Really, I wouldn't have been so glad to be out of Egypt if it hadn't thrown us one last sucker-punch before we left. From the Sinai town of Dahab it was a one hour drive north to the port of Nuweiba, and even though the drive took two hours (with the obligatory hour of circling Dahab before leaving) we weren't that concerned; we had left plenty of time and still arrived in Nuweiba four hours before the ferry was scheduled to leave. We bought our tickets without much fuss, threw our packs on our back, and walked to the entry gate.

The port was surrounded by a high perimeter wall. After waving our passports and tickets at the guard we were let through and found ourselves in a huge, run-down shipyard. There were stacks of freight containers, cars and trucks waiting to be loaded, and dozens of buildings of all shapes and sizes. To our right, about 200 Egyptians sat in the shade under an old metal canopy. I was surprised that so many of my fellow passengers had already showed up. Sarah and I joined the crowd and sat down to wait.

After and hour without much activity, and knowing we had to clear customs before leaving, I left Sarah with the bags and set out to find the right building. I wandered around the grounds, circling buildings and passing a lot of armed guards who either didn't notice me or didn't care. At one point I saw a large "Customs" sign, but following it just took me to a small one-room hovel with a dirty floor and a cot. I returned to Sarah without any idea what to do next.

At the ticket booth outside we had met Kristian and Bronwyn, a nice Australian couple, and while I was searching one side of the shipyard Kristian was exploring the other. He returned with the news that down an unmarked alley he thought he might have found the Immigration room. Once again we shouldered our packs and headed off.

You know that feeling you get when you arrive at the airport on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and some snowstorm out East has caused nationwide delays and so the already over-crowded airport is even more overcrowded, with lines that criss-cross and people screaming and luggage piling up like artillery bunkers? We faced a scene not unlike that, but without any remaining vestiges of order (silly things like lines or helpful signage). The room was roughly the size of a football field. Down at the opposite endzone were three or four small booths that I understood to be the Immigration counters. Between them and us were 100 yards of solid humanity.

Silly Westerners that we were, the four of us first tried the honorable thing. We waiting in line. Well, not so much waited in line as we stood at the back of the pack. After a half-hour we hadn't moved an inch. Not so much as one toe-length. Next we tried the dumb foreigner approach. We moved to the side of the room and slithered up along the wall until we were near the front. Then we grabbed every person in a uniform that came within ten feet of us, gave them our best dumb and sweet look, the kind of look that's supposed to say, "Aw shucks, this is awfully confusin' to someone as dumb and innocent as me. . . maybe you could just stamp our passports?"

Things started looking up when a uniformed guy who spoke good English said, "No problem, 5 minutes." After being so despondent, hearing this news produced a rush of endorphins that clouded my better judgement. I should have known that "No problem, 5 minutes" should be translated as "Not a chance in Hell, but why don't you just stand here for an hour anyway."

This whole time we had not seen a single person actually pass through Immigration. People were crowding the counters by the hundreds, but the immigration officers inside hardly noticed. It was time for evasive action.

We walked right through the Immigration area into the relative quiet of the waiting room. Since no one had been processed, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Then we attacked the booths from the rear, pounding on the windows, stopping every officer who came in and out, and generally making ourselves as annoying as possible. Eventually this tactic paid off. An officer motioned for us to bring our passports up to the window. We pushed our way to the counter, I snaked my hand through the crowd, and I pushed our four passports through the window. The guy in the booth ignored the crush of Egyptians who had been waiting for hours and stamped ours first. God bless racism! It didn't bother me at all that I was being hypocritical, budging to the front of the line after complaining so much about all the Chinese and Egyptians who had done the same to me. Guess you had to see the line to understand.

Things settled down after this. A bus came and drove us out to the ferry. Westerners boarded first. As we climbed aboard the ticket taker said there was a problem with our ticket, it was missing a stamp our something. I put on my best Dumb American face and he waved us aboard with a a disgusted look.

Disembarking at the Jordan port of Aqaba was much more sane. They took everyone's passport as we got off the ferry (a little disconcerting at first, but in hindsight it was a brilliant tact in an area where no one knows how to wait in line) and then after a brief wait called us up country by country to collect our freshly-stamped passports. Westerners first, and without any pushing or shoving!

The four of us taxi'd into town and checked into our hotel. Immediately we were subjected to our first shot of genuine Jordanian hospitality.

Jordanians, like Egyptians, are extremely polite. Any greeting begins with an elaborate series of well-wishing. First comes the "Peace be upon you" and then the "and upon you be peace" response. This is just the start. A few more vocal pleasantries may be exchanged, followed by a n embrace where the two people grab each other's upper arms and then lean forward to do sort of euro-style cheek kissing thing. You don't actually kiss the check but you make a loud kissing sound next to each ear.

