Instead of bypassing the castle hill and the center, we accidentally plunged right into the thick of it. A motley, noisy crowd of people and cars, the clingy kids again, and the heavily polluted air, all piled on top of the exhaustion from a one-and-a-half-kilometer climb, slightly fogging our minds. We had almost ridden all the way down from the center, and from the edge of the mountain, we could see the place where our hotel was supposed to be.
However, my restlessness flared up again, and I gently but persistently talked Alexander into visiting the ruins, the city center, and all that anyway — after all, it would be stupid to just ride through Jordan on the highway without seeing a single tourist attraction or city. No matter how skeptical I am of hyped-up places, many of them became that way for a reason. Some people are satisfied with nature, some with cities, and others are perfectly happy with a beach, but I don't see any artificial reasons to limit myself to certain beauties of life if there's a chance to taste them all. Especially since life usually flows in a rather predictable and tedious way, and the chance to break out of the routine doesn't come along very often.
We headed back to the center and found the castle ruins. Although according to the schedule they closed around four and we arrived later, a little guy running by said we still had an hour. They charged us just a dinar per person for entry. By the gates stood a policeman (or a guard?), who motioned to us that we shouldn't drag our bikes inside, but rather leave them right there, and he'd keep an eye on them. By that day we had already started getting somewhat used to the friendliness, the low crime rate, and the locals' lack of fuss over formalities, so we decided to just ditch our iron steeds right there. It seems to me that in some European countries, out of those that love law and order, a tourist attraction worker wouldn't take the risk of watching over someone else's stuff for fear of a lawsuit or other problems.
