It would have been a magic night, if there hadn’t been so many mosquitoes (I HATE THEM). At least one of the times I woke up, the stars were awesome: the moon had set, ad Gemini was high. Finally woke up after it was already light, but had hours in the main wadi without much company. A mysterious stairway started up a canyon next to the Palace Tomb, at one place cutting deep into the rock, but beyond it disappeared (worn away). Taking the dumb route got a bit hair-raising.
On the way down I could hear a girl shouting, musical piping and goat bells: then this beautiful dark face appeared, black eyes, black hair tied back under a baseball cap, a gold eye tooth in a shining smile. The sweatshirt and skirt belonged to an American High School but Bedouin she was. Her little sister was wearing a red dress and white scarf, and blowing merrily on toy pipes.
Walking back up the siq, I realised that the walls were caked with dust. After rain, it must look much nicer. Muhammad yesterday said that you could walk for a month through the wadis below the rock pool. Finally, took a piece of pottery from the thick carpet underfoot.
Can’t decide whether the gnawing feeling in my stomach is hunger or illness. Food goes down though. Rapidly make connections to Ma’am and then Amman and doze down the straight, flat, shimmering desert highway. Write cards and sunbathe at the Cliff hotel roof – not a clean place, they charge for showers too. A man invited me to go with him to Damascus, but the grape vine says no go on the visa front. Met a (part) North African – French couple, Karim and Sofia, talk about Israel – they seem too pro-Palestinian. Now, the “group” has formed under the single light bulb, on mattresses with alcohol and cigarettes. Good company if you’re travelling slowly.
Met a Palestinian selling Aleppan halva here in Amman – for a change, he wanted war against Israel to free Jerusalem, his home. Should have stayed to talk.