Pt 1 - 14: GOODBYE MOSES

About 20kms north of Kerak the King’s Highway took a vertiginous dive into the broad and spectacular Zarqa Ma’in valley. Poised on the lip of the descent the valley looks more like a deep canyon with the road winding through it like a giant black serpent. The thrilling hairpins demanded my complete concentration, not easy with the others still venting the tension of the gas station riot by doing dumb shit like introducing themselves to the long-haired sheep wandering along the narrow verges with much mirth and giggling in the back seat. It might also have been a means of diverting attention from the fact that I still occasionally felt for the door handle to change gears. Nevertheless, we reached the bottom the long way and in one piece.

The laborious climb up the far side was made even more so by the lumbering truck in front of us, and by the time we crawled to the top of the pass the little Feroza was running pretty hot. I veered off at a lookout right on a narrow hairpin, misjudging the tricky entrance ramp and ending up stranded on a bank of rubble with the car’s rear end hanging out onto the road. Perhaps it was just a psychological self-defense but I found it hilarious. The others didn’t share my amusement until I’d managed to get us out of the predicament so that the vision of another vehicle hurtling around the bend and taking us out didn’t seem quite so real.

Once the car cooled down we pushed on for Madaba, still a few clicks distant. As we left Zarqa Ma’in behind the dessicated desert terrain so much a feature of our travels thus far translated itself almost immediately into the flat, green, fertile Transjordan Plateau. It was like entering another country. The rutfuddy concrete highway became a handsome avenue flanked by tall cedars bisecting extensive citrus orchards and vast, verdant fields of young wheat. The change was dramatic and refreshing and underlined by heavy, cleansing showers which had been threatening all day and closed in as we approached Madaba. I realised it was the first rain we’d experienced since long before leaving Perth.

It was after five and drizzling steadily as we rolled into town and activated our accommodation radar. Being just 30kms south of Amman, and therefore an easy day trip from the capital, there wasn’t much on offer. It didn’t seem like the sort of place you’d want to linger anyway, but to be fair we weren’t seeing Madaba at its best. The light was dull and fading so fast the street lights were already on; the architecture was uninspiring, the rain-glossed streets drab, uninviting and clogged with traffic; the locals, wrapped against the sudden cold, wore closed expressions as they milled along the cracked pavements. Any evidence of Madaba’s once exalted position in the Byzantine Empire was well concealed.

We drove around aimlessly with our eyes peeled for anything that looked like a fonduk, or hotel, but to no avail. I don’t suppose the sight of Tess in her battered Akubra leaning out the window and screaming “Fonduk? Fonduk?” at unsuspecting passersby enhanced our cause much but the resulting comedy in the car didn’t hurt either.

We eventually stumbled upon a pension rejoicing in the name of Lulu’s. It was on an unsalubrious back street and the house itself looked quite small, but it seemed like a week since we’d left Petra this morning and I for one would have been happy to curl up in a 44 gallon drum. Ok, that’s a lie; I craved a hot shower, a decent feed and a comfortable bed. I stayed with the car and inhaled the petrichor while the others went to investigate.

Tess emerged triumphant. “It’s a palace inside, warm, and we’ve got a big room all to ourselves. It’s really clean.”

“What about the hot water?” I asked, unable to get past the steaming vision in my weary head.

“It feels alright. Anyway, we don’t have much choice do we?” Couldn’t argue with that. Lulu’s it was.

And a lulu it proved to be. The appearance from the street was deceptive because the house was built on a steepish slope which shielded the lower story from view. Our residence was the entire bottom floor and comprised two large bedrooms, an exceedingly comfortable living area and a spotless bathroom boasting fluffy pink towels and the steamingest shower since…well, since Perth. Lulu herself was a very sweet middle-aged lady who had a soft spot for Australians because she had a son living in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield. She’d only opened her house to strangers quite recently and hadn’t yet perfected the art of fleecing unwary travellers. It would have been a bargain at twice the price.

All spruced and scented after deluxe showers we piled back into the Feroza and headed into town to satisfy the second of our three deepest desires, a decent feed. We parked outside what passes for a bottle shop in the Middle East – a dimly lit store about the size of a caravan stacked with warm beer and furtive old men in stained jackets – and bought enough Amstels to sedate an army. The four of us then trawled the main drag for food. Micha and Lea wanted vegetarian so they peeled off to into a café with softball sized falafel. After a day grazing on chips, nuts and chocolate bars we were in the mood for something more substantial so we pushed on through the chilly wind and drizzle till we came to Al Mankal Tikka. The patina of moisture on the window spelled warmth and the warped slides above the counter of crispy chook and chips swimming in lumpy gravy were positively salivational. I could feel the grease dribbling down my chin.

