's Highway was interesting and scenic, but it was a long, hot and dusty trip, via many small towns, Wadi Mujib (a spectacular gorge in the mountains) and the sizeable town of Karak. There is an amazingly big, partially ruined castle in Karak, built by the Crusaders in the 12'th century AD - it is seven levels high, many of them underground. On the way south we stopped and had some fantastic Bedouin tea at a roadside stall on a clifftop overlooking Wadi Mujib.

Petra : first view of the Treasury through the Siq

[Saturday 4 October : Wadi Musa (Petra), Jordan] We bought 3-day passes for Petra, the ancient Nabatean city which was at its peak around the first century BC and AD, but which had been inhabited since at least 1000 years BC. It was conquered by the Romans in 106 AD and abandoned in about the 8'th century AD. The Crusaders went through it in the 12'th century and after that it was lost to civilization until it was re-discovered in 1812. We walked into Petra down the "Siq" (a narrow cleft between high rock walls) to the Treasury, a mind-boggling carving in the rock face - this is what you see on all photographs of Petra. The scale of the place is truly staggering. We stayed until late and walked out in the dark ; it was a moving experience walking through the Siq in silence, without the noise of thousands of tourists jabbering and taking photographs.

[Sunday 5 October : Wadi Musa (Petra), Jordan] We visited Petra again, taking a different route past several ancient tombs - Urn Tomb, Silk Tomb, Corinthian Tomb and the tomb of Sextius Florentinus, the Roman governor of the area in the first century. There is also a "high place of sacrifice", where goats (and sometimes humans) were sacrificed to appease the Gods. We had Bedouin tea at a ramshackle restaurant opposite the impressive theatre, a semi-circular arena carved out of the rock in Roman style. That afternoon, after relaxing at our hotel's swimming pool, we took a taxi up to Wadi Musa town (which is some distance from Petra and up quite a steep hill). There isn't much to see in Wadi Musa so we had a late lunch, drew money from an ATM and visited an internet cafe. The words you are reading now were penned in that internet cafe's hot, stuffy, first floor computer room, with a ceiling so low I couldn't stand properly, no air-conditioning, and smoke and fumes from cigarettes and hubbly-bubblies drifting around.

Petra, near Wadi Musa

Centuries-old stone carving

The Roman colonnaded street

[Monday 6 October : Wadi Musa (Petra), Jordan] Our last day in Petra - we walked all the way to Al Deir (also called "The Monastery"), a 10 km slog in the heat up a steep mountain track. The Monastery is huge, a massive edifice that was not actually a monastery but was more likely the tomb of an ancient Nabatean king. There is an urn at the top of the building that looks tiny from below, but which is actually 10 metres high! At the top we drank some ridiculously over-priced (but delicious) Bedouin tea in a deep, shady cave overlooking the Monastery. We also saw the remains of Petra's city centre - the colonnaded street, the Great Temple, Qasr al-Bint (palace of the Pharoah's daughter), Temenos Gate and the remains of the Nymphaeum. Qasr al-Bint is the only free-standing building in Petra still remaining ; all other buildings (as opposed to "buildings" carved out of solid rock) have long since been destroyed by earthquakes over the years.

[Tuesday 7 October : Wadi Rum, Jordan] Caught the early bus (6 AM) from Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum, a wilderness area in the southern Jordan desert. At the Wadi Rum visitor centre we were met by the Bedouin guides we'd previously arranged and taken on a 4-wheel drive jeep trip through the desert, visiting various sites such as Lawrence's spring (where Lawrence of Arabia found water), the red dunes and a high rock arch that Paul and Scott climbed. That night we had delicious Bedouin food while sitting on the ground and spent the night in a Bedouin tent. After the relentless heat of the day in the desert it was surprizingly cold in the early hours of the morning.

[Wednesday 8 October : Wadi Rum, Jordan] After breakfast in the Bedouin camp we spent the rest of the day riding camels through the desert - Paul found it far more comfortable than a horse but Karen had several aches and pains afterwards. Camels "glide" when they walk, rather than bounce up and down like horses, and make loud belching noises similar to Jurassic Park sound effects. They also stop at any opportunity to munch on the tough desert vegetation. Getting them to start, stop, turn or go in the right direction is pretty difficult ... That evening we were treated to the ritual of Bedouin coffee after supper - a long and complex process resulting in a VERY strong, cardamon-flavoured brew served in tiny cups. There is a set procedure involved in drinking the coffee ; you sit in a circle and get served anti-clockwise, you must use only your right hand and when you don't want any more you hold your cup out bottom-up.

