Week Sixty-Six

Today starts off pretty well as far as catching up on the notebook goes: I'm up well before Milla and write for a couple of hours before she stirs. Of course, after that we have breakfast and sit around chatting and seeing what we can plan for the next couple of weeks to see where we might be and when for those supposedly significant dates. And after that I get into a long conversation with Erga about problems with bureaucracy, in her case getting her fifth Jordan residency visa, which seems to be her main reason for being in Amman. She also has a tale about returning to Israel to tracec her roots and discovering only that the Israelis have destroyed all records prior to 1948, ie. when Israel was created (births, deaths, property ownership documents, ,etc.): oh, the ironically fascist state of modern times. After that we play some backgammon, including a few games with the well-practised Samer who pretty much runs the hotel for the older (and currently quite unwell) guy who owns it.
Eventually I write a little more before we head out in the evening to try Milla's cashcard again - there's still no sign of any money forthcoming, and we resort to getting more cash on my card (we're down to less than £1 cash) and then pay the hotel for our nights so far. On the subject of the hotel, by the way, we're not the only people who're here for a while: Erga will be here at least another night; Jan-Willem's making no sign of splitting any time soon (he's just visited the Desert Castles by hire car, and got a film confiscated by the military); and many of the Japanese are beginning to seem familiar (as with Lebanon, 75% of the residents here seem Japanese). Possibly it's because of the weather: there's a lot of rain, and it's cold (15-20 during the day, 5-10 at night), which seems to be inducing a universal lethargy (as well as varying degrees of illness: both Milla and I are down with colds/flu, and we're not the only ones).

An incidental note - as well as all the Japanese tourists (there are a lot in the Middle East, and a number we've talked to seem to be about to move on to Iraq for chaperoned tours: considering the current situation, I have doubts as to the wisdom of that but it is appealing), there are a lot of other Asians on the streets of Amman. Chinese, Malays, Indonesians (as far as I can tell) they seem to be resident, speaking Arabic and working here - dunno what the story behind that is: possibly, since almost all of them are female, there's some sort of wife-market thing going on.
Anyway, we talk (and drink and play backgammon - we've become a regular fitting in the lounge in the evening, with a box of sweet sticky pastry, a can of beer, and a backgammon board) until late and then retire. I've managed to get the total down to 15 days behind: ah well, I'll try again tomorrow.

Today we're probably up early enough to go and see things, but opt to spend the day in Amman instead: Milla hasn't been up around the circles yet (it isn't that exciting - it's all houses and offices, like the rest of the city), so we head that way with a shopping list in mind. It would also be nice to find Tourist Information, of which there's no sign as yet (though we now have a location for the "Ministry of Tourism").
In a blaze of success, we hit the supermarket and buy a bunch of otherwise difficult to find stuff (noodles, soup, skincream), press up to the Third Circle and find the unassuming Ministry of Tourism: it doesn't really seem to be functioning as a Tourist Information office, but a man issues us with a huge wodge of very helpful leaflets and booklets (as well as two posters of King Abdullah and a handful of small paper Jordan flags) from what looks like a storeroom of some sort. En route to this rather out-of-the-way grey concrete block, we pass an IT training institute where (I think re-assuringly and hopefully a good sign for the future) most of the students are female.
Returning downhill to Downtown by a different route we stopp off at an English-language bookshop for an hour looking for an affordable and useful guide to Petra (no luck - they're either useless or hugely expensive), get two local sub-standard (and in this case tiny) shwarmas, finally pick up a replacement hairbrush (not really the type I'm looking for, but the choice here is pretty limited), get a pack of calcium tablets (I've been suffering cramps, so I guess our diet's not well-balanced), find a replacement pad of A5 writing paper, pricee some photo places for getting prints, and finally buy a big box of instant coffee sachets (32) from a shop downstairs from the hotel. When we get back, Erga donates us the remains of a multi-person lunch which they just finished: from an Iraqi place just round the corner there's a lemon soup and a beef stew of some sort, some firmly-boiled vegetables and the usual flat, unsalted bread which usually functions as the cutlery. It's an interesting taste and texture which gives us (or at least me) a whole new appreciation of the local shwarma. Erga also provides information about where we can buy cheaper clothes in Amman (at the back of the library, by the amphitheatre): this is vital, since Milla's looking for a replacement pair of jeans - her old Bucuresti pair were ripped while scrambling around Bosra and it's too cold not to replace them. We've been intermittently looking, but pretty much all the jeans on sale are for men (ie. the wrong shape) - Arab (or at least muslim) women just don't seem to wear them.
We set out late evening, via a photo place to drop the films, and then we spend two hours (yes, two hours) trying and haggling over mostly second-hand pairs of jeans (except "Duncan" label new pairs - apparently they're Dutch). I mainly talk with the shopkeepers while Milla looks and tries: today we get a nice little story from one about how his son's teacher was impressed that he could count from 1 to 10 when he started school, but we less impressed when he continued "Jack, Queen, King". Nice, huh? At 19.15 we're finally successful. We find a pair that Milla likes and get the price down from 5JD to 2JD (£1.80). And that's about it for the day, except that we do some calculations on Milla's bank accouunt and figure that (until the 20th) there may not be enough money to cover what she's been trying to withdraw. We'll try again after the 20th (Friday).
Didn't do anything today, so the notebook crept up to 16 days behind: so much for my vague plans of catching up huge swathes in Amman.