While we awaited our order we entertained ourselves with the history of chicken tikka writ large in bold red letters upon our bright yellow place mats. “Jehangir, King of Kings of the Far Orient of South East Asia and Ruler of the Kingdom of Panj Darrya…”, and holder of the record for the ancient world’s longest moniker, so loved his fiancé, the legendary Noorjehan, that he commanded his master chef Fazloo to create a dish worthy of her charms. “If you succeed,” he promised the chef, “I will free you. If you fail you will face my wrath…” On a hiding to nothing, Fazloo produced a feast of grilled chicken rich in oriental spices that so impressed the king and Noorjehan that Jehangir did indeed free the master chef. Colonel Sanders was three centuries in the future when Fazloo left the Royal Court of Panj Darrya and set up the first Al Mankal Chicken Tikka franchise. And I just made that last bit up.

At length the meal arrived, two of the whoppingest steroidal drumsticks you’d ever hope to see and a mega-serve of heavily salted fries. I’d’ve freed Fazloo myself. I won’t pretend I actually tasted the secret herbs and spices – our feeding frenzy made sharks look dainty – but I can say we left Al Mankal sated to carnivorous excess and ripe for the fulfilment of our third wish, a good night’s kip.

Back at the pension we hung in just long enough to learn from Lulu that a busload of Israeli schoolgirls had been shot up by a deranged Jordanian soldier today at the northern border post of Al Baqura, but even the prospect of finding the Allenby Bridge closed in diplomatic retaliation, and our access to Israel denied, couldn’t keep us awake once our heavy heads hit those soft pink pillows.

 

*

 

Madaba looked much better in the morning. The rain had blown through and the air was clean and crisp under a dishwater sky. Narrowly missing two pedestrians while navigating a one-way street in the wrong direction, I drove us to St George Greek Orthodox Church, home of one of the most celebrated mosaics on earth. The 6^th century Byzantine map of Palestine covers most of the floor and shows Jerusalem, Jericho, the Jordan River; in fact, it once showed the entire Middle East but a few of the original 2.3 million tiles are missing. Although I’d never heard of the map before it would figure largely in our future travels and it was rather satisfying to be able to say I’d seen the real thing.

The day’s next destination tied off an incidental thread in our journey which started on day one in Cairo. If you believe Reba – and just for the poetry of it, let’s – we’d seen the actual spot where Moses had washed up in his basket and begun his long journey to the Promised Land. We’d scaled Mount Sinai and slept in Wadi Musa; we’d even parted the waters of the Red Sea, albeit with the hull of a turbo cat. And now we drove the ten kilometres from Madaba to Mount Nebo.

Anyone who knows their bible intimately – which means I had to look it up – will tell you Moses never made it to the Promised Land. He was punished for making an Executive Decision to lead the Israelites to Sinai on the 11:30 East Delta bus or something. The boss used his veto and Moses was forbidden the ultimate prize. To rub it in, he allowed Moses to gaze upon the land of milk and honey from the slopes of Nebo, after which gaze the patriarch promptly wandered off to die. Lore has it his tomb is hereabouts.

The clouds parted biblically as we took in the vista of Israel from the summit of Nebo. Bathed in sun, the flat sheet of the Dead Sea shimmered in the middle distance, while far away to the north-west we could just make out the West Bank city of Jericho. Due west, Jerusalem itself lay obscured behind the bare Judean Hills. Border situation permitting, we would be standing in the Promised Land looking back at Nebo in a few days but in the meantime it was goodbye Moses, hello Dead Sea.

Emboldened by my newly acquired 4WD expertise I opted for the back road straight down the mountainside. Road is actually too dignified a term for the unsealed chain of deadly potholes and unfenced, poorly cambered curves that plunged 600 steep metres to the lowest point on planet Earth. There were no signs on this little used track to indicate sea level and we only realised we’d passed beneath it when our ears began to pop. The other three supressed the urge to leap screaming from the Feroza by eating two bags of chocolate coated almonds. Personally I couldn’t understand their stress, but then I was too busy trying to avoid plummeting over the soft edge to worry about anything else.