Westerners usually just get a "Welcome" or a "Hello" instead of that first part, but we do get to share in their favorite manifestation of hospitality: tea. Jordanians feel it is their duty to offer tea to anyone who comes through their doors. Within an hour of stepping foot in the country, we had already endured three of these forced feedings. They drink incredibly sweet tea that's flavored with spices like cardoman, thyme, and sage. It is served in small shot glasses that you down in one or two quick tosses. What their servings lack in size they make up for in frequent dosing. Sometimes they substitue coffee for tea; either a sweet, thick sludge of Turkish coffee or a thinner oil-slick of Arabic coffee tinged with cardoman. By the end of our first night, we were scared to make eye-contact with people for fear of being offered more tea.

After dinner with Kristian and Bron, Sarah and I set out to wander the streets. The sidewalks were busy without being over-crowded. A nice breeze blew in off the Gulf of Aqaba and cars were newer models that used (gasp) unleaded fuel, so the air was much more fresh than in Cairo or Luxor. People looked at us without leering. They smiled. When I bought a mineral water, the guy charged me the local price without any haggling! I wanted to give him a big hug.

The next morning Sarah, I, and our Australian friends climbed into a Landcruiser for a trip into the desert. We were joined by our driver, Liv, and two Argentinan women (a mother and daughter) who had booked with the same driver. We drove east out of Aqaba and soon left the pavement. We stopped under a lone tree -- what I liked to think of as a Jordanian forest -- so that Liv could let some air out of the tires, and I surveyed our surroundings.

We were driving down a flat, sandy valley lined on each side by large sandstone cliffs. The sand, the cliffs, everything was red. There were a few lonesome shrubs here and there.

This was Wadi Rum, the region of desert made famous by T.E. Lawrence. "Lawrence of Arabia," as he was more popularly known, was an upper-class englishman, an expert on the Middle East who was pressed into service by the British in World War One to help lead an Arab revolt against the Turkish empire. Lawrence lived in Wadi Rum and often retreated here to its secure canyons with his Arab comrades.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the area. It was a beautiful landscape of weathered sandstone mountains above and rippling sand below. In some places were wide-open vistas that stretched forever, elsewhere we were boxed in narrow red canyons. We hiked up to a well that sprung from a mountain into the dry landscape, we walked through the remains of Lawrence's house, and we examined some old rock carvings that were either made by Lawrence's troops early this century or were created 2000 years ago by Nabatean traders, Liv wasn't very clear about the details. In the evening we ate a dinner of rice and roasted chicken and then, after a game of cards, pulled our sleeping pads and blankets onto the sand and stared up at the stars. I woke up several times during the night and was glad I did. The stars were most spectacular around 3 AM.

We woke up with the sun and enjoyed the view across the valley. The sun was changing the color of the cliffs opposite our camp. Things were good until the Argentian mother went crazy on us and suddenly began screaming at us in Spanish, spit flying from her mouth. She forced her nice daughter to translate, "We are must go now. We have bus to Amman in morning." I would guess the mom was using somewhat more colorful language, but the daughter was either too nice to translate it exactly as spoken or else she skipped the 4-letter word chapter in her English lesson.

On the way to Aqaba, we had Liv drop us off at an intersection where we could flag down a bus heading north to Petra. We were in the middle of nowhere. Desert on all sides, two roads disappearing over separate horizons. The sky was blue, but it was morning still and not unbearably hot. Across the road was a small hut from which a few armed military personnel emerged. They waved for us to come over.

The four of us crossed the street. We began pulling out our passports and prepared for the usual military checkpoing drill we knew so well from Egypt.

The leader approached us with a serious look. With his thick, well-trimmed moustache and military outfit he could have passed for Sadam Hussein. Behind him, two junior officers stood still and fingered their automatic rifles. We tried to act as casual as possible. I held up my passport, but he waved it off and pointed to some nearby chairs. We shuffled over to the chairs and glanced nervously at each other.

The leader motioned to one of his subordinates, who then ducked into the hut. The leader turned back to us.

"Welcome!" he said, smiling. I heard a clink and saw that the lackey was returning from the hut with -- what else -- TEA! We were in for some police brutality, Jordan style.

Everyone sat down around the small table and shared glass after glass of tea. We didn't speak Arabic and they didn't speak much English, so our conversation mainly consisted of smiles and shukran's (thank-you's). Whenever the conversation lulled, the leader would say "Welcome." Sometimes he said it with a sort of serious head-bob. Sometimes he was smiling. Other times it was almost a question. It was his one English word and he was milking it for all he could.

We sat there for 45 minutes or an hour, in the middle of the desert, next to that small hut. We talked as you always talk when you don't have a common language. I point to myself and say "America." Then one of them points to me and says, "America?" Then we all smile and laugh. Kristian pulled out a map and that was good for another 15 minutes of conversation. One of points to Australia and everyone says, Australia! They point to Jordan and we all say, Jordan!

It sounds stupid, doesn't it? A bunch of adults babbling like infants, wasting an hour talking about nothing in particular. But I tell you this: it's moments like these that this trip is all about. It is finding new friends and talking with smiles and generosity, not with words. It is sipping tea in a land you've never been to before, with the Jordan Desert Patrol Corps, next to an empty highway, in a beautiful desert.

"Tea?"