Riding the ships of the desert

[Thursday 9 October : Aqaba, Jordan] Our last day in the desert was spent walking - VERY hot. Thankfully lunch was a long rest in the shade. Late in the afternoon we caught a taxi from Wadi Rum to the Desert Highway (the main north-south road in Jordan) and from there south to Aqaba, a port on the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. The taxi was absurdly expensive, but there's no public transport from Wadi Rum at that time of the afternoon. We checked into our hotel covered in red desert dust.

Scott's dad (Clive Gray) had arrived in Aqaba from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia the same day, so Scott had a quick shower in our hotel room then we walked to the hotel Clive was staying in - it was diagonally across the road, conveniently close by. Scott had all his stuff with him because he was going to be staying with his dad until the day we flew out of Jordan in a week's time. We left Scott with Clive, having arranged to meet up at the Mariam Hotel in Madaba on Wednesday afternoon 15 October.

[Friday 10 October : Aqaba, Jordan] Karen and I walked around Aqaba and relaxed after several days of hard travelling. Aqaba is a laid-back city (town?), on the Gulf of Aqaba on the east side of the Red Sea, with a balmy climate and loads of package tourists. You can see Israel across the sea, with the lights of Eilat twinkling at night. The hotel we stayed in was booked via our guide book and turned out to have seen better days quite some time ago (30 years ago, in fact). We saw the old crusader fort, Aila (the old city, being excavated) and the toe-to-toe packed public beach.

Enjoying tea in a bedouin tent

[Saturday 11 October : Aqaba, Jordan] After sorting out our onward travel arrangements we visited the Aqaba Gateway on the beachfront where we watched a Disney-style interactive movie showcasing the highlights of Jordan - very kitsch but quite fun. In the afternoon we took a bus to Club Murjan, a beach resort complex affiliated with our hotel (and 10 km south of Aqaba), where we swam in the Red Sea and relaxed next to the swimming pool.

[Sunday 12 October : Jerash, Jordan] Caught an early bus north to Amman, a four hour trip on the fast, straight (but very boring) desert highway. In Amman we dickered with a few taxi drivers until we found one to take us north to Jerash ; we had booked to stay in a hotel in the hills above town but he got lost on the way. Eventually we found the place, nestled amongst olive groves and ancient pine trees. We had a HUGE 3-course dinner of Arabic food in the hotel dining room that night and swam in their pool. The weather up in the hills this far north is a lot cooler than it was further south in the desert.

[Monday 13 October : Jerash, Jordan] We walked down to Jerash town from the hotel (a long way) then spent the day stomping around the Roman ruins. The old Roman city in Jerash is the best preserved set of Roman ruins in the world, with two amphitheatres in remarkably good condition and still in use. There is a massive arch (Hadrian's Arch), an oval-shaped plaza with impressively huge Roman columns down the sides and a colonnaded street leading off the plaza. Archeologists are working on several sections of the site, with a massive crane reconstructing walls and columns that have fallen over the centuries. We also watched a kitsch and overpriced enactment of some gladiator battles and a chariot race in the Roman hippodrome.

Karen on a reconstructed Roman chariot in the ruins of Jerash

[Tuesday 14 October : Madaba, Jordan] From our hotel in the hills we caught a taxi down to Jerash bus station, a bus from there to Amman and then a mini-bus (called a "serveece") south-west to Madaba. I tried to persuade the driver to drop us near where we wanted to be but had no success, so we had a 15 minute slog in the heat and dusty streets to the hotel we wanted to stay in - the Mariam Hotel, we'd stayed there before and it is a fantastic place. Unfortunately they were full (we hadn't made a reservation) but there was another place next door (Salome Hotel) that had a vacancy and we moved in there for one night.

[Wednesday 15 October : Madaba, Jordan] We moved our stuff from the Salome Hotel to the Mariam Hotel, which was literally across the street. There was nothing wrong with the Salome Hotel ; in fact, it was very nice indeed - new, sparkling clean and with an excellent breakfast. However, we had booked a room at Mariam for that night and previously had such a good experience there that we wanted to stay there again. In addition, Scott and his dad (Clive Gray) were going to meet us at the Mariam Hotel later (they also had a room booked there).

Crossing Dubai creek on an "abra" (water bus)

We spent the rest of the day looking at carpets and Jordanian souvenirs ; Karen bought not one but TWO very nice carpets after a great deal of haggling. We had our last dinner in Jordan that night at the famous Haret Jdoudna Arabic restaurant - very nice. Scott and his dad arrived late in the afternoon, having taken a bus up from Aqaba via Amman.

