Welcome to Jordan

That's what the border sign reads, along with the Arabic writing. The Arabic writing goes right to left, and is even more difficult to make out what the letters might be. First thing to do, step into an air-conditioned room.....ahhhh! We go through a metal detector and send our stuff through the x-ray machine. Go to door 14. The room is about 10'x12', a desk with a computer and some Jordanian stuff hanging on the walls. In walks a Jordanian army border patrol. We hand over our passports. He hands over the passports through a small window in the wall behind him. Go to door 15. We step back out and knock on the window since the door is locked. While waiting, the only other people crazy enough to cross the border at 3pm in this heat is a Jordanian, I think, and a man and woman that drove through in a Mercedes taxi from Jordan. The guy asks us “where are you going?” “ Petra.” “How you getting there?” “We are grabbing a taxi just outside the border crossing.” “Mind if we join you”, he asks, “we don't have much money, we can help out a bit.” Yoshi and I look at each other....”sure why not?” “Where you 2 from,” we ask. The guy is from Jerusalem, the girl is from California. We tell them where we are from. The window slides open and we get our passports. “We'll meet you out there, we will grab a taxi.” The couple is still waiting for their passports.