Day 61
Sleeping location: Behind a half finished building outside Marj Al Hamam, Jordan
Distance (km today/total): 37 / 5523
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 47100
Time spent attempting to leave Amman: 6hrs
Day in three words: Can’t get out
Breakfast did not contain the advertised falafel (after last night, are we cursed?) but some pocket eggs partially made up for this. We went for a morning wander around downtown and saw the Roman Amphitheatre and the Citadel, both of which were nice enough. In the shoe district was a trio of shops called “Man shose”, “Black shoes” and “Good for shoes”, which I enjoyed very much. After our walk we hit the road, heading out of Amman via some sightseeing and errand destinations along the way. My word it was awful. There is so much traffic and pollution and general chaos. Everyone honks constantly, which seems to mean any one of:
“Hello”
“I am here, please be aware”
“Get out of my way”
“Hey idiot the light changed 2 milliseconds ago”
“Attention I am about to do something stupid and dangerous”
“Nice tits”
It’s impossible to know which one is meant, so the whole thing is very stressful as I was just assuming the worst every time. Amman is also extremely hilly and the roads just bounce up and down the hills directly, meaning that there are frequent steep bits to get over.
The first stop was the martyrs monument/museum, which commemorated all the people who died in the wars that Jordan has fought in the 20th century. It was quite interesting, especially as I saw the same stories told from an Israeli perspective last year. When we went to leave Rebecca’s combination padlock had somehow changed its combination and our bikes were now stuck. We asked the security guard if he had any tools, and he summoned two nearby soldiers. Unfortunately they didn’t try to shoot it with their machine guns, but the first two approaches of “pull it really hard” and “hit it with some big stones” surprisingly failed to work. They went off, I assume to get some proper tools, and I started fiddling around with the combination. About a minute later the thing popped open, which was a total fluke as the new combination was nothing like the old one. We called off the soldiers, who may have been calling in an airstrike by this point, and left. They definitely thought we were idiots who had just forgotten the code.
The next stop was Cycle Jordan for some supplies, which I mention by name because the staff were lovely and it’s the only bike shop I’ve ever visited that gives out free orange juice. Then onto a nearby supermarket for camping gas and general food supplies. There was a machine in there that was cooking pitta breads and dumping them out in a big pile to be bagged and purchased by the kilo. We picked some up (still warm!) and they were delicious. Our last stop on the way out was a huge mosque that was a massive detour and was also closed. This became even more of a detour when the road we wanted to leave the city on was closed (“for the king”) and we had to make an enormous detour.
All of the faff and detours and steepness, plus the fact that daylight has shifted about 45 minutes “back” since Turkey, meant that by sunset we had only done about 35km and were still only in the Croydon of Amman. There were no hotels and no good wild camping spots so we had to improvise a bit, but we found a pretty decent spot on level ground between a half built building and a sort of cliff that had been hacked out of the hillside to make room for it. I’m sure a couple of people saw us but they didn’t seem bothered and we weren’t disturbed. We left one of the tent flaps open before we got in and then discovered a mini swarm of mosquitoes in there, so we had fun hunting them all down as a bedtime game.
Distance (km today/total): 37 / 5523
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 47100
Time spent attempting to leave Amman: 6hrs
Day in three words: Can’t get out
Breakfast did not contain the advertised falafel (after last night, are we cursed?) but some pocket eggs partially made up for this. We went for a morning wander around downtown and saw the Roman Amphitheatre and the Citadel, both of which were nice enough. In the shoe district was a trio of shops called “Man shose”, “Black shoes” and “Good for shoes”, which I enjoyed very much. After our walk we hit the road, heading out of Amman via some sightseeing and errand destinations along the way. My word it was awful. There is so much traffic and pollution and general chaos. Everyone honks constantly, which seems to mean any one of:
“Hello”
“I am here, please be aware”
“Get out of my way”
“Hey idiot the light changed 2 milliseconds ago”
“Attention I am about to do something stupid and dangerous”
“Nice tits”
It’s impossible to know which one is meant, so the whole thing is very stressful as I was just assuming the worst every time. Amman is also extremely hilly and the roads just bounce up and down the hills directly, meaning that there are frequent steep bits to get over.
The first stop was the martyrs monument/museum, which commemorated all the people who died in the wars that Jordan has fought in the 20th century. It was quite interesting, especially as I saw the same stories told from an Israeli perspective last year. When we went to leave Rebecca’s combination padlock had somehow changed its combination and our bikes were now stuck. We asked the security guard if he had any tools, and he summoned two nearby soldiers. Unfortunately they didn’t try to shoot it with their machine guns, but the first two approaches of “pull it really hard” and “hit it with some big stones” surprisingly failed to work. They went off, I assume to get some proper tools, and I started fiddling around with the combination. About a minute later the thing popped open, which was a total fluke as the new combination was nothing like the old one. We called off the soldiers, who may have been calling in an airstrike by this point, and left. They definitely thought we were idiots who had just forgotten the code.
The next stop was Cycle Jordan for some supplies, which I mention by name because the staff were lovely and it’s the only bike shop I’ve ever visited that gives out free orange juice. Then onto a nearby supermarket for camping gas and general food supplies. There was a machine in there that was cooking pitta breads and dumping them out in a big pile to be bagged and purchased by the kilo. We picked some up (still warm!) and they were delicious. Our last stop on the way out was a huge mosque that was a massive detour and was also closed. This became even more of a detour when the road we wanted to leave the city on was closed (“for the king”) and we had to make an enormous detour.
All of the faff and detours and steepness, plus the fact that daylight has shifted about 45 minutes “back” since Turkey, meant that by sunset we had only done about 35km and were still only in the Croydon of Amman. There were no hotels and no good wild camping spots so we had to improvise a bit, but we found a pretty decent spot on level ground between a half built building and a sort of cliff that had been hacked out of the hillside to make room for it. I’m sure a couple of people saw us but they didn’t seem bothered and we weren’t disturbed. We left one of the tent flaps open before we got in and then discovered a mini swarm of mosquitoes in there, so we had fun hunting them all down as a bedtime game.
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