A pretty easy day to write about since not much happened: I got up and wrote while Milla slept; then she got up and we played backgammon in the lounge; then we both wrote; then we played more backgammon (for over two hours, in fact - we're starting to do best-of-15 sessions). I should perhaps mention that we ate intermittently. We did manage to go out to visit the local police station (with whom we have to register): it turned out that we needed a document from the hotel (basically saying we were staying there), but after a quick bounce back, the process takes a couple of minutes and give sus another incomprehensible Arabic stamp in our passports. We still apparently need to visit another (more remote) police station to get our 15-day entry visas extended (by now it's pretty obvious we'll be here more than 15 days).
In the evening? I sit down to write for two hours (alarmed a little by my lack of progress as compared with how much backgammon we've played) while Milla takes a shower and then goes out at 20.20 for some shopping. She'll be back for 21.30, she tells me, when I'm planning to stop for noodles: I actually write until 21.45, then do a bit of tidying, and make a coffee. There's still no sign of her by 22.15, which is quite alarming because virtually all of Amman closes at 21.00 to 21.30 - it becomes a dead, empty city. I ask around the loung in case she mentioned to anyone where she was going (she didn't), and then set out to look for her. I check the nearby gold souk (all closed), walk up past the clothes shops of yesterday (the shutters are down, and I'm pretty much the only person I see), look aroundn the area of the amphitheater and bus station (there's a bit of life here, but no sign of Milla). Somewhat at a loss I wander back through Downtown (pretty much totally dead by now), checking up dark side-alleys for bits of my wife, have a quick look in the internet place, and finally go back to the hotel. Presumably I can get the staff to check Amman's hospitals by phone, in case of car or other accidents.
Milla, of course, turns out to have got back five minutes before me - her 70 minute trip turning out to take 150+ minutes. Me? I'm furious - there are times when being that late isn't stylish, it's just stupid (and one of those times is probably 23.00 in a deserted Arab city). Her? She's been shopping for things for my birthday (mostly for flowers, it seems: she ended up getting some from the guard at the Iraqi Embassy). We argue, and eat burgers (she found burgers somewhere) and I go for a shower and we start again at 0.05 with beer and 36 birthday candles stuck in a 1 kilo box of sweet pastries. Hey-ho.

Thirty-six today, and I apparently celebrate my birthday by not setting foot outside the hotel. I get up (09.05 - we were late to sleep) and write (so far, so good), then Milla gets up (11.00) and we have breakfast and then I write more (already two days done so far), and then we have a coffee break and end up spending over two hours playing backgammon again. Since that visa-extension police station closes at 13.00, I guess we won't be extending our visas today. After that, Milla handwashes her clothes while I write more, and we pause again for a coffee break. In the lounge, I find an English-language Jordanian newspaper (the Star) which contains an alarming number of typos and mis-spellings, a number of interesting articles on how Jordanians see the future of their country, some bland pieces about the forthcoming war, Israel, the plight of various Palestinian grroups, and so on. The two most interesting articles ar eon how the Israelis are tearing down the medieval old town of Hebron to better protect the 300-odd "settlers" who've decided to live in the middle of this Arab city, and how there's sub-zero temperatures and possible snow forecast for Amman this weekend.
Spurred on by this latter, and by the continuing presence of a taxi driver in the hotel whose living is pretty much daytrips for backpackers, we re-examine our options for starting to move south. The driver, Khalid, is a funny guy (the only thing funnier in the hotel is the toilet cistern, labelled "Best Niagara") and discussion with him leads us to agreeing on a full-day excursion for tomorrow. This should take in a grand total of five things which we'd marked down as probably worth seeing in this part of Jordan (ie. spend more money, but cram a potential five days into one). These are namely Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan (al-Maghrab), the Dead Sea, Madaba (for its mosaics), Machaerus (where John lost his head), and the Crusader castle at Kerak (Krak des Moabites): in theory we can fit them in, going direct door-to-door and not relying on public transport. We'll have to start at 08.00, though, which'll be an interesting challenge: our recent days we haven't been up at 08.00, never mind out.
That decided, I write into the late evening (pausing only to get more money out - it's fucking cold outside): Milla meanwhile finds a fellow Romanian (and, more importantly, Romanian-speaker) and they talk for a couple of hours (the woman is a friend of Samer's). I finish the day 11 days behind in the notebook, which is the kind of progress I want to be making: now that I've finally got the hang of it, of course, we're planning to move on.
We finally get to bed early at about 00.30, perfect for tomorrow's early start.
Overnight, the rain outside gets gradually heavier and is accompanied by ever stranger crashes and bangs both from outside in the street and the roof: in last night's storms, apparently, the ceiling of room #19 collapsed . . . and the little toilet doesn't really need flushed when it's raining this hard. "Best Niagara" is just as applicable to the ceiling-mounted extractor fan as it is to the toilet itself.

Our big adventure starts today: we're up before 07.00 and immediately notice that no miracle has in fact occurred - it's still pissing down. The streets of Amman have turned into fast-flowing rivers: the Dead Sea and River Jordan appear to have decided to come to us today, it seems. Great. We leave the hotel in the pouring rain at 08.10, clamber into the mercifully dry taxi (with heater) parked round the back, and set off (passing the heavily-guarded US Embassy en route, very close to the Israeli Embassy) through the network of chaotic floodwaters that is Amman's road network in the rain.