[Thursday 16 October : Dubai, United Arab Emirates] Straight after breakfast we took a taxi from Madaba to Queen Alia International Airport (which is between Amman and Madaba) and caught our Air Emirates flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. We had a scare at the airport when the x-ray scan of Scott's bag revealed two dangerous-looking metal objects. After a long procedure during which Scott's bag was meticulously searched and we had to fill in copious forms, the mystery objects turned out to be old cartridge cases that Scott had picked up in the desert in Wadi Rum ; they probably dated from the first World War, as there had been a lot of fighting in Jordan at that time. The security people eventually let us through, but I suspect our names are still on some "potential terrorist" list in Jordan ...

The flight to Dubai was about three hours but we lost an hour by flying east. We had some concerns as to whether the electronic visas for the United Arab Emirates we'd applied for would be OK, but we got through immigration at Dubai airport without a hitch. It took a few minutes to figure out the bus system, but it was pretty easy and we caught a bus to Deira, the part of Dubai on the east of the "creek" - Dubai creek is an inlet from the sea that divides the city into "Deira" on the east and "Bur Dubai" on the west. After a short walk through the bewildering streets near Baniyas Square (which is being ripped up to make way for a station on the new Dubai Metro system) we found the hotel we'd booked, but their reservation system was a shambles and they didn't seem to know about us. However, it worked out very well, because they eventually found a much bigger room for us at the same price - a suite, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Very nice, glad their system was rubbish.

The Dubai Gold Souq (market) at night

[Friday 17 October : Dubai, United Arab Emirates] We took a commuter ferry across the creek to Bur Dubai ("ferry" is a bit of a misnomer - these are battered wooden boats with stinking engines that take about 20 people. As soon as the boat is full, it goes). In Bur Dubai we walked through the market area (Scott bought a knock-off Casio watch for 15 Dirhams, about 40 SA Rand). Most of the traders are Indian - very different from Jordan, where almost everyone is Arab. Then we strolled along the creek, past the impressive mosque and into the old area (Bastakiya) which has been meticulously restored. That evening we went to the Gold Souq and marvelled at the gold jewellery on display.

[Saturday 18 October : Dubai, United Arab Emirates] We crossed the creek by ferry again and caught a bus (number X25) west along the coast to the famous 7-star hotel that is shaped like a sail and built on an artificial island, the Burj al Arab. Of course they wouldn't allow us in but we went to the public beach next door and swam in the balmy, warm waters of the Gulf - fantastic. Went to Starbucks for lunch and on the way back on the bus we had good views of "Burj Dubai", the tallest building in the world. It isn't quite finished yet ; as of 2008 it was 688 metres tall, but it will eventually be well over 700 metres high. In comparison, the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) are "only" 452 metres high (see my Australia & Malaysia 2001 travelogue), and the world's previous tallest building (in Taipei, Taiwan) is 508 metres in height.

[Sunday 19 October : Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates] We all took a taxi to the airport where Karen and Scott caught their 8:35 AM Emirates Airlines flight back to South Africa. I (Paul) stayed behind, checked out of the hotel then caught a bus west through the desert to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. In Abu Dhabi I walked some way from the bus station in scorching heat before finding a room in a ludicrously expensive Howard Johnson hotel. The whole of Abu Dhabi is geared for business - there are no tourist hotels and even finding an internet cafe that didn't expect you to have your own laptop was difficult. The entire city consists of gleaming glass, steel and concrete skyscrapers, with wide roads, trees, immaculately kept sidewalks and insane traffic. Every second building seems to be a bank and I did not see another tourist the entire time I was there.

[Monday 20 October : Sharjah, United Arab Emirates] Got up early and went for a walk around Abu Dhabi before the heat set in. The area along the sea (the Corniche) has been very tastefully landscaped with brick-paved paths, trees, lawns, fountains and shrubbery - squeaky clean and great for walking, running or cycling. I visited the oldest building in Abu Dhabi - the "old fort", which dates from the late 19'th century (which shows just how "old" the city is). Pretty much everything else has been built in the last 30 years. Before hopping on a bus to Sharjah I grabbed some coffee and doughnuts for breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts - the coffee was way better than what I'd had at Starbucks in Dubai two days before. The bus trip from Abu Dhabi to Sharjah (a small emirate to the north-east of Dubai) took about two hours, and going past Dubai I was staggered at the amount of construction going on - cranes and half-finished buildings everywhere. The road parallels the new Dubai Metro (elevated, not underground) for part of the way and I saw one of the trains being tested.

