We fly up along the Saudi/Iraq border. The haze over the Arabian peninsular means there is little to see. As we swing into Jordan the air clears and the landscape sharpens up. There is a lot that is familiar to Australian eyes. Sweeping dry riverbeds carve up the landscape.But there is a constant dun to the sand and rock, the Australian brass, oranges and reds missing. As we drop lower dry water course show up scanty vegetation following their underground resources while the number of farmlets increases. Goats and sheep, standing around truck handing out hay. How very familiar. Contour ploughing and lines of trees, possibly olives planted along the contours as well. Dust. Haze. Weedy paddocks and rocks. Perimeter rushes up on us, guard towers every so many hundred metres and here we are. Welcome to Jordan. I messed up the transfers into the city to jumped a taxi whose driver ripped me my change but who pretty much stuck to his lane, got out of the way of speeding BMWs and got me into the city in one piece OK. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Thanks for reading. This blog is an opportunity for me to capture some of the diversity of my writing interests. My muse tend to appear on my shoulder as I board an international flight although not all of my writing is inspired by travel and foreign places. These blogs have been the basis of a novel (Flowers of Baghdad) but there are a few other writing projects in progress besides. Please feel free to leave a comment. Or two.