When I went back to the castle later on, I met an inspector from the Department of Antiquities, Muhammad. He grew up in Kafranji, the town in view SW of the castle, studied archaeology here in Jordan, and now says he makes a very good income from the government, inspecting sites and their restoration. He told me there were ten cisterns under the castle from which the inhabitants could draw water, and that the well which fed them was 20m deep. To his consternation, I tied a cord to my water bottle, opened up the well which was under the footbridge and started pulling water up. The water was only 7m down, and very shallow. Not taking any chances, I puritabbed it. I then went inside, found myself a nice place to sit in one of the generous window arches, and wrote some cards. Beautiful light and atmosphere – just a few local families and couples visiting (walking hand in hand, some of them! A lovely sight).

Found a slightly less rocky spot in a field on the hillside, and was cooking up a spaghetti curry (!) when an old man on the road shouted to me. I walked over, and introduced myself to the sunburned, kaffiyeh/jellabiya/jacket/half laced up boot wearing Joseph. He came and sat down next to me, laying his stick to one side, enunciating a few words of English. He grew up here in Ajlum, where he lives now with his wife and the seven remaining children (didn’t ask his age). He said he had 2 cows which he milked, made yogurt, butter and cheese, selling any surplus. He is also the night caretaker at the castle, for which the government pays him JD70 a month. I shared an orange with him (nothing else to offer), carried on cooking, and he looked at my solid fuel tablets, then pointed at the dead wood lying around. Most of the time we just say, and watched the horizon redden. “I am messihi, not muslim,” he said. Hence Joseph, not Yussuf. Then he recited the Lord’s prayer in English. Church bells ring in Ajlum on Sunday mornings.

This morning, a pleasant walk down the hill, sun not yet above the hills but shining on the castle above and behind me. Then have to run the gauntlet of 3 barking, slavering dogs, one of which begins to follow closely, still snarling horribly. My neck hairs said I was scared. But smoothly back to Amman, across the city, and a full size bus is waiting to go to Aqaba.

Doze most of the Desert highway. The desert here is like a wasteland, it reeks of obliteration. The only attractive things about it are the Bedouin tents, just far enough back from the road to look like they may have been there first, the odd small camel herd, and the 2 tiny forts en route which hark back to the days when this was a caravan route, not a motorway. Wadi Araba (which extends from the Jordan valley to the Red Sea) open up beneath us spectacularly: a wide basin, bare but for the snaking white streaks of wadis across it. As we skirt the edge, a few defiant green clumps pass by, and even some trickling, brackish streams. The basin gradually narrows to a wide valley: to the east, a rocky ridge with upright bands of basalt. TO the west, massifs recede into the distance. The settlements we pass are miserable sprawls of shacks – rarely, a house is enlivened by an ambitious vine. There are agricultural projects too.

Then we are driving at the very foot of the ridge, passing boulders bigger than cars. After a checkpoint and a terminal for Egypt bound passengers, we reach Aqaba. I’d forgotten how hot it would be at 2pm. Virtually no one around. Eilat is visible, seemingly a continuation of the same urban belt, and a few ships are silhouetted against the twinkling water. I was expecting a little more life, but then the beaches appear busy – I’m too fixed on Wadi Rum to consider doing that yet.

Surprisingly, there are only 2 other foreigners in this hotel, and the ones you see walking round are middle aged and Spanish. Where is everyone? It looked as if I was going to have the whole roof to myself, when 2 young men joined me, one a Palestinian whose family left Gaza in ’48. As we looked at the lights of Eilat twinkling beyond, he said he wanted to go back, but only if there was peace.

Michael the American once said that where there are people, he wants to meet them, know what they look like, what they think like. He’s right, and I haven’t been asking the right questions. It may please someone to ask about their family, but they may have fought against Israel in ’73, so what do they think now?