It's not all sun sun sun you know ...

It has occured to me that it might seem like I'm living in a land of sun-drenched beauty 24-7 ... and yes, I have been sunbathing in January, it's true.

But, as Mandy unfortunately found out to her cost during her trip here last week, this is not always true! The weather is sometimes rubbish here too! And I now have the photographic evidence (as normally I seem to forget to take my camera with me on rubbish days, funny that eh ...). So, let me tell you about one 48 hour period last week, when two girls hit the road and experienced almost every conceivable season and type of weather on the way ...

It started on Thursday last week, when I rushed home from school as fast as I could considering the weather conditions - alternating sun, snow, cloudy and hailstones! And it was freezing, creeping around 3-4 degrees and with a biting wind to boot. So, it was definitely time to hit the road, and by 2pm we were on the main highway heading out of town ...

And would you believe, within about 15 minutes we were in full sunshine - Amman is at nearly 1000m altitude, and the Desert Highway running south goes downhill and slightly east into the desert, so it's not really so surprising, but was still a pleasant and unexpected change from the foul weather in town - so we kicked back and looked forward to the warmer climes of southern Jordan.

However, I was driving and felt like the car wasn't holding the road as well as normal, but after checking the tyres at a roadside garage and finding everything OK, I decided that the road must have deteriorated even more since my last trip and carried on. It was only further on when Mandy and I decided to swap drivers that we understood properly what was going on - the strongest winds I have ever seen here were sweeping across the highway, and must have been pushing us around. Mandy actually couldn't open the door on her side, it was so strong, so she slid over and I walked round ... and nearly had the door ripped out of my hand when I opened it! For the rest of our journey down the Desert Highway the wind just seemed to get stronger and stronger, and we were forced to creep round lorries being pushed into our lane. But it was OK, our turnoff was coming up ...

As we approached the turnoff, we noticed that there had been a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains on our right, the mountains we were turning into, and we commented on how wierd it was to see desert and snow at the same time. We even stopped just after turning off towards Shobak to take a photo ... but of course, we hadn't figured on the fact that the tops of the mountains that we could see were the same altitude as the road further on, and as we headed into the mountains on the last stretch of the journey the clouds got thicker ... and the snow got a bit deeper ... and night slowly began to fall ...

We were over halfway between the last outpost of civilisation and Petra when we realised that yes, we really were driving through a blizzard on mountain roads in the Middle East, and that really we should have thought about snow chains ... curiouser and curiouser! Even more strange though, and slightly reassuring, was the sight of snow ploughs on the road (better prepared than the UK!), and taxis and tour buses were still coming in the opposite direction travelling at stupid miles an hour, so we reckoned if they could get through, so could we. By the time we realised that the snow was probably a good half foot deep on the road, and we had been forced to slow to about 10 miles an hour to avoid careering off the road into an abyss, we were both having second thoughts about the whole thing, and the worst moment came when we stopped the car to swap drivers again and the car wouldn't move ... great, stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere in the dark on the Kings Highway! Still, being the ex-Girl Guide, I had a car full of water, food, medical supplies and clothes, and a full tank of petrol, so we reckoned that the worst case scenario was that we could wrap up and use the car's heating system to get us through the night ...

But we were not done yet, and after a few deep breaths, gentle acceleration and some jiggling of the steering wheel (for want of a technical term), we started moving again, and crept down to Petra which we reached about 45 minutes later - hooray for luxury hotels with fully stocked bars! Personally I was flooded with adrenalin after the effort, and it took a while to calm down and fully appreciate that we had arrived safe and sound. We were slightly peeved by the announcement by our receptionist that the Petra site might be closed the next day - after all that! - but the joy of survival was stronger and we went to bed full of optimism.

And rightly so - even though the days started cloudy and the hills around were covered in snow, Petra itself was fully accessible and, due to the weather, almost completely empty, which was a great way to see it (the photo above was the busiest we saw it - when you've seen the horrific heaving crowds of high season, you'll understand!). The cloud steadily lifted during the day, so that we managed to do the trek up to the monastery and see the views all the way to Israel, and we had a fab day exploring almost unmolested and with fires and tea in various caves along the way to warm our cold hands.

The weather the next day was even more of a contrast - snow-capped hills and blue skies, a gorgeous day to drive through. We had a brief moment in the clouds south of Petra where we carefully looked out for crossing camels as advised, and we drove past lots more frozen fields and fences of ice, but Wadi Rum and Aqaba were beckoning - were we going to get luckier this time?

Yes we were - in the space of half an hour we went from snow and ice all around to sunny desert wilderness, and half an hour again after that we were on camels plodding into the wide spaces of Wadi Rum feeling the warm sun on our faces. We both took off our coats (although Mandy's camel then decided to sit on hers - a cheap way to get a real camel hair coat!), and although the wind picked up a bit on the way back, we still managed to catch the sun and arrived in sunny Aqaba with pink noses and smiles ... and to think only 12 hours before we had been shivering and sliding around the road ...