Some discussion concludes with Madaba being our first stop - in this torrential rain, the indoors mosaics which are the attraction there seem a sensible place to start. Our only concern is that Lonely Planet claims the main mosaic isn't open until 10.30 on Fridays and Sundays: when we reach the town (via a stop for petrol), it's open. Actually, as soon as we step inside the Church of St. George we can see what Lonely Planet means - it's still an active church and there's a full-blown orthodox service in progress. It's kinda wierd - we associate headscarves (and particularly the black/white and red/white ones of this area) with Islam, whereas they're actually a cultural rather than a religious thing. The church fills with people in local dress - mean remove their headscarves and then cross themselves: very surreal. Milla fits in pretty well (she knows what to do), but I kinda stand out, lounging in a corner of the packed church trying to get a good look at the fenced-off mosaic. This one's particularly significant since it's a pictorial map of the Byzantine-era Middle East - once covering the entire floor (with Madaba directly in front of the altar) there's only a broad slice left. Clearly visible (to those who can read Greek) are Jerusalem (it has a dinky streetplan, with central colonnaded street), Jericho and Bethlehem: the Dead Sea and Rover Jordan are clear, complete with little boats. It's not to scale, and a number of places have been moved to where there's space for them, but it was one of the key clues which led to the excavations which revealed Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan (abandoned for ages).
We slip out and back to the taxi - there are other mosaics in Madaba, in the Church of St. Mary, the Apostolic Church and a specific archaeological/mosaic museum. Driving to each of these reveals that they're all closed for some reason: enquiries of the Tourist Police reveal only that they don't know why either. Khalid is mystified - it's the first time he's seen them closed (we're fairly early, but it's well after 09.00 - it could be something to do with the weather and lack of other tourists, or maybe they're all at church). We discuss what to do next and decide to head to Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan (the road goes past Mt. Nebo, a major pilgrimage site, which Khalid pretty much insists we see if we're en route past it): after Bethany we can either return directly to Madab (to see if it's open) and go down to Kerak via Mukawir, or go down to Kerak via the Dead Sea and come back up by Madaba and Mukawir.

Mt. Nebo, for those in the know, is Pisgah - where Moses looked out over the "Promised Land" and bizarrely (and non-biblically) was later assumed to have either died and/or been buried: our interest is in the mosaics which survive from all the Byzantine-era churches, shrins and monasteries. The first stop, down the hill a bit, is the Church of Lot and Someone-else (Procopius?): according to Khalid, there was a Bedouin tent over the mosaic - they were moved out, a modern concrete building put up instead, and the Bedouin family now looks after the site. We don't know how accurate that is, but it's certainly an old Bedouin guy who open the place up for us - inside is a well-preserved though average mosaic, with clear signs that it was used as living quarters (burn marks, etc.). Lovely. Actually, there's not that many lovely bits. Unsure whether we should tip the guy or not, we decide not to and return to the taxi.
Next stop, just up the hill, is the main complex: in years past, the car-park was beside the principal building. Now (after a visit) the Pope seems to have decided that pilgrims here should at least walk a little bit, so there's a paved road for a few hundred metres past the gate. I'm sure this was a lovely romantic idea, but in the heavy rain and wind it's a real pisser (I mean, we're not pilgrims - and we have to pay for the privelege). We're soaked by the time we clamber through the ground-level ruins of Byzantine monasteries and entere the modern shed-like church built over the heart of the Byzantine complex. Inside is watched over by a couple of guys in red-and-white headscarves - after seeing the worshippers at the St. George church earlier, I'm tempted to believe there are the local Franciscans who're supposed to own the site.

The modern cover (more like a masonry tent than a church, despite the stained-glass windows) lies over a variety of elements originally erected from the fourth to the seventh centuries: a few columns survive from the original buildings, and a huge percentage of the original floor mosaics. There are also a few wall-mounted ones, brought in from those areas not lucky enough to get a nice new building on top. Mostly animal scenes, there are camels and quite good peacocks and what looks like a guy having a shit under a tree (it might not be): also, uniquely so far, there's one mosaic section which has text in arabic as well as Greek characters. Also of interest in the "church" is the original chapel and spot where Moses was supposed to have died, complete with 1500-year old marble alter inscribed with a cross (and a nearby photo of the Pope praying there). Along the back wall is the little shop area, with a magnificent coffee-table book of Jordan's mosaics ($75) and some little bags of soil from this sacred site (we didn't price them, figuring we can just dig some up outside if we want).
Back outside the tempest is continuing: at the far side of the courtyard/atrium outside the door is a striking scultpure of a snake entwined around a cross, linking the Moses/Jesus stories (cf. John's gospel 3:14-15, comparing the two). It's pretty neat, and would have been even neater with a magnificent panorama of the Dead Sea and Israel/West Bank beyond. On a clear day you can apparently see to Jerusalem: today you can see the grey mist a few hundred metres away. Ironically there's even a little sign with arrows pointing to Qumran, Jerusalem and so, into the grey. You can almost hear Moses saying "This is your Promised Land, huh? You can keep it."