Shaken but not stirred we emerged onto the Wadi Araba Highway along the Dead Sea coast and turned south on the lookout for a likely spot to do the compulsory floaty thing on this bed of 33% salt. Being Friday, the Muslim Saturday, the litter-strewn verges were packed with picnicking families enjoying the balmy conditions, although the marshy shoreline here offered no comfortable access to the water. It was several kilometres before we happened upon a collection of ramshackle buildings on the water’s edge called the Dead Sea Rest House and Bungalows.

The narrow beach of compressed mud was cordoned off with low barriers and comfortably crowded with locals; indeed, we were the only non-Arabs. Fully clothed women tended their children and watched patiently while their modestly clad menfolk chiaked in the water. An old man standing near us carefully smeared his arms with black mud from a clay pot. Young blades togged out in their sharpest clobber strutted up and down like roosters trying to impress the eligible girls, who giggled shyly and stuck together in small groups. It was all delightfully innocent fun.

Tess and I took to the water to do the “look ma, no hands” thing while Micha snapped the obligatory photos for us, and then it was their turn. Shapely Lea created an immediate stir as she doffed her shirt to reveal a bikini underneath. Oddly enough, the young lads instantly forgot about the local girls and casually sidled along the beach to our end, some of them even braving the water for a closer look and the opportunity to attract her attention by splashing about wildly.

It took ages to dry off. The salt left an oily, streaky slick on the skin and caked our body hair with little blobs that felt like coconut pulp when you squeezed them with your fingers. The old man with the clay pot rinsed the mud off his arms and, seeing us playing with the salt on our skin, came across. “Feel,” he said to Micha, who ran his hand along the man’s forearm. “See, like a baby,” he smiled and indicated to Micha he should apply the ooze from the pot to his own body. We were intrigued but politely declined on account of needing to get to the capital in time to find suitable lodgings. The old man shrugged his shoulders and wandered off smiling to himself.

We paused at the official sea level marker on the long haul up Highway 40 to Amman to let the poor little Feroza cool down, but that was our only stop and by mid-afternoon we were on the outskirts of the capital. I wasn’t looking forward to negotiating the city; our maps were sketchy and this was my first experience of serious urban traffic in the Levant. It might be another bloody Cairo. I checked my parachute and steered for the heart of the city.

In the end, the traffic was the least of our worries; the time of day, plus the fact it was Friday, meant the traffic was relatively light. What gave us ulcers was that the only streets graced with signage were those called after members of the Royal Family; King Hussein Street, Queen Nur Street, Princess Tharwat Circle and so on.

We entered the urban grid trough the 7^th Circle Interchange and followed our noses into the centre. Then we did seven circles around town looking for the Abdali Bus Station, where logic told us there should be plenty of budget hotels to choose from. None of the people we sought directions from could understand a word we said, not even the cops. Low on benzene and patience, I pulled into the exclusive Regency Hotel on Khalid ibn al Walid Street. The assumption that somebody on the staff of a large international hotel must be able to speak English proved satisfyingly correct and the male receptionist, after redundantly informing me that “We don’t go much on street names in Jordan,” gave me precise directions to Abdali. We’d missed it by a bloody whisker on our last pass through the city centre.

The hotel district around Abdali proved a disappointment, to put it mildly. The cut price joints were all flea pits with questionable types lurking in the stinking shadows. The one exception was the Mirage, an upmarket establishment on the corner overlooking the bus station. Tess checked us in.

Mitcha and Lea had decided to push on to Jerash tonight, so it was with some sadness we said our goodbyes outside the hotel. Our original five day allowance for Jordan, calibrated solely on a visit to Petra, had blown out to ten and we’d seen so much more than we could ever have hoped to see travelling by public transport. It’d been a brilliant adventure and I’ll always be grateful for the happy coincidence that brought us all together on the East Delta bus to St Catherine.

  

INTERLUDE IN AMMAN

 

While our brief stay in Amman did provide a little comic relief it might have been more fun if the weather had been more conducive to getting out and about. It rained incessantly for the whole two days and a cutting wind howled straight up Abdali, rattling the Mirage’s windows. Our room was warm, comfortable and well-appointed enough for us not to mind being confined to it though, and it gave us an opportunity to take stock. Actually, it gave us the long overdue opportunity to take a good deal of the stock from our overloaded packs and chuck it all out.

