Right in the center on the horizon – our hotel
So, having left our bikes near the merchant, we moved inside Shobak Castle. After wandering around the ruins, we discovered the underground passage that the Brit in Dana had told us about. This passage leads through half of the mountain on which the castle sits, and comes out right onto the road that tourists take to get here. Rybakov started going down the steps, calling me to follow him – I wasn't against doing a couple of flights to see what's what, because I’ve never noticed any signs of claustrophobia in myself. However, our active traveler didn't stop there, and climbed even lower, which wasn't exactly part of my plans. First of all, we hadn't grabbed our flashlights from the bikes, and secondly, cycling shoes are poorly suited for such mountaineering tricks. Alexander, though, couldn't care less about all this due to his innate mild recklessness, and therefore he plunged deeper and deeper into the bowels of the castle mountain, despite my protests, dragging me along. After a dozen or two meters down and fifty in length (and the passage length is over 250 meters) the steps turned in places into mere small ledges, and in places completely degenerated. We were descending now holding onto the rocks on the walls with our hands, and sometimes just sliding on our asses, because breaking a leg in this tunnel would be a piece of cake. I am suggestible, and it's easy to egg me on to such stupidities, even when I don't really want to.
When we had descended about halfway, we sat in the dark, having turned off the flashlights on our phones. An absolute darkness set in, the kind a city dweller almost never encounters. An unusual feeling – you know that around you are hundreds of meters of rock, and should a cave-in happen, you'll be locked in a huge stone bag for a long time, or maybe you won't get out at all. To be fair, it wasn't scary. In Europe, in a place like this, they would surely charge a 25 euro entrance fee, hang warning signs everywhere, forbid descending without a helmet and a guide, and force you to sign a liability waiver, but here nobody gives a damn. On the bright side, the romance of adventure is preserved!
Also, the tunnel has excellent acoustics – loud sounds make the walls pleasantly boom with bass, the echo lingers for almost half a minute. It would be cool to throw a party there and listen to some chillout. In the end, we reached the exit and climbed out onto the road using metal rungs. Sasha didn't calm down here either, saying that the road is for losers, and we would climb back on our own. We climb, then we climb, especially since going up is usually more convenient than going down (although harder in terms of endurance).
Twenty minutes later, dusted with limestone sand from head to toe, we proudly emerged into God's light, where we were unexpectedly met by a group of German tourists. Naturally, we thoroughly encouraged them to climb deeper, since it's interesting and pleasant. Maybe they were discouraged by the thickness of the dust on our clothes, or maybe by my slow and painful hobbling, but for some reason the burghers didn't buy into the secret passage advertisement, and limited themselves to a dozen or two steps.
The secret passage came out to the surface right by the road in the photo
We wandered around the castle a bit more, and admired the surrounding sunset views from up high, although it had gotten seriously cold. In the ruins, engraved stones are just lying around – in Europe, each one would be counted, put in a box and framed, but here – take as much as you want, haul it to your country house. Fortunately, European tourists' country houses are far away, and the locals don't bother. When it was time to head back, I chatted with the merchant, who was furiously trying to fob something, anything, off on us. One of his attempts was curious, to say the least – he offered us to buy ancient Nabataean, Roman, and Byzantine coins, and promised a grandiose discount. Supposedly, usually, for all those Americans, they cost a whopping 20 dinars, but to us, as kindred spirits and beautiful Latvians, he was ready to let them go for 10. Having haggled for another five minutes, I knocked the price down to 5, but that was the absolute minimum per piece.
The coins looked ancient, fairly worn down, green and moldy, like the real deal. The only thing that stopped me was that I don't know a thing about coins myself, and it’s still a bit too expensive for a gift to a random collector back home. Sasha immediately hatched a business plan to resell antiques on eBay, but even I am not naive enough to try pulling it off without some preliminary intel gathering. Later on, there was a whole detective story with the coins, which will gradually unfold in the following parts.
In the end, I bought some trinkets from the souvenir guy, he praised our hotel, said his brother worked there, gesturing to show a heavyset man, and we parted in peace.
The way back would have been quick, but we still had a plan to grab a bite, so we headed into town. On the main street, a diner turned up, where using signs we ordered some unknown dishes, and I additionally asked for no meat, parked the bikes at the entrance, and sat down at a table to wait for dinner. Leaving our iron steeds unattended this time felt sketchy for some reason, and I parked my bike so that its rear rack stuck out through the front door with the blinker on. Despite this, I was nervous and therefore ate in a rush. On top of that, I felt worse again, I was shivering, and my muscles were aching all over.
While we ate, we spotted water with foam boiling over from a huge vat where chicken was being cooked, and whistled to the cook, who was also the cashier all rolled into one.
Home appliances in Jordan are of some very weird brands, apparently local supermarkets did their best
After a hearty, and quite normal-tasting dinner, which cost us a reasonable 2 (3 with meat) dinars, we stopped by a shop nearby. Interestingly, in such the middle of nowhere, throughout our entire route, we never once encountered alcoholic beverages for sale, nor, consequently, booze lovers. As a teetotaler, this made me very happy, especially since the people we came across were pleasant to talk to, non-aggressive, and didn't exhibit all those dark sides of personality that often manifest under the influence of alcohol. In the shop, I bought a couple of types of malt beverage. Apparently, even the word "beer" is taboo here, because hiding under this name was the most genuine non-alcoholic beer. The taste varies, but overall – so-so, our Zelta Zirgs is way better.
Outside, the temperature was dropping rapidly and the wind was picking up again. It was devilishly cold, it seemed to be 16 degrees in the room, but to our utmost joy, the air conditioner worked in heater mode, albeit intermittently, and the balcony door, contrary to local traditions of leaving drafts everywhere, closed quite tightly. The reason for this was obviously that the hotel this time was a real luxury by local standards. However, even such a wonderful hotel didn't escape Jordanian quirks: there was only one towel, and when I asked for a second one at the reception, they didn't understand me, or didn't want to help. At least they poured me some free tea – but it was the most disgusting-tasting tea of the whole trip!
Even in a neat and generally decent room, you run into such jokes with crooked surfaces
Tomorrow we faced a choice – to ride on asphalt, only 30 km with a moderate climb of about a kilometer (or even less) or to hit the MTB off-road, trusting the route creators' promises of incredible views. You can probably already guess what decision the two restless tourists with ants in their pants made, but you'll only be able to confirm your guess in the next part.