We descend back down the hill to where Khalid's been sheltering in his taxi - actually he hasn't just been sheltering, he's been talking with other drivers (yes, we're not the only mad fools out today) and has more bad news for us: the King's Highway is closed at Wadi al-Mujib. Quick geographical summary: Jordan is basically on a flat plateau except at its western edge where it plummets down to the rift valley (sea level in the Dead Sea is 400m below regular sea level, never mind how far below the rest of Jordan it is). From Amman south there are three roads: the Desert Highway in the east, swinging out into the desert (obviously); the new Wadi Araba road in the west, running down the side of the Dead Sea and Wadi Arab, its southern extension; and the ancient King's Highway (mentioned in the Old Testament - I think it's the oldest named road in the world) which runs along the edge of the plateau. Most of the interesting stuff south of Amman lies on the King's Highway, which is severely interrupted by massive ravines along its length - the biggest of these ravines is Wadi al-Mujib. I'd really wanted to see it (it's a kilometre deep), and the views from it across the West Bank: more importantly, it's the direct road to Kerak and the crusader castle there. Now we'll have to take a detour.
After discussion we opt to press on down to the Jordan valley and visit Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan: the steep descent gives some great views across to the northern end of the Dead Sea and the little city of Jericho, just visible through the mist. The deep russet-coloured barren rocks are interestng, streaked with purply-pink (potassium permanganate?), and in places the road is flanked by signs warning of minefields left over from the first Arab-Israeli war (1948? I think the only one Jordan took part in): as we descend, Khalid is optimistic that a slight lightening of the sky might mean the weather's clearing. We'll see.

Actually three, each on top of the earlier (the most recent is pre-Justinian, c. 500AD), they were built to mark the baptism site: obviously (despite the French girl asking, for the second time, "This is exactly where Jesus was baptised?") he was actually baptised in the river: the church was apparently built where he left his clothes. There are a couple of bits of mosaic and some column stumps, but otherwise not a lot to see. We set off for the river (the whole valley's unlike what I expected - sandy and barren little hills, with little vegetation: nothing like the flood plain of a river), talking quite a distance (500 metres - stupid place to leave your clothes if the river's this far away - we have visions of Jesus streaking naked through the whole town) and passing more fenced-off areas with guards. And then we go downhill past a sign and there it is - the River Jordan.

Now, we've all seen the movies, the icons, the religious paintings - we know the Jordan is a blue river with fertile green banks: Christ and John stood in the middle (white bird above), with crowds watching from the banks a few meters on either side. Well, it's nothing like that.

It's a sluggish brown stream - totally opaque, and easily less than three metres across (maybe seven to eight feet); it's a bed of reeds with some water in the middle. Everyone's a little surprised, though no-one laughs aloud: our guide tries to tell us that it's very deep (yeah, right). I have an image of Jesus standing in the middle, ankle-deep. Let's put it this way: there's a wooden platform with steps leading down to the water - if that wasn't there (ie. you could get a good run at it), you could jump across the River Jordan into Israel without getting your feet wet. Oh yes - it's Israel on the other side. They also have a complex with modern baptism pools, but there's no-one visiting at the moment. Our guide lamely tries to explain that there used to be more water in the river, but the Israelis have been taking it for irrigation: we've seen the valley, though - we know it doesn't flood and has (by the looks of it) never flooded.

It's very disappointing, but also a fascinating adjustment of all our preconceptions: I symbolically flick a cigarette butt into the water as we leave.

Milla's kinda pissed off - I think she believes it's a fake, somehow: she stalks off, alarming our guide (who's main purpose in escorting us is probably to stop people crossing the border - he's got problems, with a French photographer woman lingering behind and Milla striking ahead). There are a lot of "No Smoking" signs arouund, so possibly lighting up runs the risk of being picked off by Israeli snipers as, possibly, does being on your own: certainly he's trying to keep us all in one group.
We go via a hermit's cave overlooking the valley - high in the hillside, it was obviously only accessible by rope or ladder (or spiritually-induced levitation): the rock here is very soft (you can snap bits off with your fingers - soft, crumbly sort of rock) and the actual cave is fenced off to protect it from tourists. Despite this, one of the French guys climbs the little fence and goes inside, sending our guide into fresh paroxysms. After that, we climb up past another couple of Byzantine baptism pools (they were really into this) to a complex associated with St. Mary the Egyptian (same as Mary Magdalene, according to Milla): she apparently lived out the end of her life here, though presumably not in this palatial setting (maybe a convent or monastery marking the spot?). In the rain (it's started again) we return via a toilet stop to the bus - there are plants here with irrigation hoses to keep them green: seems like it's not just the Israelis nicking water from the River Jordan). By common concensus (apparently Milla didn't agree, but she didn't say until later) we skip the Elijah Hill complex on the way out - we were all here for an hour and a half, and are all now running late (there's nothing there except more Byzantine ruins - and the arch).
Incidentally, later consulation of the map shows that the Jordan "River" (hah!) bends and passes much closer to where the holy clothes were removed, so if Jesus was baptised here then I guess he was probably 200m or 300m downstream from the stretch we saw. Presumably there's something in the way (military installation?) now.