We passed the time luxuriating in hot showers, working our way methodically through the contents of the bar fridge, keeping abreast of political developments via CNN – there was no talk of border closures – and watching the Australian cop show Blue Heelers dubbed in Arabic. We ate kebabs each night in the hotel restaurant which had an excellent view of the lights and minarets of central Amman from its third floor window and an enormous aquarium full of colourful creatures mooning lazily through a seductive and sedative blue light.

In between all this slobbing around we did make one slapstick excursion onto the streets of Amman. We left the Mirage with four objectives which we thought reasonably attainable, but which proved in the Arab way of things to be excessively ambitious.

Firstly, although we managed to wash our smalls under the shower and dry them out on the room heater our heavy laundry badly needed doing. The Mirage’s laundry service was heart-stoppingly expensive so we decided to go native. We’d already found a fellow in Aqaba willing to wash, dry and iron our stuff for the equivalent of a dollar, so we felt pretty confident we’d be able to organise something similar in a large city like Amman. The beautiful young woman on the Mirage desk supplied us directions to a private house that she assured us did the odd foreign order.

We followed those directions now and found ourselves in a street a few blocks east of the hotel. Unfortunately, all the houses looked the same and, naturally, were unnumbered. We wandered up and down muttering “Give us a sign, o lord” and eventually found one nailed to a gatepost. It was in Arabic but it looked like “Laundry” to us so I knocked on the front door. No answer. I knocked again, louder this time. Still no answer. I left Tess to keep trying and went round the back of the house. Through the glass panelled back door I made out what appeared to be a junk room but definitely no washing machine. I knocked a few times in vain.

Just as I arrived back at the front door it was opened by a bleary-eyed puffy-faced man in his twenties. Clearly he was asleep on his feet and probably thought he was dreaming. “Salaam alekum” I said in my best Arabic.

“Humpf.”

“Maghsala?” I held up the plastic bag full of laundry.

“Erk…” Maybe he was a foreign worker and didn’t understand the language.

“L-a-u-n-d-r-y?” No glimmer in those rheumy eyes. “Washy, washy?” I was feeling pretty stupid but ploughed on regardless. I took my shirt, stiff with the pink dust of Petra, out of the bag and made like a washing machine. He looked at me, looked at Tess, looked at me again and very slowly, very deliberately shook his head. We’ll never know what he was really thinking but his expression told us it was something along the lines of “so you guys have just escaped from the asylum then”. Before I had the chance to try again he held up his hand and firmly shut the door on us. We trudged back to the Mirage and dropped the washing down the hotel’s laundry chute.

Our next campaign involved a cunning two-pronged attack. Tess would find a post office and mail a letter home while I would cross the road to the Grand Land Transportation Station (trans: rain lashed, windblown central bus terminal) and get information on the buses to Allenby Bridge.

I’ll spare you the tedious detail but I spent an hour plodding around the bus station in ever decreasing circles, being passed from pillar to post and from one office to the next before I finally admitted defeat – I couldn’t even nail down which bay the buses left from, let alone how often and at what cost – and returned to the Mirage none the wiser. Just as I reached the hotel Tess rolled up with the letter still in her bag. Three strikes.

This made me even more determined to achieve the last objective – to find some sticky tape to hold my disintegrating notebook together. On the second floor of the Mirage building was an office I took to be the hotel’s business centre. I marched in through the glass door. There were three desks in the room, each piled high with papers and files. Behind two of them sat smartly dressed young women while behind the third sat a middle-aged man in a suit. I bowled up to the first woman and made my request. She had no idea what I was babbling on about and plainly thought I was a loony. I scanned her desk for something I could use. No luck.

I progressed to the second woman who was unnerved by my approach and darted urgent “help” glances at the suit. The man got up and intercepted me. The language barrier came between us but as I was about to give up I spotted a stapler on the desk in front of us. Impulsively I reached over and picked it up. The woman recoiled, the man soothed her with a gesture that said “it’s not important, don’t make a fuss”. I stapled the loose pages into my notebook, said my shukrans and marched out.

Later I learned in an illuminating chat with the sloe-eyed hotel receptionist that the office belonged to the bank on the ground floor. They probably still dine out on the story of the idiot infidel who held them up for a couple of staples.

I also learned the Allenby buses departed on the hour; she even walked me across to the window and pointed out the ticket office and departure bay. This was the girl who’d put us on to the laundry, but it was the best information we could get and tomorrow morning we would put it to the test. Tomorrow night, one way or another, I expected to be in Jerusalem.

Next time: Across the Allenby Bridge...