Sharon, Jean and I had spent the morning sightseeing in the old quarter of Damascus. We noticed a government tourist office near the souks we had been walking through.
“Perhaps the well dressed information lady would call the driver for us in Arabic to arrange to pick us up at hotel to drive us to Amman tomorrow?”
“It is worth a try” Jean said. Jean and Sharon, my American travelling companions for the past 10 days had been on the trip to Syria and Lebanon; we wanted to extend our trip to see Petra in Jordan.
I retrieved the slightly crumpled Arabic business card from my jeans pocket. My taxi driver from Amman had pushed in my hand 10 days ago in Damascus as he gestured for me to change from his taxi to a local cab on the side of the highway.
“Would you be so kind as to call on your cell this number to ask if he would drive us from Damascus to Amman with a stop at Bosra to see the Roman amphitheater?” I said to the tourist information officer.
With a friendly smile and courteous gesture, she took my card and pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number, all in Arabic. We were anxious, as we had tried the number with our concierge at our hotel, only to find out that the number was not active at the moment of the call. The driver had two cell numbers, one for Amman and one for Damascus, so he must have been in Amman when we called the Syrian number.
The lady dialed the local Syrian number while looking us in the eye as to the validity of our request, for some reason. I had previously written out the instructions for her to relay when the number answered.
“Hello! Hello!” she said in Arabic and the conversation continued with the lady gesturing and confirming what was written on my note. She paused to confirm with us in English the time of the pickup. He wanted to come later for some reason, which would become evident later, but we insisted on 11am the next day. He also raised the price from $50 to $100 to account for the 2 hour detour to Bosra. Between the three of us, it was worth it!
Finally the driver agreed to our terms, and she hung up, gave the card back to us and smiled. We thanked her and started back to the hotel to relax before we went to our farewell dinner with our tour group that evening.
I had had a great experience with this driver 10 days previously and trusted him, which would become imperative at the crossing later the next day,
As agreed, a local taxi driver picked us up at our hotel and took us to the edge of Damascus, about a 45 minute hectic, fumed filled, chaotic traffic jam packed ride. He said our driver will be along in about 30 minutes. We were all alone sitting under a shady tree with our bags still in the back of the taxi. We did not pay him until our highway driver showed up as a precaution.
Our driver from Amman pulled his car off the highway into the dusty parking lot and the local guy came to get us and transfer our luggage. My driver was pleased to see me and recognized me from our trip from Amman to Damascus 10 days earlier. I had made the trip in what is called a shared taxi with strangers. In my case it was a middle aged Syrian woman well dressed in the black overcoat from head to toe and her engineer son who dressed in the Western style. The lady ended up being the interpreter for the trip and it was very pleasant. The border from Jordan to Syria had been a nightmare with five different checkpoints of all of our passports. The driver was able to negotiate the different checkpoints without much delay which impressed me. I made a mental note to try to get him to drive us back to Amman after our bus trip adventure with my running friends in Syria and Lebanon.
He shook my hand and gestured for Jean and Sharon to get in the car and we commenced our trip. He tried to communicate with us with hand gestures and words in Arabic and we smiled and agreed, which is what tourists do. He asked if it was OK to smoke, but Jean said it was not as she was allergic. He said that it was OK and he sometimes pulled off the road when he wanted to engage in his addiction. He usually chewed gum after he finished.
Along the way to Bosra, he pulled over to a stall selling rich ripe red tomatoes. He got across to us that it would be three times the price in Amman and that he had got his orders from his wife to bring a case of them back. Once again, this was a confidence building activity that would give us comfort later in the day when we needed it.
We had a great visit to the 2nd century Roman amphitheater in Bosra. Meanwhile, in the heat of the day, the driver socialized with the locals in a restaurant close to the entrance to the structure.
Finally, after one o’clock we headed for the border. He gave us the customs and immigration forms to fill out and he piled our passports up next to him ready for the border.
As we approached the checkpoint he got out his border crossing visa and shoved some Syrian notes inside it. I was beside him in the front and noticed what looked like a bribe, but did not make a comment.
He handed his visa to the guard and waited. After what seemed like ten minutes, the border guard told him to get out of the car and go to the checkpoint cabin. Afterwards, his moved his car over to the side off the highway. We waited and waited in the car in the blistering heat, while seeing lots of other cars pass by without incident. Finally, he came back to the car and turned around to head back to Damascus!
What is going on? The three of us looked at each other with puzzled expressions on our faces.
After about half a mile, our driver noticed an empty minivan travelling to the checkpoint in the other direction. He shouted at the van to stop and wait for him. Now we were really confused. What is happening? How are we going to cross the border? He turned the car around and pulled up behind the van and started to have an animated discussion with the driver of the van.
Then the van driver, thankfully he spoke reasonable English, came and told us to get into his van and leave our luggage in our driver’s car and that everything would be all right. This is where the trust factor with our driver comes in. We did what we were told like sheep, but all the time getting worried as to what the problem was.
Finally the new driver explained that the border was closed after one pm to foreigners. He told us he was going to try to get us across. Meanwhile our luggage will travel with our original driver.
Was this going to work? The van was air-conditioned, with all the windows covered with the black sunscreen cover which made us feel like we were illegal’s. The three of us were tense and not talking at all. He approached the ominous checkpoint and again the guard started to argue with him. Of course, all this was in Arabic but we were getting the drift. The van driver was pointing to us and basically spinning his finger at his head to indicate that we were stupid and did not respect the time constraints of the border. He was pleading for the guard to consider letting us cross. More arguing continued as we sat quietly in the back like sheep in pens waiting for the electric prod!
Finally the guard gave up and let us cross. Whew! The van driver then found our driver with our luggage and we got back in his car. We headed for the Jordanian customs officer who had us unload our entire luggage, and the girls had lots of it, onto the sidewalk. He made a cursory examination and we were on our way to pay the entrance fee to Jordan. There were three lines: - Locals, Foreigners, and Women. After deliberations, Sharon and Jean decided on the Foreigners line which was the right one.
We then got on our way to Amman feeling relieved that we and our luggage made it from Syria to Jordan in one piece.
My faith in our driver was well placed and he was worth every penny of the $100 U.S., which is a lot in the local currency.
