The last day of the rallye! We took an early start and plunged into Damascus' busy traffic. Today we were allowed to use the motorway (after back roads for the last 10 days…) to drive to the border. Leaving Syria was much easier than entering the country. It took us only 1.5 hours and six stops for formalities and fees. Enterning Jordan was really easy: The rallye's organisation committe had sent helping hands to deal with customs. A nice "present" awaited us, too: Franziska, Friedrich's wife, joins us for the remaining days in Jordan.
The assignment of the day was the "desert test": Driving 2 km on dry clay, turning around a parked BMW, and then driving the figure of an "8" on the way back – all as fast as possible. This was quite a challenge, and rather risky, with three cars in a row and lots of dust limiting our sight. Consequently, some of the other teams' cars suffered considerably. Saab and Ford survived, but the Mercedes' accelerator cable broken - - thanks to Till's "do-it-yourself-mechanics" book, we managed to identify the damage and successfully fix it.
After the "desert test", we handed over to the rallye's organisation committee our log book and the things we had to bring along from Germany: A big box of children's clothes for an orphanage, a hearing aid, and the lilttle potted tree that will be planted on the grounds of the cheese dairy. Now we had to drive another 60km on rocky ground to reach the camp in Al Azraq where we spend the night. Luckily, we arrived without "injuring" any of the cars. Not all teams had been that lucky, having severly collided with big boulders or suffering broken windows from the stones local children threw at the cars. Now that the rallye is over, we can't wait to learn the final results – but we have to be patient until Sunday night when the winner of the rallye will be officially announced. Until then, we are going to explore the beauty of Jordan: Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Petra, Shona, Amman…
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