Head to the compound for 9am as there is going to be a meeting about our next moves. I attend a meeting inside the building with the organisers and we have to decide whether or not to stay longer in Jordan while preparations are made or head back up the road. We all agree to move towards the port in Syria as we have been in Aqaba for a number of days now. It is going to cost the operation a significant amount more money to undertake this backtrack and logistical exercise. Farewell to Cedric who is going to head off towards Cairo today. The team is feeling this departure. I manage to get to the internet place and let our other convoy member Richard T who is in Cairo know about the move back to Syria and the difficulty he will have if he tries to join us in El Arish. I have heard from the meeting this morning that the Gaza Freedom March is having a terrible time in Cairo and participants are not allowed to travel to Gaza, riot police have been cracking heads after peaceful protests. I'm feeling pretty hungry now having abstained from eating - I'm not used to this! Even one day and I'm feeling weak. Its hot and the hunger strikers are sitting in the shade at the top of the compound. During the day the hosts have brought out these fantastic trays of rice and lamb with almond and cashew sauce poured over it - as the decision has been made that we have an agreement with Egypt to be able to take ourselves and our vehicles and our stuff through to Gaza but compromise on the Nuweiba entry the deal is done so strikers can eat now.
So the announcement is made and there are to be coaches organised to 
get us up the hill later on. People go to check out of places they have been in and get their stuff (for those not packed already). Lots of milling about while a group of 500 people try to get moving out of the town. I have to collect the equivalent fare that people would have paid for their ferry from them so we can all contribute to the cost of the transport from Syria to El-Arish. After a few hours we are back up at the car park and the decision is to stay in the car park for the night and leave first think in the morning. I get a text message once I have already got into the cab to sleep which says we need to depart at 7am - too late to let everyone know. There's a masjid on the carpark where some people choose to stay but the cab is just right size for me and with no cab mates no need to stick the tent up.29th December
It is a bright sunny day - near perfect weather, not hot but clear and still. Out of the cab, quick splash around the face and a cup of tea and its time to line up to leave the car park. The Belgian members in our team have a TV crew that has turned up from Belgium and they are being interviewed. This remote car park on a hillside is nowhere anyone wants to stay for too long. I ask Pieter from Belgian team if he can travel with me because I have no co-driver or companion, he agrees to join me after the next stop. So for the next leg I am driving by myself through beautiful desert. Alpha team manage to get along the road first of all just fine and up the long slopes onto the desert plains. Signs off for Petra but we aren’t going to get any sight seeing on this trip. There is one more stop in Jordan for food where we are directed to on the outskirts of Amman by people on the ground. We also need to pick up Matthias Malaysian leader who is waiting at a junction off the main road for us before Amman. After taking the group off the road once a little to early a car with some men appears and they seem to know where we need to be. Matthias gets collected and we move on to the stop.
It is pretty fascinating how all these hosts seem to appear out of nowhere and know where we are going. This stop is a stony piece of ground in an area that is not built up. A reception is held in some long green open tents, not formal they just guide us to tables, bring out food (more amazing soft lamb on the bone with almond rice) and cans of drink. We don’t stay for long, there are no speeches, a few men come around and give us small notebooks in little bags as a gift, there is a leaflet in the bag with some pictures of men’s faces and writing in Arabic and a logo which I believe is from Islamic Action Front the main opposition party in Jordan. I have looked into them a bit more and from wikipedia they are described as being "quite liberal compared to other Islamist parties. They recognize democracy, pluralism, tolerance of other religions, and women's rights as key to nation's development process and they do not support extreme revolutionary movements. They oppose Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Fatah al Islam but sympathize with Hamas" see link for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Action_Front
Before we move off one of the convoy members from another group needs help as the delay to the convoy means he has missed an appointment for community supervision which is meant to be today. We both call his office in UK and I speak to the supervising officer and explain I work for youth offending services and have been in the group with the member and explain the delay. They give him a new date for a month's time which makes him very happy and relieved. It is a relief for me when Pieter jumps in to take over the driving for a while. We move our of the outskirts of Amman and towards Syria through quite tricky traffic but Pieter does a good job and the police on motorbikes on the ground make sure we get to the main road.
I take the opportunity to use a laptop that Iqbal has lent me to burn some music off the hard drive. The Beat and Selecter on one cd, a mixture of country favourites on another and the Killers on another (special request from Pieter:)). So we get to sing along a bit. Unfortunately due to the fact that I am not concentrating but playing with the laptop and Pieter has not been a convoy lead vehicle driver before we manage to leave the group behind and I haven't noticed. We are on the main road and in the dusk and then dark and after about 20 minutes I check the mirrors and ask 'where are they?' the rest are also out of range of the CBs - oh dear. Luckily after a little while they come back into range and site and we move on together to the border.
