Joseph, his buddy and I leave his Bedouin camp and pile into his truck at 5:40AM and make our way to Bait Ali. We arrive at the playa, a dried up lake, on schedule at 6AM. I still harbor some doubts as to whether the plane will really show up. I've arranged for a pilot from the Jordan Aero Club to fly a small plane in to the desert playa north east of Bait Ali and pick me up for a flight around Wadi Rum and back to Aqaba.
I get out of the truck and scan the horizon, listening intently for the buzz I know will accompany the plane. I assure Joseph that it will come, be patient, there is likely bureacracy involved in leaving the ground in Aqaba. Then I hear it. I scan the horizon and there it is, a tiny insect flying above the vast Rum desert. I feel like a small kid anticipating a new toy at Christmas, excited, not quite sure what to expect.
"Are we in the right location? Is it too bumpy to land? Will I like the pilot? Will they let me fly the plane or ask me to keep my hands off the controls?" These are a few of the thoughts running through my head. It quickly closes the distance, circles, descends and is on final approach before I know it. They do a go around on the first pass, landing the second time round.
The pilot is Houda, an Algerian woman who is a delight to be with. Very good natured, a very competent pilot, and as you can see in the photo, very attractive. She has a passenger, Jim, who I assume is staying at Bait Ali. I discover only much later that Jim is met by a friend and taken quickly back to Aqaba. More on this later.
With trepidation I ask Houda whether she is an instructor.
"Of course!" is the bubbly reply.
"Can I fly the left seat?", this is code for, "I'm a pilot and want to be 'pilot in command' of this aircraft so I can log the time."
"Of course!", is the bubbly reply.
We clamber into the Remos, a German made Light Sport Aircraft. It has gull wing doors that fasten to the bottom of the wings when open. It is made from composite, weighs about 650 pounds empty, carries a load of 21 gallons of fuel, cruises at 130mph, burns 3 gallons per hour and is powered by a 100hp Rotax engine. Quite a piece of engineering!
She helps me power up, as I've never flown this type of aircraft before. It's the first time I've used a stick to control the plane, everything else I've flown has a yoke (like a steering wheel). Houda tells me to, "Take off". "Full power", she repeats several times. I see us heading for a berm a few hundred feet away and can't believe we will clear it. The plane leaps off the ground well before reaching the berm. Take off roll when fully loaded (and we are 200 pounds shy of full load) is 330 feet. This thing is a dream to fly!
I realize too late that I do not have a map of Wadi Rum handy and so we fly south for a while, snapping photos but not really knowing what we are shooting. Heck, I don't care, I'm having a blast flying this small plane over beautiful terrain in a new country (I've flown before in the US, Canada, France, Portugal but not Jordan) with a delightful woman beside me. Life is good.
Houda points out a camel racetrack and a farm that has the shape of a man. You can see the two long legs in the picture. We spend 45 minutes in the area before heading back to Aqaba, the home base for the plane. Houda lets me fly it to within 50 feet of the ground and then she takes over as I'm not a member of their club and hence not insured for landings.
For the pilots in the crowd, Aqaba ATC (Air Traffic Control), is not used to handling many planes. We ask whether we can fly along the coast in a practice area and we are told that, "No, there is incoming traffic." I feel like grabbing the mic and saying, "So???" At Palo Alto airport, they routinely have planes coming in from 3 or 4 directions at once, 8 or more planes "in the pattern", and have several planes maneuvering over Stanford or over the salt marsh on the shore. Aqaba ATC telling us that there is another plane in the area so therefore we can't go along the coast is underwhelming at the least. No matter, the flight has been a blast.
We pull up to the hangar and I see someone that looks a lot like the passenger, Jim, that she took to Bait Ali. I ask whether Jim has a brother or close relative that looks much like him. They both laugh at me as they explain that it is Jim, he took a car back to Aqaba and arrived before I did? He goes on to explain that he is the Chief Pilot for the Aero Club, recently coming out of retirement from South Africa to have some fun in Jordan (and distance himself from a political situation that is gradually becoming less friendly to whites).
The flight is a great way to finish off a trip! I cross the border from Aqaba to Eliat and catch a bus to Tel Aviv, a 5 hour ride. The bus stops for a break along the way and while buying a drink I see an incredible display of pushing, shoving, cutting lines in order to get to the cash register. Old women, especially, seem to think it is their God given right to cut in front of you without looking at you or saying a word. I employ chicken wing and pack bashing techniques to make my way to the register. With the chicken wing technique, I put my hands on my hips and extend my elbows as far laterally as I can, using them to keep others from creeping ahead of me. In pack bashing, I turn my body quickly and my heavy backpack (full of camera gear), tends to clear the area directly behind me. As it is, I barely get back on my bus before it continues to Tel Aviv.
I arrive back at Oren and Inbar's appartment to find 15 open bottles of wine! They are mostly the same kind of wine, left over from the wedding. I sample several by the time they return home after work.
Finally, I get Oren and Inbar to agree that I can take them out AND PAY for dinner. They have been diligent about not letting me spend a cent (shekel) on food. We go to GooCha, a seafood and fish restaurant bar where the house speciality is Mokika, a Brazilian seafood dish with fish, shellfish, chili, coconut milk and tomatoes. It's very similar to cioppino and it is excellent.
Then there is desert. Inbar takes us to her favorite ice cream shop. I decide to be good and order fig ice cream and pitango yogurt, which I've never heard of but which is quite tart when you first taste it but quickly mellows to a subtle sweetness to finish. However, Oren goes next door to get his favorite desert. It is affogato al caffe, a simifrado of white chocolate smothered in espresso. Folks, I've never tasted something this good. It's from Amore Mio in Tel Aviv and if you make it to Israel, you MUST try this.
What a great note on which to finish a wonderful and rejuvenating vacation. So many memories, new friends, great photos. It has been life changing.
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