It's 13.10 by the time we're back in Khalid's taxi (apparently, according to the radio, the Desert Highway is now also closed due to the weather!) and it's evident that we only have time now for a maximum two from a.) Madaba and Mukawir, b.) the Dead Sea swimming experience and c.) Kerak and its castle. After discussion we opt to slip Madaba and Mukawir (the easiest to do separately from Amman, if we decide to later), and head directly south for the Dead Sea. Surprisingly the road takes us past Bedouin (it surprised me) - they're just living around here is long, dark tents, herding sheep and goats: pretty much unchanged by the stumble of progress, they're still riding about beside the road on camels. Past another checkpoint (there are lots this close to the border) we're suddenly at the start of the Dead Sea: just as the Jordan is small for a river, the Dead Sea is pretty small for a sea - it's really just a narrow strip of water, and the far shore is easily visible.

It's cold, windy and intermittently drizzling, and the government-run "Rest House" at the north end of the sea is utterly deserted. Khalid has his own Dead Sea swimming programme, which includes seating in hot-spring caves nearby, covering ourselves in mud (Dead Sea salts and mud are big export products - we can even buy them at the hotel), as well as floating in the Dead Sea. Which sounds good. Except that a.) we keep stopping at likely-looking swim sites (the road follows the shore) and they all look miserable and cold (no-one is swimming today) and 2.) it would take a couple of hours, and therefore pretty much be the last thing we could do today. After inspecting a few more swim sites we opt to press on, down the Dead Sea to Kerak - if we've now only got time for one more thing today (which is turning into an expensive disaster), then we want to make it Kerak: it's furthest from Amman and most difficult and expensive to do independently.

We have a couple of stops down the Dead Sea coast (it's odd to use the word "coast" - even though it feels right for a Sea, it feels wrong when the other "coast" is just a few miles away). First is the point where Wadi al-Mujib opens onto the sea. It's a steep, richly-coloured ravine scything its way through the Jordanian plateau - on dry days you can apparently hike up it. Now, in this rain, it's a torrential rush of fast-flowing water - there's a little modern man, and the yellow sand-laden floodwater is pouring over the top and out the open valves. Considering the amount of sand, it's as if all of Jordan is being washed away into the Dead Sea: where streams are emptying all along this shore, there are odd brown smears on the deep green/blue/purple water (it's very rainbow-like, the Dead Sea), where the fresh discharge of alluvium/silt/sand is floating on the salty water. Our other stop is just below a vaguely anthropoid pillar of salt (actually rock) known locally as . . . yes, "Lot's Wife": well, if that's Lot's wife then she was a fucking tall woman.

There are waves on the Dead Sea, which surprised me a little, but no evidence of a tide: in places, the rocks along the shore are encrusted with white salt, but I have no idea if that's due to the waves or to a decreasing water level. Also in places there are large salt flats (there's a town south of here called "Potash City"). The Dead Sea pretty much fills the valley: the road cuts its way through great jagged cliffs which step and plummet in giant blocks down to the water - it's easy to see why local tradition reckoned some of them were huge ruined cities (Sodom, and so on).
Eventually, we turn off the Wadi Araba road and strike inland and uphill to Kerak: we start at -400m and climb to (I think) 1,700m up a steep and craggy ravine. The sides are multi-coloured sandstone in impressive twisted strata: the raw geology is very impressive and helps make up for missing the similar Wadi al-Mujib. All up the road are fast-flowing streams, rock (stone) falls, wide stretches of wet sanded washed from above: it's a little worrying, not just because of the drive but because if this road closes then we have no way back to Amman!

It doesn't take too long before we're in rainswept and windy Kerak - our first sights are the white/pale walls of the castle, looming through the mist, perched on a rock high above (and a sign pointing south which reads "Kinks High Way"). The little town stretches up the same rock to the castle entrance, over a deep moat from the visitor centre, just back from the town centre. It's raining fairly heavily, and the thick white mist is almost impenetrable (ie. visibility's pretty low) but hey - what the hell. Khalil retreats into the guest house/visitor centre, and we cross the moat by a little bridge. We ask for a "weather discount" from the guys huddled around a heater in the ticket hut, and we get in for 0.50JD each.
Actually, "in" gives a false impression of how intact the castle of Krak des Moabites is (it's in the old Moabite kingdom): "onto" might be more appropriate. There's a curtain wall down to the west (we can make it out below us in the mist), but we ignore that part until later and instead climb up to the central buildings. There are a lot of similarities with Krak des Chevaliers: built in off-white (limestone?); the existing slopes were enhanced with steep slopes of rounded blocks (I think "glacis" is the word); it's essentially an elongated oval; it comprises a central core ringed with tall towers and a lower curtain wall. Kerak (ex-haunt of Reynald de Chatillon) isn't nearly as well-preserved, though - we're almost surprised to a find a long, arched hall running parallel with the entrance which still has its roof on. We're even more surprised to find a little group being shown around by a Bedouesque guide: we find a little staircase to an upper level (we have our torchs today) and leave them behind.

With the blasting wind, we find some of the passages around the castle are nearly impossible to walk through, and some of the sharper slopes seem particularly lethal, but there's a lot of half-buried passages, connected chambers, rooms now half-full of collapsed stone blocks and water. It's a great scramble, with the torches, even with the cold rain and hail, and the biting wind. We work our way along to the far (south?) end, where the presumed erstwhile towers are now only a simple outer wall, via a long tunnel (the floor is part water, part mud): there are steps (now waterfalls) leading down to rubble-filled halls, upper windows which now open at ground level, and much of the complex is inhabited by little local birds, swooping and darting among the irregular masonry. After an hour we pass the guide again (he borrowed our torch at one point earlier, to show the kitchen and blackened chimney), who's surprised we're still here - he's on his third group.

