The previous part ended with us finally getting ready, around one in the afternoon, to start our journey for real, rather than just warming up like at the border. Ahead of us lay fifty kilometers, cut short in advance thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Ragai. We, however, didn't even manage to start moving before a guy of suspiciously European appearance approached us. Tracing his trajectory back, we spotted a massive bike trailer full of mountain bikes, about 15 or 20 of them, no less. I must say that up to this point we had seen bicycles in Jordan exactly once, so such an influx of bikes was a pleasant surprise.
The guy offered us technical help or water in English, to which I asked where he was from. It turned out he was Ukrainian, studying engineering in Jordan because back home everything requires big money or connections, and he works part-time for a bike tour company.
There was also a funny coincidence that cheered me up: it turned out the Ukrainian had the exact same bike model as me, namely a Cube LTD SL 2015 2x10. Such small surprises make life more pleasant, and sometimes even almost bearable. Thanking our comrade, we set off towards our first goal - Wadi Mujib.
Wadi translates from Arabic as a dry riverbed that comes to life a few times a year during the rainy season. When it fills with moisture, it can turn into a mighty force, and easily drown a careless tourist who underestimates the speed and aggression of the rushing water streams. As we know, even the Grand Canyon was carved by the Colorado River, which is now barely visible.
Wadi Mujib is only at the beginning of its journey to becoming a serious tourist location, and in my humble opinion, it has great potential. We didn't have time to go canyoning there, that is, hiking through the water in wetsuits and descending into narrow gorges, and besides, as it turned out, it was off-season anyway and everything was closed. Luckily, Jordanians deeply despise any safety regulations, and generally dislike bureaucracy, so the workers building the info center (which in Jordan is usually called a visitor center) opened the gate into the canyon for us without any unnecessary hurdles.
I don't know if the photo is impressive, but if you want, you can wander inside for long hours. True, so that lost off-season vagabonds like us, who don't care about the risk, wouldn't be tempted to rush deep inside without a guide, they did unscrew the ladder for the winter after all.
Having admired the unearthly beauty, we moved further along the shore of the Dead Sea. Luxurious hotels gave way to a deserted road and views of salt beaches, one of which we went down to in order to have lunch with Joylent.
They don't sweat the grammar
For those who haven't yet heard of the new fashionable trend of balanced miracle food from shakers, some of our meals will seem somewhat wild. The thing is, one programmer from the USA got tired of wasting energy and time on cooking and eating, and as a result, he came up with this clever trick: he took crushed oats, bran, soy protein extract, a handful of vitamins, starch-related sugar, mixed it all with water and proclaimed it to be an optimally balanced diet, cheap, convenient, effective, and healthy. The idea turned out to be popular, and was picked up by dozens of clones, often Dutch for some reason. I too fell victim to the marketing, but rather out of practical considerations: these nutritious shakes are still healthier than Snickers, are reasonably priced (1.5-3 euros per meal), and don't require heating, like traditional tourist food. Rybakov brought his stove anyway, but what's the use of it – you remember how we were rushing to the bus, where could we carve out an hour or two to search for gas for the stove. Time was constantly pressing, and in Amman we also didn't bother, so we just periodically ate the Dutch Joylent, which traveled with us all the way across Jordan, through cities, mountains, and desert. Taste-wise, the shakes (how do you even translate that into Russian? boltanki?) resemble sawdust with flavoring, so if anyone wants to try it, I warned you.
But let's get back to the sea. Although we felt lazy and reluctant (as you remember, I was feeling quite unwell), we went down to the shore.
Bizarre thickets of crystals and huge chunks of salt framed the shore, and Rybakov engaged in some souvenir vandalism: he tried to break off some pieces as a keepsake. Eventually he succeeded, and we ended up lugging an extra 100-200 grams across all the subsequent mountains and deserts. I should say that the guide from the airport bus told us that the Dead Sea is very soothing and harmonizing, and that one day at the Dead Sea is equal to four days at a regular resort. We can confirm from our own experience with absolute certainty that the effect is incredibly strong. So much so that, having thoroughly relaxed, we climbed back up with great difficulty and continued our journey. I must say, for a while now we had been bothered by the question of where to spend the night. William, the Couchsurfer we were supposed to stay with in Al-Mazraa, wasn't answering calls or texts, and there are simply no hotels in this region. Spoiled by our luck, we didn't stress out too much (which is generally uncharacteristic of me), and just kept pedaling along. Gradually, the mesmerizing but creepy coastal landscapes gave way to an unbelievable amount of greenery by Jordanian standards. Obviously, irrigation in the region is top-notch. True, this was offset by a fair amount of garbage on both sides of the road; in places, the layer reached tens of centimeters. We also saw quite a few flocks of sheep and poor-looking tents, where their owners evidently live.
Eventually, close to sunset, which starts around 4:30 PM this time of year, we arrived at the village of Al-Mazraa, which for some reason turned out to be a town, and not even a small one—as we were told later, it has around 40,000 people. Our track was ending in a couple of kilometers, at the turnoff to Karak, where we were heading tomorrow. The prospect of climbing 1.5 kilometers into the mountains until late at night didn't appeal to us at all, so we started getting a bit nervous.
And then another (well-planned) miracle fell into our laps. To the right of the road, we saw a massive building with a sign for the Al Numeira Environmental Association. We stopped, eyeing this huge house, when a few older guys and younger lads strolled over to us. In an absolutely magical way, they offered us to stay at their place, rest, drink some tea, and basically offered any other help.
Who were these mysterious people? How do Jordanians drink tea? Did we manage to find lodging in the end? Where did our host William disappear to, and could a local even be named that? Do Muslims really hate everyone? (a question Mr. Ragai had been wondering about).
You'll find out about all this in the next episode.