Evacuated!

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men...” - Robert Burns



Amy had tripped on the same step we had all tripped on.  But since she was running, she had fallen and hit her arm on a sharp rock and had seriously cut herself.  So bad a cut, that we would have to leave immediately, get to the city of Aqaba a couple of hours away, find a hospital, and get stitches.  Although they have a small clinic in the town here, we both agreed that it was best to get to a modern hospital.

Remember those young nurses from Spain?  They were right there and had a first aid kit and wrapped up Amy's arm really well, so at least it would be protected for our journey.  

We packed our bags, paid for two out of the planned three days, and they put us in the back of the pickup to drive us to our car, about 1/2 hour away.  We said our goodbyes and were soon on our way, driving under the amazing starry sky of Wadi Rum, possibly the most beautiful sky I've ever seen.

“The Bedouin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.” - T. E. Lawrence, ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’, 1926

We got to our car and were soon driving to Aqaba.  Amy looked up the hospitals in Aqaba on our phone and found one that looked good, run by the Army.  So with trusty Google Maps, we drove the 1 1/2 hour drive.  Only thing was, the lights on this car were awful!  If you didn't have the brights on, the lights shot straight down so you could only see about 3 feet in front of you!  Needless to say, on a totally dark and unfamiliar road I just left the brights on, to hell with it.  We drove on the small road out of Wadi Rum and soon were on the Desert Highway, the freeway that goes from Aqaba to Amman.  Google Maps took us right to the hospital and after looking around a bit, found the visitor's entrance.

We walked into the hospital and a nice Army guard took us to the emergency room.  Like all emergency rooms, it was busy with all sorts of people milling around.  Men in gelabyas, women in burquas, little kids being little kids.  We walked right up to the front desk and met Dr. Ayman, the emergency room doctor on duty that night.  He spoke perfect english and in fact had lived in Kansas City for a year!  He was very nice and took us right into the surgery room (not really sure if, because we were foreigners, we were not made to wait around, but I wasn't asking questions at this point) where he sewed up Amy with 14 stitches in about an hour.  And because of Amy's myasthenia, she can't have topical painkillers, so the operation was done without anesthesia.  Wow, that's my brave girl!!


Dr. Ayman stitches up Amy at the Aqaba Army Hospital...

Job well done!

“The foreigners come out here always to teach, whereas they had much better learn, for the Arab is generally the better man of the two.” - T. E. Lawrence, ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’, 1926

By this time it was after midnight, but we found a nice hotel in the city, the Movenpick, and got a room.  By the time we got in the room, ordered a room service dinner, and got to bed, it was after 2am.

So even though Amy and I had a huge scare,  it all worked out okay. Except for that 5 hour camel ride that would never happen.


The Movenpick, in Aqaba on the Red Sea...

The Red Sea beckons.  I put my feet in the water, and that was lovely.

But as it turned out, this unexpected event would make our trip even more enjoyable, as we would see things that we weren't planning on seeing.