Wrapping up our visit, which has been a criss-cross covering pretty much the whole site (or everything we could find), we descend two flights of steps to the lower courtyard on the west side, and imagine what the views must look like on good days. There's a lot of construction work (rather than restoration work) going on here, with the building of a wide ramp down from the entrance - it's difficult to tell what they're doing (a new visitors' car-park inside the complex?), but there's also a large featureless single-storey modern building here which is presumably the site museum. Fairly obviously, in this weather, on a Friday, it's closed: in fact it's getting pretty close to sunset and presumably closing time for the whole site now, so we just have a quick look around (good views back up to the main castle, but really too dark to use the camera by now) and then head back to the entrance.
The guys at the gate seem relieved to see us (they were in the process of locking up), and we retire to the heated Visitors' Centre for ten minutes to warm up: there's an Indian family there who've just visited, and a model of the castle (looks like we missed just one tower, on the west side, possibly beyond the presumed museum - otherwise we got it all), and a little gift shop. Then we get back into Khalid's taxi, filthy and wet (he must hate us) and do the long descent, even more impressive in the half-dark and with even more floods and recent rock-falls, down to the Dead Sea.
Kerak, even in the atrocious conditions, gets a respectable 4/10: it's becoming obvious, both as the day progresses and as the weather worsens into winter, that we're going to ahve to return to Jordan some time in the future to do it justice - and Kerak's on the list of places to see in the sun. Bethany was interesting and a bit strange and surreal, and gets 2/10 because the actual ruins were crap. Mount Nebo thinks it's really significant, as a pilgrimage/religious site, but gets 1/10 because it's a second-rate backwater. As for Madaba, that mosaic (apparently the best) was really interesting, but we'd have been better buying a poster of it.

As we strike north along the Wadi Araba/Dead Sea road, Khalid suggests (for the fifth or sixth time) that we visit "my Bedou-een" (ie. his family) - the fact that there's no money involved, and it's too dark to see anything else (and the hot cave/mud/sauna experience involves a climb - now in the dark), leads us to accede - hey, it'll be different. He turns off the Dead Sea road just after it ends (the Dead Sea, not the road), climbs up a steep and winding narrow road (he occasionally switches off the headlights, and we can see lines of long Bedou black tents across the slopes around). Way up towards the top, he suddenly turns off the road (at no junction or landmark that I can see) and we follow a dirt track for perhaps 100m to a little cluster of tents - and then he stops.

We get out - there's wind but no rain at the moment, and the sky's cleared: it's fairly obvious from the noises that the little tent to our right is for sheep; the big tent ahead of us is for the people. Far more impressive than the tents is the view - under the reasonably magnificent stars we look across the Jordan valley to the black shadow that's the Dead Sea, and the lights of Jericho and the villages around it, to the brighter patches behind the opposite hills which are Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Inside, we discover that the long tent, open for a quarter of its length along one of the long sides, is divided into two halves and is made up of large pieces of heavy fabric (woven goat- and camel-hair): the entire thing is supported by large logs (five along each side, one in the centre), and held in place by guy ropes.
Inside the open half are Khalid's two uncles and a friend, all significantly older than Khalid: they're sitting around an open fire, burning in a square-cut pit in the ground and fuelled by a large log which they're gradually feeding in as it burns. There are mats on the floor (floor? ground), and we leave our shoes at the point where the mats start: those inside are all barefoot. There is also a goat, with a little kid: after introductions are made among the humans, Milla goes to talk with the animals while the floor cushions are re-arranged. The kid retreats and we never see it again; the adult goat is less easily alarmed, and very friendly. Nobody understands any English except Khalid (and, according to Milla, the goat) so he translates everything. Conversation starts about goats (comparative differences with Romania) and takes place over cups of warm "Bedou coffee", which is very weak, doesn't have sludge atthe buttom, is laced with cardamon and comes in two little blue-and-white china cups with no handles. There are only two cups, so Khalid has to wait for one of us to finish before he has any.

We move onto tea, in glasses and very sweet, much like they drink in Morocco but without the mint. I mention this and they're all very disparaging about Morocco and particularly Berbers, whom they consider to have no culture (despite dressing, eating, living and socialising in very similar ways) - it's a little circle: Bedouin despise Berbers, who despise Arabs, who despise Bedouin. Time passes and Milla is taken behind the dividing fla to meet Khalid's aunt (the older uncle's wife) and, after a delay (during which I have to rescue my little roll of toilet roll from the too-inquisitive goat), I'm invited to join them. The woman (she has simple tattoos on her face) has a smaller fire and an oil lamp, but this side is still pretty dark: she's making flat bread, kneading dough into circles, popping them onto a convex metal pan above the fire, and tossing them after thirty seconds or so. We try some of her stack of newly-made bread, which is okay. The goat comes to see what we're all doing, and sniffs its way around the room before the woman shoos it away (I don't know why this particular goat is allowed inside, when all the others were in a separate tent/shed).

