Sometimes you come to a fork in the path and have to make a decision. Sometimes its the right one, sometimes not. We are currently still ploughing up and down some horrific mountains on our poor, hard working bus now instead of wandering around Petra.

This is due to a wrong turn, a gamble that didn't pay off. Well, three actually and I guess I'll have to take the blame for them all.

From Palmyra we drove out of town to find the road to Damascus. After stopping for fuel, the bus refused to start. An unexplained flat battery. In exchange for 3 enormous Weymouth shirts and a football, we received help from a friendly trucker and we were off again.

I left Kev in charge as I caught an hours sleep, during which he entered the insane traffic hell known as Damascus. I woke up and went up to the toilet to find JC in his sleeping bag staring forward and quivering with fright.

With Bill and I assisting to navigate we finally passed out the other side of Damascus and found out what Syrians call a contraflow system. A small sign and some fairy lights directed us on to the other carriageway. No bollards but one sign saying it was 2 way. After a mile or so we saw a car overtaking us on the right hand carriageway. It gradually dawned on us all that we had missed the sign directing us back and we were now driving at speed in the fast lane of the oncoming traffic ! We performed a hasty 3 point turn and arrived at the Jordanian border in tact.

4 hours of filling in forms and shelling out money later we were back on the road again, heading south.

The road from Amman to the Dead Sea goes downhill for about 40km. This fact led to the first bad turn. After an expensive but highly necessary dip, we set off south along the edge of the Dead Sea, hoping to avoid any long hills. We failed miserably. With Rick driving we were bound to find hills and boy, did we ? About 2 hours of crawling up out of the valley. Amazing views but painfully slow. At the top I asked Rick to turn right in to the town. Mistake number 2. Low wires and an overheating bus saw us stranded in the middle of the road with drivers blaring horns, revving engines and our popularity levels plummeting. It delayed us for another 40 minutes. I let Bill take over navigating and pointed him towards the road out. Need I say, mistake 3. Hence, here we are driving down the spine of the country instead of the relatively flat highway that would have got us there hours ago.

Stress levels are high and to make matters worse the inverter is not working, despite gaffer tape. Our beer fridge is warm. Also the lock on the toilet is bent where Eileen tried to charge through it when the bus stopped suddenly.