I hadn’t intended to go months on end without posting nor for this to turn into a travel blog, however here we are and I’m off adventuring again!
I am currently sitting in a trendy coffee bar in downtown Amman, Jordan. I’m joining a tour with intrepidtravel.com (same people I went to Morocco with) this evening, but flights were such that I arrived a night early… well, just…
Yesterday was a full on day of travelling, on which I would count several learnings that I may carry forward to future trips. Firstly, Heathrow Terminal 2 is definitely not my lucky terminal!!! It was where I sat for hours en route to Morocco watching the chances of making my connecting flight in Lisbon slip away… and the same thing happened yesterday as my 1h35 layover in Istanbul dwindled to nothing before we had even left British soil. So, learning #1 is that wherever possible, I will henceforth avoid connections in favour of direct flights. The potential additional cost seems a reasonable trade off for limiting panic and connection incidents!
As it happens, Turkish Airlines would appear to be such a disorganised airline that by the time I arrived in Istanbul the onward flight to Amman was itself delayed by almost 2 hours. In this knowledge, I power walked the 30 minutes cross terminal (if you’ve not been, Istanbul airport is *huge*) to the connecting gate only to be greeted with carnage as staff were announcing that the flight had been overbooked and asking for volunteers to fly the next day. Turkish / Jordanian travellers are impatient and spirited and it was quite the circus!! So learning #2 could very possibly be to give Turkish Airlines a wide berth in future…
The most comedic aspect of all of this was that I had shunned a direct BA flight due to the very late arrival time. And it now looked like I would have spent more hours travelling *and* end up arriving even later. The saving grace was that my transfer from airport to hotel was waiting exactly where he said he would be even after 2 hours delay. Thank you GetYourGuide.
I finally arrived at my hotel just after 2am local time… only midnight UK time, but still a bloody long day having left Cardiff just after 8am.
I shall be treating myself to a siesta today, so that my 57 year old body is well rested enough to get into the trip proper with a vengeance. Look out for more posts in the coming days!
50shadesofbrave 