Quickly bored we return to the main "room" where Khalid (who also removed his trousers when we came in - he's in boxers) is cleaning (ie. brushing the dirt off the mats): a half-flap, and then full flap is closed as the wind gets worse and thunder rolls closer - two kids join the party. They're the kids of Khalid's uncles' friend and seem to have been looking after the animals (there's a camel and a donkey neary also, but Milla turns down the opportunity to meet them): both kids (they intermittently go to school, apparently) turn out to be smokers - Khalid's elder uncle rolls cigarettes for everyone (we swap - the ends of his dissolve in your mouth). Khalid's elder uncle also turns out to be quite devout - he and his wife have been on hajj four times - they also retire to a corner of the tent at one point and pray together (it is Friday, after all). Food is produced for me, Milla and Khalid (the others ate already - watery vegetable stew with small unidentifiable pieces of meat, eaten with the aid of the newly-made bread: unsurprisingly, considering how/where it was made the bread contains a fair quantity of crunchy dirt, probably good for the digestion. Also, lacking practice, it's an amazingly messy way to eat.

Khalid enthuses about the food (we feel duty-bound to agree), and keeps asking us how wonderful it is to sit in the tent with smoke in our eyes. It's great, we tell him: peaceful. The whole thing's like a mission to him - he keeps taking photos (with my camera) and talking about "real" Bedouin. He's very dismissive of money-grabbng Bedouin in Wadi Rum, with their 4x4s - not, apparently, real Bedouin. He also tells a tale (which we've heard before, so it may be true) of the Bedouin in Israel: apparently they were all conscripted as guides and trackers and so on and while they were in the army, the Israelis took their land and built farms and houses on it. Hence there are no Bedouin in Israel.

A musical interlude is provided with the aid of a single-string oil-can violin, played vertically, with a horsehair bow: a simple 5-note sequence (EFGfc EFGfc, etc. - his left/string hand doesn't move) provides the baseline for an apparently traditional Bedouin wail. Khalid claps along enthusiastically while his uncle plays and sings and makes up little verses incorporating me and Milla - it's a bit of a hoot, and redefines the concept of "music". He actually plays a second song, but it sounds pretty identical to us. The evening ends when they produce a mysterious bag of clean formal clothes (presumably just for tourists - Khalid possibly brings a lot of people here, dress me up a bit and take (more) photos.
They're all quite keen for us to stay over the night, but there are a variety of reasons why we don't want to: a.) they seem almost ready to retire now, and it's not 20.00 yet, b.) we don't have any toiletries or clothes with us, c.) the weather's getting worse and the tent's feeling a bit precarious, d.) we already smell of firewood, e.) we keep hearing howling in the hills and have already learnt that Arabic for wolf is "hab-hab", and f.) we're already paying for the room in Amman. They emphasise how welcome we are to return tomorrow, the next day, whenever.

Off we go into the night, or almost don't - Khalid's battery's nearly flat: I have visions of us staying after all, but thankfully we're on a hill (which lets us start). The subsequent drive back to Amman is spent in conversation" Khalid tells us about the loves in his life, we all talk about muslim attitudes to women and morality (in some ways Milla's closer to Khalid than to me - worrying), and we spend some time guessing ages (I guess 44 for Khalid - he's 39; perhaps as revenge he guesses 36 and 39 for us - the oldest anyone's guessed us yet, and the only time over!) Khalid also keeps apologising for the weather, but hey - it was us that picked the day. It was just unfortunate that it turned out to be the worst day of the year so far.
In the late evening (about 23.00) we go out and get burgers and chips, since our Bedou meal actually did little except get our fingers sticky. It'll probably be dry tomorrow.

The day after our big adventure, and what do you know - it looks dry outside. Goddamn. We get up pretty late but, unlike some previous days, don't hang around the hotel - we have to visit Muhajadeen Police Station to get our visa extensions since it now looks pretty certain we'll be in Jordan longer than the 15 days our entry visa allows. This particular police station seems to be off the bottom of our Lonely Planet map (there's an arrow pointing to it), and doesn't appear at all on the free tourist map, so I get Samir to mark it for us: he puts it in a different place than Lonely Planet. Great.
We set out (it is dry outside, though not as warm as it looked from the hotel window) and trek across Amman at speed - odds are this place closes at 13.00, and it's 12.00 when we leave (and we don't know where we're going). As we near our target area, a helpful policeman points us in a third direction (different from Lonely Planet's and Samir's suggestions) - we trust the policeman to know where the police stations are, and eventually reach it (down the opposite side of the hill from the Third Circle and its ugly new oval hotel). A ten minute operation later (which uses up another page in my gradually depleting passport), with a policeman who comes from Kerak (lovely) and suddenly we're allowed to stay in Jordan for three months. Considering the weather, I don't know how useful that'll be: but otherwise I guess we had to leave by Tuesday.

Based on what we believe our absolute location to be, we set off up the hill immediately behind the police station: most of Amman is like the centre of Edinburgh in that there are long flights of short-cut steps hidden away, to obviate following the roads. I'm in my element (though Milla's feet are quickly suffering) and we emerge after a short time at the supermarket between the second and third Circles, where we pause for a few basic supplies before returning to the hotel.
Milla's exhausted and sleeps for the rest of the afternoon, while I potter round posting some stuff and using up the remaining internet credit (I bought some in advance since it was cheaper). Evening finds us drinking the usual beer and playing the usual backgammon. And that was all.

