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We are far from thrilled to be returning to Wadi Musa, but it is a necessary evil if we wish to progress to Wadi Mujib. We manage to find a taxi who will do it for 40JD and the long, fairly unpleasant, hot and sticky journey is commenced. After what seems like an age we arrive at the nature reserve feeling that breakfast was very very far away. We also find that there is little information about anything and pretty much no choice over where to eat or stay. Unless you have your own transport, this place is a nightmare. After being pointed in a very vague direction over to where the chalets (the only place we could stay round here and the only source of food aswell) we manage to end up on a building site, the chalets nowhere to be seen. Fortunately a man in a brand new 4x4 takes pity on us and we hop in as he finds where we are actually supposed to be going. The chalets, looking like mars colonies, are strange things built out of an on very white rock overlooking a very blue dead sea next to the industrial site we stumbled onto previously. Very odd.
Somehow we manage to avoid the main entrance to the chalet and café so a confused man comes to talk to us from the other side of the small building used as reception and dining area. Now, let me just put this in context; it is about 2pm, around 35 degrees and we have travelled about 3hours in a hot taxi with little water and a couple of packets of biscuits. Breakfast was eaten at 7am and was the last proper meal we had. It is at this point that the man informs us of the cost of the food and the chalets and we nearly have simultaneous heart attacks - 10JD for a buffet lunch and 70JD a night for each chalet, which doesn't include another 10JD for supper. We realise we must eat, so shell out the extortionate amount for some nourishment while we discuss what to do. We want to do some stuff at the nature reserve, but at that price, and no idea how to get anywhere else (maybe ordering a taxi) it is looking an expensive endeavour. Should we just head to Madaba, or pay for using the facilities here and take a dip in the dea sea (the cheapest place to do it by far - Amman beach right at the top of the Dead sea is 10JD to get in) then do the stuff at Mujib and try and stay somewhere else? Is this really worth all the stress? Then we realise that we are here and that we should actually do the stuff we came here to do. On top of that the man at reception here kindly offers a small discount on the rooms and offers sandwiches instead of a full supper which halves the price of the evening meal. It is this way that we decide to stay here for the night.
We all take a shower and get ready for Mujib with the thought of doing the dead sea afterwards, or tomorrow just before we leave. However, we get to the nature reserve to be told that it is not letting any more people in as it is 3pm and the self guided tour takes about 3 hours. We head back and reverse our plans and float in the Dead Sea for a while. I must say it is more peaceful here than it was in Israel and I think the water is a nicer colour too. The problem with this place is that the chalets are quite a way above the shore, so you have to work your way alonga very rocky, dusty, pebbly, semi-path which is inclined to collapse below you on your way to and from the sea. The showers are plentiful, but placed at strategic positions half way up the hill between the sea and the chalets, and there appears to be even less of a path to them. Och well, I must say, that even though the shower is hot, it is refreshing after bobbing about in oily water for an hour. Shattered, we spend the rest of the day lying in hammocks cursing the haze of flies and the heat and admiring the sunset over the other side of the sea towards Disneyland (the name one gives to Israel when in Syria, though I suppose not necessary here) and beyond. It is strange to think I was on the opposite side of the sea 2 and a half years ago wondering when I would ever get to Jordan. Sooner than I thought, is the answer.
Everitte puts a beetle in India's bag. How mature.
We rise early to do Wadi Mujb before the crowds and so we can head back to Damascus this afternoon. They said the self-guided tour takes around 3 hours and is fairly hairy in parts. What we find is a walk up the Wadi, a bit like the walk through the Siq in Petra but with water, with a few rapids and things which are a little challenging in parts, but nothing difficult, and a tall waterfall at the end beyond which you cannot pass. Total time to reach this place, bearing in mind we were in no hurry: half an hour. We cannot quite believe it, surely the watery path must continue? Alas, no, and instead of the 14JD we paid each to get in for this brief trip, we would have to shell out something more towards 60JD for a guided 6hour trek with proper climbing and a higher level of difficulty. Still, we make the most of it, and do everything a copious number of times and we still get fairly cut up on the rocks which can be fairly nasty if you get dragged down the rapids with the current. Everitte and I have to stop India from going down a couple of nasty rapids by grabbing her lifejacket and hauling her away from the ropes and the sign with a cheerful looking skull on it saying DANGER.
After this rather fun and refreshing adventure we head to the chalets to shower and grab our stuff to head back home. There is no water in which to shower. India and I use the orangey water that is running in the basins to at least wash our hair. Then, paying as we leave, we trudge out past the bloated fly-invested dog that welcomed us in the day before and head for the road, via what I believe to be a small army base. One soldier approaches us in disbelief - I am not sure if he has ever had four young tourists try and get across his patch of land.
We leave the chalet with the vague intention of trying to get a minibus up to Amman, after being told by the receptionist that they did exist, just not on a timetable. However, we get a better offer when a huge old lorry pulls over, and a cheery driver beckons us all to jump in. Thus begins a fun but slow journey to Amman with Abdullah, a Palestinian who has been driving sand up and down Jordan for 15 years. My damp hair gets blown a most peculiar shape and I look at all the vocabulary I am supposed to have learnt this week while the others go through various stages of trying to sleep. Abdullah is particularly amused by Everitte's style of sleeping. About half way through the trip, he stops, gets out of the truck and re-appears five minutes later with four cokes and a large bottle of water. What a dude! To top it off he even gives us some cinnamon chewing gum which makes me happy.
He drops us somewhere in Amman, we are not sure where exactly and from there we take a taxi to downtown to get FOOOOOOOOOOOOD. For a very reasonable price of 8 falafel sandwiches, using the superior pitta bread as opposed to slightly chewy Syrian thin foldy foldy slimey bread, for 2JD. Local price, not Ajnabi price. We are spotted once again by the small group of guys whom we were driving behind on our way into Amman who had turned to see four weirdo tourists in the front of a lorry and had been no doubt mocking us by the expressions on our faces. It is strange to see the same group of people again right in the centre of Amman like that AND recognise them…anyways we head out once again to Abdali bus and taxi station and get a taxi to Damashq for the princely sum of 6JD each. We stop for chocolate ice cream at an istraha shop where one of the guys points to the other and says "Crazy!" then laughs. I can hardly agree or disagree with him, so I just grin as I am wont to do in any situation I cannot really do anything about, and get back in the taxi.
It is a faster journey on the way back with a lot less time spent at the border. I am sad to leave Jordan, not least of all because the soldiers on the Syrian side are decidedly less hot. I won't however miss the prices. We spent almost two month's rent in Damascus on 6 days in Jordan. Be warned, spend your time wisely. If I had to miss out any of our trip, without doubt it would have been the Dead Sea and Wadi Mujib. For what it was, and the time and effort and stress that it took to get there and the price, I don't think it was entirely worth it. If I was to do it again, I would hire a car, or at least hitch a lift there and back and stay somewhere else and get food somewhere else and, well you get the idea. And the unguided tour was too short and too easy and I don't know whether I would want to spend that amount of money on a longer trek, nomatter how good it is supposed to be. That part of the trip was more expensive than it would have been in Europe.
Enough ranting. In short, though these extended and no doubt tedious essays on Jordan are far from short, we all had a most splendiferous time, with the highlights for me being the second day in Petra and Wadi Rum and all the lovely people we met on the way. It was expensive, but worth it for the most part and I shall return no doubt to visit India when she runs away (and she will no doubt) with Aghab to go climbing from my shoddy flat in Ramallah which I will be working from no doubt in the summer while I hopefully do something helpful in Disneyland. There is the dream for six months' time or so. Let us see whether it materialises.
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