Sunday September 24 to Monday September 25, 2017
It was a very long day waiting for an almost midnight flight out of JFK to Amman, Jordan via Paris. The trip was seven hours flying time plus a 3 hour layover in Charles de Gaulle Airport, plus a 4 hour and 40 minute flight to Queen Alia Airport, arriving at 9:30 pm local time.
I had read about obtaining a visa before going through passport control at the Jordan airport and I hoped it wouldn’t be too complicated. Fortunately, it wasn’t. There were large signs in English and Arabic proclaiming a 40 JOD fee ($56.50). The exit signs led to a large white marble room. There was a currency exchange booth and an adjoining ATM machine along one wall. Opposite there were side-by-side booths, one for purchasing a visa and the other for passport control.
After I used the ATM machine, I lined up with other tourists to get my visa. Totally painless. Afterwards, I took the escalator down to the exit to find a taxi. I had read about a variety of rates: anywhere from $7 to $50 and “official government” taxis as well as “unofficial” buyer-beware taxis.
I was stopped by two separate smiling men asking if I wanted a taxi, but fortunately I saw a “tourist information” sign near the doors and rejected their offers. I went to the tourist desk and inquired about a taxi to my hotel. The man welcomed me to Amman and asked if I had a reservation at the hotel. I suppose he would find a hotel for me if I didn’t.
I told him I had a reservation at the Fairmont Hotel. He said he didn’t know it so I took out my reservation papers and then he recognized it and said the hotel was very new and had just opened three weeks ago.
He wrote the name and address of the Fairmont on a piece of paper and told me the official taxis were white and it would cost me 20 JODs to travel 30 kilometers to the city center. I went out to the line of waiting white official taxis. I showed the little paper to a group of men in official blue shirts and followed one of them to his taxi.
The driver spoke a little English but I was too tired to chat. I looked out of the window to see what Amman looked like. All the other cars on road looked dusty and covered with sand. The highway looked shiny and clean like the asphalt had just been poured. Alongside the roads there were short pine trees randomly sticking out of sand and rocks. There are hills everywhere and the lights from the houses lit up the darkness. The gray buildings were very plain and all looked like poured concrete slab construction. When we drove past a building with armed guards, the driver told me “security is very good in Amman.”
I arrived at the Fairmont about 11 pm exhausted but excited. A platoon of doormen descended on the taxi. They opened my door and greeted me, took my suitcase from the trunk, said something to the driver, and escorted me into a security room. One of the doormen put my suitcase and backpack on the conveyor belt and all my bags went through airport-like X-ray. The security guard looked me over throughly.
Then the doorman led me into a spacious, flower-filled, white marble lobby. I thought I had arrived in heaven!
Ahji, a polite young man who told me his American mother lives in California, welcomed me to Jordan and checked me in. The doorman escorted me to my fabulous room and placed my suitcase in the walk-in closet. It had been my idea to arrive one day early and stay at a nice hotel after traveling so far to get a good nights sleep before joining the tour group. The Fairmont was wonderful and even better than I expected. (I even got a good on-line rate with breakfast and late check-out.)
A nice touch was complimentary bottles of water and a bowl of fruit and pastries: paklava and a fantastic white chocolate dessert covered with assorted berries. Unfortunately, I wasn’t hungry….
This was a great way to begin an adventure. I slept quietly and peacefully, and I looked forward to touring and seeing more of Jordan.