We really must see the rest (the rest?) of Amman today, but don't start particularly well when we get up late morning - still, at least it's fairly dry today again, so we manage to set out in the early afternoon after moving to the room next door to ours. After the collapse of the room upstairs' ceiling, we've been increasingly alarmed by the large damp patches which have been coming down our walls - we were going to move yesterday, but there were no free rooms by the time we got back from the police station, so we do it today (even though it'll now hopefully just be for the one night).

First off we head for the acropolis, which we haven't seen at all - if time permits, we'll revisit the Nymphaeum, Odeon and Theatre for a better look. The acropolis is on the hill facing the hotel, so we just follow the streets upwards - the entrance unfortunately turns out to be on the far side from us and we walk all the way round (though later figure we should just have gone over the walls - the hilltop site is walled): school seems to be getting out for the afternoon/day so we meet more floods of kids. As in Pella they wait until we pass and then throw stones (it's obviously a Jordanian/Palestinian thing) - bastards: a local guy stops his car and shouts at them (they came fairly close to hitting his car), but they just run away. Also we notice a lot of the kids here have learned to greet tourists with "Hello! Fuck you!": hopefully by the time they grow up and need the tourist income, they'll have driven all the tourists away.

We dodge the guides waiting at the gate and wander in: a guy there has a big book and notes down or nationalities in it (they've been doing that all across Jordan, presumably as market analysis). Inside the big walled former-citadel are a collection of buildings of various ages: although the site's been in use for thousands of years, the earliest notable structure is the Greco-Roman temple of Hercules (there have been lots of Bronze Age finds here, but no real buildings as such). It's a pretty dull temple, with four re-erected columns to give some idea of its former dimensions, and is very much stand-alone with no other Roman stuff around.

Just past the temple, with panoramic views of the unfortunately very dull city, is the small concrete National Archaeological Museum, cheap at 1JD (no student discount unless you're a student in Jordan): the area covered by the museum includes the West Bank, ie. both banks of the Jordan Valley. As the principal corridor out of Africa, it's particularly rich in early hominid, Neanderthal and paleolithic finds - unfortunately most of these are just bits of flint and so on (though it's interesting to note that buffalo, boar and rhinoceros were all common in Jordan back then). Modern humans show up around 40,000BC and the neolithic kicked off about 8,500BC. There's lots of material from Jericho (settled by 8,000BC, which makes Troy seem positively modern) and some excellent and unique 6,500BC plaster statues (actually they're pretty primitive, but the oldest 3D representations of humans that we've seen).
By the Bronze Age (3,300BC around here), Jordan was firmly in the Egyptian sphere of influence and towns (like Jericho) became walled. There was a brief abandonment of towns from about 2350BC (people went back to living in tents), and then eventually the local perpetual warfare of the region kicked in - Israelites (west), Edomites (south), Moabites (middle) and Ammonites (north - and I thought they were fossils!) all slogged it out and fell variously under the control of Persians, Assyrians and Babylonians. This period sees much clumsier pieces in the museum than some of the excellent Bronze Age stuff. Eventually, of course, Alexander came through (variously referred to in the labels as Alexander the Greet and Alexander the Greek), then a tussle between Seleucids and Ptolemies, then the arrival of the Nabateans in the south and finally Romans, Byzantines and Islam (Arabs, Egyptians, Turks - the usual).
More balanced in its approach than in other countries so far (it doesn't paint the Byzantines as all bad, but as a continuation of Roman rule; and it acknowledges the presence of the Crusaders and Ghassanids, a bunch of Christian arabs), the museum has some really interesting pieces. Apart from the 6500BC statues, there are Dead Sea scroll fragments (actually quite dull), a great stele (the Mersha stele) recording in detail a successful Moabite military campaign against invading Israelites, and an Iron Age inscription - the prophecy of Belaam, which predicts the imminent end of life on earth due to man's misuse of nature (which seems strangely contemporary. Interesting observations (it's a small museum, but very dense) are the facts that Jordan was most densely cultivated under the Nabateans, and most densely populated under the Byzantines (the population declined after about 550AD). Less interesting is their little oil lamp collection (some erotic scenes) - elongated Hellenistic ones, round Roman ones and almond-shaped Byzantine ones: we've seen them all before.

It takes longer than expected to go round the little museum and the light's beginning to fade by the time we emerge. There's an Umayyad Palace which we explore just round the back, on which they're doing a lot of work: it comprises a main building, formerly colonnaded courtyard and a lot of ruined outbuildings (the remaining walls average about 1m high). It's quite good for clambering around, but frankly isn't that interesting. There's also a Byzantine church, or rather the foundations of one - again, nothing special. Apart from that, the only things to see are a bunch of Pella-esque excavation trenches which apparently turned up Bronze Age material, but now are just holes in the ground.

Reckoning we've finished the hill, we set off down towards the theatre (avoiding another group of stone-throwing kids) via a long flight of steps, have an okay burger at a local fast food place and then wander back to the hotel. We spend most of the evening in our local internet place, have a couple more burgers each (we're feeling greedy), and end the day in our usual beer-and-backgammon style. We haven't seen much in Amman but, according to all our available sources, we've seen everything there is to see - so it's time to finally leave.