It had been freezing cold in Paris and we were looking forward to some warmer weather, but it was cold, too, when we arrived in Amman. In fact, earlier that day it had snowed a bit, and although the snow had not stuck, when we woke up the next morning we opened the curtain of our hotel room to a mix of snow and rain and heavy fog.
And when we came back up after breakfast the fog was so thick we couldn't see a thing out the window.
Not the best weather for sightseeing, so we decided to just drive around town.
Police on the street are very friendly but not always able to provide good directions. One such policeman was on the phone when we stopped at his side to ask for directions and after asking in our best fake broken English for the way to Petra he spoke some Arabic into the phone and then handed over the phone to Dianny so the person on the other side could give her directions.
Eventually we found our way to the desert highway and headed south. The Jordanian desert is harsh, arid, rocky, and completely bare, and this is all we saw along the way. But the rain had stopped and eventually we even saw a bit of blue in the sky.
After about two and a half hours we got off the main highway and started the crossover to Petra up the hills. There was more fog and some snow from the day before. By then we were wondering if we were in the wrong country. We saw a car stop on the side of the road and put a big chunk of icy snow in their trunk. I suppose they wanted to bring it home for the rest of the family to see.
But once we went over the top of the hill and started our descent to the town of new Petra the weather and visibility had improved.
And by the next morning we had beautiful blue skies.
