This is a long story…be prepared for my rambling…

After a wonderful vacation over the holidays in Jerusalem, last Wednesday Bonnie and I began the journey home. We caught a taxi to take us to one of the border crossings in the Jordan River Valley and the first checkpoint was uneventful, just 6 Israeli guards sitting around with their large automatic weapons (Be careful where you point those things, boys!) while one looked at our passports and asked us if we were carrying any weapons…would we actually say yes? I must have forgotten I was carrying my AK-47 that day, silly me. After scanning the taxi for explosives, he allowed us to pass through and down to the bridge where we would go through more security.

We unloaded our 4 suitcases, 2 boxes, 2 other large shopping bags, computer case, and 2 purses…so we did a little shopping…and were escorted into the VIP room. No thank you, I don’t need to pay you $82 to purchase my visa for me when I can do it myself for free. And I'm not a VIP, I'm just a normal person, thank you. We paid our enormous exit tax…now that’s a way to make some money, charge people to LEAVE the country…got our passports checked…not a single question this time, amazing…then sat and waited for the Bridge Bus to fill.

Sidenote: Let me take a moment to say that Bonnie Lawrence is Mary Poppins. She is one of the only people I know who is always prepared with a 7 course meal that she can pull out of her evening clutch if she has to, complete with moist towelettes to finish.

Met a nice American guy in the midst of his Round-the-World trip…a fantastic idea, by the way, that I would encourage everyone to do…got on the bus, crossed the bridge (ok, I didn’t know the Jordan River is actually quite small and I'm probably the only person that has missed seeing it twice) and a Jordanian guard boarded the bus to check passports once again.

All was good until he approached Bonnie and he was puzzled over a “problem” in her passport…I am praying throughout this entire scene, by the way…he then asked her if she had another passport and she politely and honestly replied that yes there was another and pulled it out, showing him the visa he was looking for.

At this point, I knew there would be a problem when the guard sighed and put BOTH of Bonnie’s passports in his pants pocket. And the praying increased.

After checking everyone’s passport he left the bus for a few moments only to return to ask Bonnie to come inside for questioning. Increased praying.

Bonnie returned in 10 minutes and just stared at me and said, They won’t let us through. I stared back at her blankly and said, Ok. Then, since the whole bus was staring at us, we decided to get off the bus to discuss the plan of action:

S: Why won't they let us through? What do we do?
B: They won’t let me through but you can go on if you want to.
S: Ok. Yes.
B: But maybe not? Do you know how to get home from the border?
S: Ok, good point. Ok. I’m not leaving you here.
B: Ok.

So as we started hauling all of our stuff off the bus, the same guard came over and asked, You too? And I said, Yes, she’s my friend and I’m staying with her. Well, he said, what do you do in Jordan? Bonnie replied that she works with the deaf and I’m an English teacher. Hmm, do-gooders. I think this is when they started thinking we might be a bigger problem than they thought. They saw our 5,386 bags that we had with us and helped us carry them to the curb and we watched our bus out of there drive away. Tip: If you are a woman traveling in the Middle East (even if you are the most independent woman in the world and of course you can carry your own bags), it helps to act a bit helpless, while remaining confident that you know what you’re doing and the fact that you can’t get into the country you live in is not a big deal at all! So there we were, sitting on a bench next to 5 Jordanian guards, waiting. This is the point where I realized what was happening and thought, What are we doing?! Here we are, stuck in no-man’s land. We can't go back, because we’ve wasted our last 124 shekels trying to get out and who knows what they would make us do and we can’t go forward. So we're stuck. But of course we knew they couldn’t leave us there forever so we sat and waited and prayed, not really sure what to do.

After about 20 minutes, a bus came along and one of the guards motioned for us to get on. Ok? We can go? Just like that? No explanation? We were confused. Well, we weren’t going to take time to ask questions but very quickly placed our 4,792 bags on board before they changed their minds and hopped on. There was only one woman with her 2 children on the bus and she explained to us that they were making her go back to Jordan, even though her home was in Palestine. So our problem really wasn’t a problem after all. At least we were able to go home.

At the next passport control, a very nice old man named Mahmoud pleasantly questioned us in the interview room, commented that my name sounded British (“But it’s an Arabic name of course!” I said with a smile), and he chuckled and said we could go. We quickly found a taxi to take us up the mountain and departed for Amman.

So after a long day of travel, we arrived at home, with all of our luggage, safe and sound, once again avoiding a major international mishap. I love the Middle East.