The previous part ended with us leaving the incredible sight of a hundred wind turbines behind, and we were soon supposed to reach Dana. In my mind, it was a tiny village on the edge of a nature reserve, so the bunch of houses and mosques we soon saw didn't fit the model in my head at all. Dragging my feet like a zombie, with my brain barely functioning, I heard some bad sounds coming from my bike. I absolutely didn't want to investigate yet another problem, but blowing it off wouldn't make things any better, especially since the sounds were getting louder. I'd already heard similar rustling sounds during my trip to Cyprus — back then it was because the rear rack was a bit crooked, and in the end, not wanting to deal with it properly, I just blindly bent it with my hands, risking breaking it or the frame.
Fortunately, I had learned my lesson from that experience, and this time I reworked the rack mounts into a better position, so the sound of it rubbing against the tire triggered a flash of irritation: “Not again? I thought I fixed it?”
When I shined a flashlight on the back of the bike, a nasty detail came to light: the little screw attaching the rack to the frame near the hub had unscrewed and fallen out. No biggie, I had a spare. It was pitch black all around, windy, empty streets with occasional suspicious-looking characters in sweatpants walking by, and the traditional call of the muezzin to prayer echoing out — in this setting, it sent shivers down my spine. We hadn't eaten properly in a long time, and that, as we all know, undermines morale, making the whole environment seem very unpleasant and threatening. The screw wouldn't go in, and in a fit of temper, driven by exhaustion and inevitable irritation, I forced it in, most likely stripping the thread on the frame in the process. At least the rack was firmly secured again, and we could continue our journey.
And the journey still went upwards. We had dressed warmly, and alternately riding/walking uphill was incredibly hot, but taking off layers again was just beyond our remaining strength, and risky too — it definitely wasn't summer outside. The climb was incredibly steep and went through residential neighborhoods. Eventually, we made it to a shop on a large, straight street going steadily uphill, just so Rybakov could get a little nourishment, otherwise he had become completely miserable and weak.
Another candy bar, the last fifty meters up, barely half a kilometer long, and we were at the top. The track was laid right to the hotel, couldn't miss it. But what was this? The last stretch of the track led into the abyss, down into the darkness at an unbelievable angle along broken asphalt. I felt uneasy, since Google Maps showed this hotel's coordinates in the desert fifty kilometers to the north (meaning it was wrong god knows how), and in the end, I had entered them either using booking.com or simply by finding a picture of the hotel on Panoramio. What if the hotel actually wasn't at the bottom, but here, in the town? A sign brought a little clarity: “Dana historical village and nature reserve”, because I firmly remembered that the hotel was in the village. My exhaustion-tortured brain, however, refused to believe it, and painted a picture of me explaining to Sasha that we'd now have to scramble back out of the darkness we were rolling into.
Clenching both brakes, I once again praised Allah for my bike — I have no idea how I would have descended such a steep slope in the dark on rim brakes. Especially considering my front brake had been making weird sounds for a while, and Rybakov had already freaked me out by saying the front pad was worn out and I'd soon hit metal, after which it would stop working completely. Every second we dropped several meters in altitude, and this whole process took no more than 10 minutes. Climbing back up in our current state would have taken two or three hours.
There were no lights on our path — no streetlamps, no signs that we would soon come across any settlement. Finally, after losing three hundred meters of elevation, when we passed the last bend, the village of Dana suddenly appeared before us. At first glance, it seemed that literally the whole village consisted of exactly three hotels, and nothing more. If you looked closely, you'd realize there were another dozen or two houses nearby, but that was it.
Near the very first hotel on our way (Dana Moon Hotel) stood an anxious, bearded, dark-complexioned brunette who asked us which hotel we were heading to, because he was expecting two Russians and was worried he hadn't heard from them yet. Naturally, we turned out to be the Russians, and were graciously escorted to our room, which faintly resembled a hospital ward because of the white tiles. Fortunately, the carpets hung on the walls smoothed over this impression somewhat, adding an element of a Soviet apartment to the hospital ward. The bikes were safely laid to rest in a special shed. I'm glad that not once during the trip were there any problems with parking our iron horses at hotels.
Our eternal struggle with power outlets resulted in creative ways of victory
We were asked if we would be having dinner, to which we answered affirmatively with great enthusiasm. Even though there were some incomprehensible processes going on in my guts and I probably should have been more careful about consuming food, a hunger of incredible force woke up inside me. We ran to take a quick shower, and when we were escorted to a nearby restaurant owned by the same family that ran the hotel—getting scolded for being late—it turned out that dinner would proceed in a quiet, almost family-like atmosphere. Under the low arched vaults, three young Canadians (one of them a girl), a lean, gray-haired Brit, and an Austrian of Asian descent were already sitting at the table.
Dinner cost seven dinars, was quite plentiful, and reasonably varied: several types of meat with gravy, rice, bread, and appetizers. Unfortunately, the vegetables came in the meat gravy, so to diversify my diet, I had to pick them out of it. The life of a pescatarian is hard. The Canadians were asking us some questions, but from the lack of glucose in my blood, I could barely move my lips. This phenomenon is called hypoglycemia, and in its extreme form, you can even lose consciousness or cause brain tissue damage, but here I was simply incapable of speaking or moving until I had eaten. The atmosphere didn't exactly inspire optimism either: the thing is, a wind of absolutely incredible force was howling through the Dana gorge, and coupled with the low stone ceiling, rusty decorations on the walls, sparse lighting, and exhaustion, I felt like I was in Dracula's lair.
After dinner, the host suggested lighting a small fire and drinking some tea (which he refilled for free many times, unlike the stingy Cairwan hotel in Karak). The tourists begged him to make the tea without sugar, but he joked that it's not how they do things here, and gave in to the provocation only once; the rest of the time he brewed the traditional syrup.
He lit the fire outside, on the observation deck near the restaurant, where Rybakov, fresh out of the shower, nearly froze to death from the cold and quickly bolted to the room, which was only slightly warmer, and the windows wouldn't close all the way, leaving massive drafts. We fixed that by wedging the window shut with a knife, but it was still freezing, especially considering I'd been shivering for almost the last two months. Luckily, there were plenty of blankets in the room.
The photo was taken the next morning
I returned to the fire, built by the hospitable host in a brazier, and in the incredible wind, with the panorama of the massive gorge barely visible in the twilight, we started drinking the traditional cloying mint tea from a soot-blackened, seen-it-all teapot that was being heated right there on the fire. The conversation flowed unhurriedly, and from it I gathered that the people around me were even more well-traveled than the teapot. Some of them were what you'd call 'travel living' — restless souls, vagabonds, permanent wanderers yearning to discover this planet. Someone had just returned from Nepal, someone else was planning to go. They discussed random acquaintances, eternal travelers just like them, whom one had bumped into literally yesterday, and another — four years ago. They talked about hunting, beavers, how to get visas to difficult countries, and other entertaining things.
The host, who looked either sad or tired, said that there are almost no people in the village: three families running the hotels, plus a few farmers. They grow olives here (which, unfortunately, were consistently tasteless in Jordan), tomatoes, and other vegetables. There are predators, hyenas and wolves, which frequently slaughter the sheep. To the question of what sounds a hyena makes and whether he had heard the beast, the host said that the local hyenas only wheeze and snort, but never howl, so they're easier to see than to hear.
It was past nine, and it was time to go to bed to properly rest from this exhausting day, but I really didn't want to leave, since fireside chats and stories are one of the most unforgettable parts of traveling. It resolved itself: both locals and tourists go to bed early here so the daylight hours last longer. The fire burned out, the tea was finished, and we gradually drifted off to our wards.