Leaving Jordan and entering Syria is fairly straight forward. Just inside Syria is a mobile coffee stand on the side of the road where we wait for all the vehicles to come through. It is delicious from an expresso machine in the trailer and there are many of these throughout Syria.
A single police officer is going to lead us on, he says for 10km or so. It is starting to rain lightly and it is much cooler here. He leads off and travels very slowly at around 30km per hour. We pass 10km and still he is leading us - painfully slowly but when I try to speed up he doesn't want to and we have to continue at 30mph. It is pretty cold and he is riding exposed in the weather with no gloves and is being very careful with us to check all 14 vehicles in Alpha team are all behind so I can only feel grateful towards him for his care and attention despite the frustrating speed. He ends up taking us all the way to Damascus which is less than 100km away but is going to take a couple of hours. When we get to Damascus he doesn't know the way to Sahara Hotel which is where we stayed before and instead of going around the ring road we end up going through the city which is quite painful for the team in terms of trying to follow each other and the bumpiness of the final road up the hill to the hotel on the outskirts of town is hazardous - particularly to the caravan A3.
On arrival people are tired and not very happy - it has been a long day. People fend for themselves in order to get rooms from reception as we don't have a system arranged this time. Thanks to Juana I do get a bed which is more than some people manage. The hotel has arranged dinner for everyone which is amazing - fish and chips. I can understand people being a little unhappy but try to remind one or two that we are in fact all in the same boat and feel the same frustrations, if we all had a strop about it that would be pretty funny. We are all being put up and fed again at no cost to ourselves so cheer up!
People again are milling about the hotel reception area until the early hours, trying to use their laptops. I am really pleased to see Tarek who we originally met coming into Syria the first time. He is back to give us support and assistance where he can.
December 30th
9am meeting in the dining room. See notes to the left - behind the scenes much is going on in terms of trying to arrange our onward travel all together as a group. The agreement with the Egyptians has been that all ambulances and vehicles under 3.5 tons will be allowed through Rafah and all medical aid. We are going to be heading for a port soon, not exactly sure when.
I am happy to see Mahmoud Abu Ridah there at breakfast again as I had not really had the chance to speak to him when we came through Sahara Hotel before. He shows me his "passport" which is a British document that looks similar to a passport but does not in fact allow him to pass any ports - it is an ID document that simply allowed him to travel from UK to Syria but it won't work on any other borders. His wife and children are living in Jordan and he has not been able to see them for a long time ( I think he said eight months I can't recall exactly). He was arrested and held at Belmarsh without charge for between 2001 and 2005 before being released on a control order. I advise you to look at the link as the article explains his situation and makes it clear how powers under our laws allow such detentions. Neither he nor his lawyers have ever been informed of the information that his detention was based on. It is a coincidence that the two men in Jordan who asked me if I could help them to join the Jordanian group of the convoy but could not come with us due to the track back to Syria - are Mahmoud's brothers! So it is nice to be able to tell him I have seen them and spoken to them. Another example of how we with our British passports experience freedom of movement while Palestinian families are stopped from seeing each other by borders.
I need to try and track down the various scattered members of Alpha team because I have to collect the fares for travelling on from Syria. This comes in lots of different currencies and I am struggling to work out exactly what the exchange rates are.
People are also trying to get the wifi to work - to do this you seem to have to go into settings for the network on the laptop and change the numbers - like hacking. Anyway people are sharing the numbers and seem to be able to get on sporadically. I am also trying to ensure that the manifests in our team are up to date as we will need them for Egypt which will be very soon. Later in the day it appears that we will not be leaving this afternoon after all. I had already checked out so Juana and I get another room - or rather she does - such an organised and reliable girl. Later in the afternoon Tarek tells me that some supporters are bringing some aid up to the hotel and we need to try to accommodate it in the vehicles somehow. When I walk out I see what he means! An entire bus load of medical supplies and two more small pick up vans. Help. I call Abid and a couple of others who may have some space in their vehicles. I am intending to stay to help with the unloading and reloading but thankfully Iqbal insists that instead I should come with her into Damascus and go for a hammam - just for a couple of hours. I also grab Cuamhe to come too. It is fantastic. We are all steamed and scrubbed to within an inch of our lives. By the time I get back up the hill the aid has been reallocated in vehicles. Brilliant.
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