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.
To be honest, from the outside the castle looks more interesting than from the inside. Sasha was outright mocking the ruins and my desire to see them with sarcasm; in his opinion, almost all castles are the same, and even the ones we have in Sigulda are more interesting. Nevertheless, we did manage to see something curious: a group of Polish pilgrims led by a huge, fat priest in a cassock. Looks like stereotypes about the clergy won't die anytime soon if these fellas continue indulging in the sin of gluttony quite so passionately. The priest was snapping pics of the ruins on a tablet, which always looks exceptionally idiotic, only confirming my low opinion of the representatives of almost any church.
The castle walls are high, and I'm scared to approach the edge, but Rybakov has rooted that fear out of himself
It wasn't warm at all, I still had a fever, but as long as you're busy, walking back and forth, and have company, you can manage
After strolling around the castle until sunset and picking up some handmade painted camel magnets, we decided it would be a good idea to grab a bite. This was the second time our planning had failed us. Even though I had saved a quote in my phone from a wise traveler on the site https://www.jordanjubilee.com/ saying you shouldn't eat right across from the gates but rather walk a bit further, the quote didn't exactly make it clear where to. We decided to just plop down wherever, and the "wherever," unfortunately, turned out to be an eatery called "King's Restaurant"
Inside, it looked pretty creepy: skewed lockers and a toilet that was basically covered in mold. Rybakov joked that in our neck of the woods, a health inspector's hair would stand on end, after which he'd shut the place down forever, but here it's no big deal.
We, in principle, were already used to this kind of thing, and anyway, glamour and cleanliness, as you already know, are far from the most important things to me when traveling. In the end, all these feelings of disgust, cookie-cutter beauty, or xenophobia are traces of evolution, which demands that we love unrotted fruits and vegetables, fear unfamiliar animals and people, and generally keep a low profile. But a human has an intellect to rein in runaway instincts when they boss us around more than they should. Yes, you should wash your hands after using the toilet and eat fresh food, but the chances of dying from indigestion or sepsis in the modern world are pretty slim if you pay attention to your health in time; it was reasonable to be afraid of everything 10,000 years ago, but nowadays it's more useful to be more open to the world.
So, we would have survived the dirty sink, but the food was very so-so: even after a whole day in the saddle, when absolutely anything seems like the food of the gods, the hummus was a bit sour and stale, and the rest left much to be desired as well. The most unpleasant surprise awaited us when we saw the bill: I paid over 10 dinars for this mediocre swill, and in total we left around 25, with a 10% city tax slyly tacked onto the bill. The service was quite pleasant and very friendly, at least we got that going for us.
Nevertheless, for some reason, this was the most unpleasant experience in all of Jordan, and I even find it hard to say why I feel that way. Maybe because the hotel would have fed us just as well, if not better, and for only 7 dinars, and I was beating myself up over my own short-sightedness. This feeling didn't last long, though: a journey is a journey precisely because not everything goes smoothly, and compared to the problems that could have been waiting for us, this was just a tiny annoying blip, and not a disaster at all.
A Jewish proverb says: "If a problem can be solved with money, it's not a problem, it's an expense."
I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, but I understand it only feels that way when you have the money for those expenses. Fortunately, we didn't go broke over 15 dinars (let me remind you, that's roughly 15 lats).
By the time we had dinner, it had already gotten dark, but fortunately, all we had to do was roll down to the hotel.
The hotel looked more or less decent: there were tables and chairs at the entrance, and inside everything was clean and decorated. Of course, we still had to wait a couple of minutes for hot water, and when I asked for boiling water for tea, it turned out it cost 50 piasters a mug. The room was small and had equally small windows, but essentially I don't care: the main thing is that there's a soft, clean bed, warm blankets, and a shower. I have a hard time understanding people who need much more than that from a hotel and are willing to pay for it. 95% of my needs are what I just named, plus, maybe having Wi-Fi and boiling water wouldn't be bad either. Wi-Fi, by the way, was almost always available in the hotels, but the internet there is usually mobile, and no better than our Zain SIM card. Overall, I'd call it good: we made Skype video calls almost every day, and they didn't even lag.
The next morning, that same hellish day I was so afraid of awaited us, the culmination of our efforts: 2.5 kilometers of elevation gain and a 102 km ride, the journey from Karak to the Dana nature reserve.