Shobak Castle - Madaba
Jordan 2021
It’s a little sad to leave the hotel; we had a good time here. But it feels like we’ve lingered in one place a bit too long, so we’re moving farther north.
Hotel dining room. Wolf is making pancakes for breakfast
On the way, we stop at Shobak Castle. The castle seems to have grown out of the mountain — it is the same color. It is badly ruined, and restoration work is actively underway. There is not much to see here. We walk around the perimeter of the castle. Everywhere you look around, there are lifeless light-brown mountains.
View of Shobak Castle
In the castle
We are heading further, to the Dana Nature Reserve. According to the plan, I wanted to spend the night in a campsite in the reserve, in the same kind of tent as the one we stayed in in the desert, and go for a walk around the reserve. We arrive at the reserve after lunch. By that time, clouds have gathered in the sky, there is no one around, and everything feels somehow unwelcoming.
Driving Through the Mountains
Jordan is very dirty along the roadsides. Many times we saw people throwing empty plastic bottles, bags, and other small trash прямо from the car onto the roadside
A roadside littered with trash. In the distance, a city can be seen amid nothingness.
Driving in Jordan is not easy. Drivers do not follow the rules; it feels as if they do not look in their mirrors at all, but just drive. There is chaos on the roads near cities and in the cities themselves. You have to stay alert all the time; people walk along the roads, and cars constantly cut us off — not on purpose, it is just their style. No one uses turn signals, and in the evening, when it is completely dark, you can even come across cars with no headlights at all.
On the way to Madaba
We arrive in the big city of Madaba when it is already completely dark, and we stay here overnight for two nights. We are living in an apartment in a new high-rise building. I don’t really like our room; the internet doesn’t work here and the shower is hard to use, but we are so tired that we just want to stay anywhere at all.
