Amman airport was closed. Fog! Fog? In the desert? From the nearby Dead Sea – I guess. My flight from Doha (Dave, wisely as it turned out, had taken a different route home) had been circling for an hour but now we diverted to Aqaba – Aladdin’s home town??? No: course not. Aqaba is a small resort town in the far south of Jordan near the Egyptian border. The airport was exactly as you might imagine in a small town on the the Egyptian border. Certainly not equipped for the 1,000 or so passengers disembarking from half dozen diverted planes now parked next to the tiny terminal.
Surprisingly, the airport had a small, simple business lounge. Sanctuary from the throng in the main departure area. An Iraqi, an Englishman, two Americans and three Scots walk into a an airport business lounge – you complete the joke. Six hours we waited. Six hours!!! Thankfully this was Jordan, not Qatar, and so at least we had some booze to dull the pain!
Finally another crew arrived to take us to Amman. But if Aqaba was unprepared to host 1,000 diverted passengers, Amman was completely overwhelmed by the 1,000’s of passengers trying to rebook new flights. Chaos! An education in queuing cultures in different parts of the world. In fact: there was no queue. Dave and I have a mantra on these trips – don’t get separated from the World Cup herd (or herrrrd as Dave would say – you have to roll your “R’s” to get the Scots accent effect). But now I was like that one last wildebeest at the back of the stampede in Lion King. I was there for the taking.
This called for decisive action. So: I decided to stand in line to get my Jordan entry visa; clear immigration; customs; find a half decent airport hotel and a taxi to get there. (unaccompanied western tourist – it was a feeding frenzy at the taxi line). Three hours it took. Three hours!!! But eventually I was in a reasonable hotel room with a fully charged phone, able to reconnect with the world and make some new plans.
A day late, and after connecting through Istanbul Turkey I finally made it home. Irony of ironies: the first attempt at landing in Istanbul was aborted when we were about 10 feet from the ground – because of fog!!!! Who knew the eastern Mediterranean had such a fog problem?
Ok: so I know this has nothing to do with football or the World Cup. But I tell the story for two reasons. (1) it was a timely reminder that Qatar, while amazing, was not entirely representative of the Middle East. (2) I’m eternally grateful to live in a country where things, for the most part, work!
What! Scotland Qualified!!! 