A short introduction for my friends . . . .
I’m visiting Jordan and Syria for Christmas and New Year because Ken Turner wanted to go to Uganda!
Make sense?
My travelling companions Pam and Ken talked me into going away for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Ken wanted to spend it with the apes in Uganda and then visit Ethiopia on the way home. I succumbed.
Within days I had secured scarce allocations and guide services to visit the apes in the Bwindi National Park; obtained rooms in an acceptable category of hotel in Lalibela (running water and flushing toilet) in the north of Ethiopia for the popular Orthodox Christmas celebrations; and confirmed seats on Emirates to Entebbe and Addis Ababa, (conveniently included on the same flight routing out of Dubai).
Then sister Annie gets into the act and points out the recent ‘Travel Advisories’ warning of serious dangers of westerners being kidnapped by machete-wielding Rwandan bandits in the Bwindi National Park!
So, the ‘master researcher’ Michael, who didn’t really have plans to go away at this time of the year in the first place, has to find a replacement destination to spend time over the Christmas/New Year period. Travelling on Emirates, we’re near to the Holy Land, so why not spend it close by?
Come with us now to Jordan and the “Axis of Evil” country, Syria! We’re going to see outstanding monuments to several civilisations
– Nabatean, Roman, Early Christian, Umayyad, and Crusader. We’re also going to walk where Moses, Abraham, St John the Baptist, Jesus and St Paul walked before us. Don’t worry friends, we’ll also be doing a bit of eating which I will share with you.
Click here to read story that commences with Christmas in Jordan before we fly into Aleppo and drive to Damascus for New Year’s Eve, in Syria. The next leg, to Ethiopia for their Orthodox Christmas in Lalibela is covered in another post.