The next day we were again facing an off-road descent, but first – an ascent along a built-up highway with an elevation gain of four hundred meters. The total route exceeded a hundred km, and we, mindful of the difficulties of the previous days, decided not to risk it and not to sniff exhaust fumes - to hire transport. We asked at the hotel reception to find a driver to give us a lift for thirty km, that is, up the mountain. There were no problems with this; moreover, we agreed on a very moderate sum of 15 dinars. Considering that we were riding in a pickup truck so the bikes would fit, and for more than half an hour, I think it's practically free. In Cyprus, for the exact same distance (but a more difficult terrain), they wanted to fleece us for 120 euros.
The driver, a good-natured, chubby older guy, spoke a little English, but enough to suggest we make a couple of stops for photos. Meanwhile, he kept mashing the buttons of the mp3 player, trying to find a track to his liking. The music in the car was clearly Arabic (or Jordanian), folk or semi-folk, with traditional string instruments and wailing. Jihad-taxi, you can't call it anything else. Eventually, the driver found a song he liked and started singing along, slapping his belly, periodically glancing at me and smiling. This whole experience was very authentic, but it's a good thing it was limited to half an hour, otherwise I would have gone crazy.
In just a day outside, the bike got covered with this layer of sand
The views are still magical
The driver dropped us off on a hill right after the town. When I asked him if the previously agreed amount was fine, since he took us a bit further than we decided, he just waved his hand: whatever you give is fine! It's strange, gas for a jeep isn't cheap!
It's amazing how such a chill and friendly approach from many Jordanians alternated with a desire to fuck us over.
On the mountain, we discovered a massive souvenir shop, with a courteous owner-salesman who spoke good English and practiced the second of the aforementioned communication methods. He immediately offered us a super discount because we were cyclists. When a few minutes later more tourists, English ones, pulled up, it turned out the seller had lived in London for five years, so the Englishmen would get a super discount because they were from London. Apparently, super discounts were stocked up for everyone, and a reason would always be found.
The guy still managed to hustle me into buying things, and when I tried to haggle the price down more, he whined: “This is not good business”. Okay, I didn't have a choice because I wanted to bring everyone souvenirs, and it was unknown if there would be another chance. Bundling up warmer, since a descent awaited us, we got on our steel horses and rolled out. Going downhill is very pleasant, no matter how you look at it, but the free ride ends sooner or later – after the pleasant and fast asphalt, several small climbs of 20-30 meters on a rocky dirt road awaited us.
A tent in traditional Bedouin colors
A breather
The desert was getting rockier and harder, which played right into our hands
On this day, we were supposed to significantly drop elevation - by half, from 1600 meters to 800. During this process, it became noticeably warmer, and we soon shed our jackets, especially since the sun was beating down pretty hard. Fortunately, we were still doing okay with water, lugging a supply of several liters on ourselves. Had the temperature been higher, we wouldn't have gotten off so easily – I was told about the local summers with forty degrees, where people take 10 liters of water for a day, and sometimes even drink all of it.
As we were passing a village where the population was in the process of migrating from tents to stone houses, we were stopped by a crowd of people near a bunch of cars. They turned out to be teachers coming from the city to teach the locals; they asked, as everyone here does, if we needed any help. We asked for water, but since we were on schedule and seemed to have some time, we could have some tea as well, so we went inside.
They told us a bit about the educational process. The funniest part: there's a student who rides a donkey to school from several kilometers away, parks the donkey at the entrance, goes to classes, and in the evening gets back on the animal – and he's off!
The English teacher, dressed like a city dandy in a suit and tie, a coat, and a trendy haircut, was the most persistent, and for some reason interrogated me about what we thought of the archaeological excavations in Jordan. I had no idea what to answer him, but the resourceful Rybakov came to the rescue: “We're just riding along here, and you've got piles of trash thirty centimeters high on the shoulder”. Fortunately, everyone cracked up, and for some reason no one decided to stab us.
The computer science teacher
Something suspicious is growing in the desert
I won't keep you in suspense, it really did turn out to be a wild watermelon - they are all over the place here, as it turns out. I'll show more detailed photos in the coming days.
Even though we were riding downhill the whole time, the distance was solid, and by the sixtieth kilometer we were tired, albeit not as much as a couple of days ago. It was nice to arrive in a town situated near the goal of our journey – the Wadi Rum national park. I think the town is called Al Quwayrah, and it was nice because right on the street where we popped out, there was a really cool bakery (following Jordanian tradition, it looked like trash)
If you look closely, in the upper right corner you can see a conveyor belt delivering bagels and buns to the vendors. It's a mesmerizing sight: a stream of bagels tumbles off the conveyor belt onto the counter, the vendors instantly shove them into bags, and hand these huge sacks out to customers or couriers, who dash inside at breakneck speed just to grab the supplies and vanish. There are constantly tons of people inside, the bakery is in serious demand.
We bought a couple of buns too. Mine was something like a goat cheese dessert, kind of like the knafeh I ate in Jerusalem , but made of dough instead of vermicelli. I paid just a dinar for it and a couple of bagels, and Sasha paid even less for his.
I wanted to save the bun until evening, but providence had its own plans. When we left the town, we first rode past dumps and greenhouses on asphalt of varying quality for quite a long time. Fatigue took its toll, and despite the fact that it wasn't that far left, about 15 kilometers, we still refueled with the high-calorie goodies we had stocked up on earlier. The dish was incredibly greasy: grease and oil dripped from it, and when out of greed and hunger I scarfed down this whole pastry, my stomach began to actively protest. Getting old sucks.
Another amazing sight: potatoes growing right on the sand, and their color is green and juicy, which means they're happy
Nevertheless, we had to keep going, and then, as is fitting for a good book, the trouble started. The asphalt first turned into a dirt road, and then into completely random ruts running through the desert. Our GPS track didn't match what we were seeing in reality at all, which is no wonder: roads in the desert usually consist of ruts from 4WD SUVs that don't care where they drive. The desert was getting sandier, and our speed dropped to 2-3 km/h. Luckily, we knew that the paved road was a stone's throw away, and worst comes to worst, we'd walk it in an hour or an hour and a half.
We rolled out to a power line under construction, and rejoiced upon seeing a road, but the road turned out to be a loop around the construction site
It seems we were riding along the bottom of a massive wadi that spread out over almost a square kilometer. It was one of those things we were seeing for the first time on this trip.
A sunset in pink tones was approaching. The colors of the sky and the mountains around were stunning. I have seen some very, very beautiful things in my life, and some surpassed any imagination, but when you encounter something like this again, you still lose the power of speech.