Abu Dhabi skyline from the Corniche

[Tuesday 21 October : Sharjah, United Arab Emirates] Walked around Sharjah, a much smaller and more run-down place than either Dubai or Abu Shabi. Compared to Dubai or Abu Dhabi there is very little construction work here (apart from the swanky new Al Qasbi area) - Sharjah definitely appears to be the poor cousin of the UAE. However, Sharjah is known as the cultural capital of the Middle East and there are museums and art galleries everywhere (you certainly could not use the word "cultural" to describe either Dubai or Abu Dhabi). In the centre of town is "Al Hisn", Sharjah's old fort which was almost completely demolished then reconstructed by the Emir several years ago using private funds. The waterfront area (the Corniche) is a working harbour, with boats loading and unloading goods directly onto the pavement ; one side of the 2-lane road along the Sharjah creek is the wharf itself! King Faisal Mosque in Sharjah is very impressive, and is apparently the largest mosque in the UAE. In the late afternoon I took a long walk north-east of town, past the swanky Radisson SAS hotel, to the palm-lined public beach. The beach here isn't great, but I had another swim in the warm waters of the Gulf.

[Wednesday 22 October : Ras Al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates] I took the 8 AM bus north-east to Ras Al-Khaimah, another of the 7 emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates. On the way we went through Ajman and Umm Al-Qawain (both also emirates). Unfortunately Ras Al-Khaimah, while not large, is extremely spread-out, so exploring it on foot isn't easy - you need to take taxis all the time or have your own car. The bus station is no less than 7 or 8 KILOMETRES from town! However, there are miles of completely deserted sandy beaches, with the lukewarm water of the Gulf lapping gently at the shore, and I had a long swim with not a soul in sight in any direction.

The public beach at Sharjah

[Thursday 23 October : Dubai, United Arab Emirates] I bought two "knock-off" Rolex watches from a stall in Sharjah then grabbed a seat in a "shared taxi" south-west to Dubai. The traffic is mind-boggling ; the distance from Sharjah to Dubai is only about 30 kilometres, but it took almost two hours to get here. Total gridlock most of the way - no wonder they're investing so much in building a metro system [Aside : The first phase of the Dubai Metro was opened with much fanfare by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (ruler of Dubai), at 9 minutes past 9 on the evening of 9 September 2009 (9:09:09 on 09/09/09)].

In Dubai I walked around the Deira (east) side of the creek until I found a place to stay for the next two nights ; this is pretty easy, as there are hotels everywhere, unfortunately all of them expensive. In the relative cool of the evening I took a stroll along the creek past the public library, where I read some English-language newspapers.

[Friday 24 October : Dubai, United Arab Emirates] My last day in the Middle East. I took public bus number 10 from the Deira bus station across the creek to the Mall of the Emirates, one of the many huge shopping malls in Dubai. Mall of the Emirates also contains "Ski Dubai", the only indoor ski slope and snow park in the world. The bus trip was quite an eye-opener, because it went through sections of Dubai that tourists do not see - miles of grimy tenement apartment blocks, dusty, dirty streets and thousands of people (mostly Asian contract labourers) living in squalor. Very different from the "public face" of Dubai, with its gleaming skyscrapers, swanky shopping malls and ex-pat foreigners clogging the roads with their 4WD vehicles. Buses are crowded to the rafters (sometimes the driver does not even open the doors to let people in because the bus is already overloaded) with people waiting at bus-stops in their hundreds. The Dubai government is spending billions on building the Dubai metro (an inner-city commuter train system), but it is questionable whether this will benefit the thousands of poverty-stricken Asian migrant workers who have to queue for ages to catch overloaded buses.

View of Ras Al-Khaimah from the creek

Inside the swanky Mall of the Emirates I found myself unable to resist coffee and doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts for lunch. I did not go into Ski Dubai but you can look through big windows and see snow-covered slopes, ski-lifts and people muffled up against the cold ; all this while the outside temperature is 40 degrees Celcius. There is even a restaurant in the mall just outside Ski Dubai with a roaring log fire! Unreal (or should that be surreal?).

[Saturday 25 October 2008 : Cape Town, South Africa] Got up early, checked out of my hotel and caught the 24-hour airport bus (number 401) from Al Sabkha bus station to Dubai airport terminal 2. At the airport I was confronted with a big red sign saying that Emirates Airlines flights to South Africa were now leaving from the newly-opened terminal 3 (not terminal 2), so I had to take an airport shuttle bus to terminal 3. Terminal 3 is the new state-of-the-art section of Dubai airport and is very spacious and comfortable, with none of the over-crowding we experienced when we transited through on our way to Jordan. My flight to Cape Town left half an hour late, but we still managed to arrive half an hour early, at 4 PM - it was a daylight flight. And that was the end of our Middle East adventure ... Next stop Peru, Bolivia and Argentina in 2010?