There was hardly a breath of wind last night. “Wilderness” seems the wrong word for such perfect tranquillity. Even the jeeps whose headlights I could watch moving across the wadi were far enough away to be noiseless. But as for meteors, no luck. The moon set, casting a long shadow across the ghostly landscape, but…

In the end it was so noisy on the roof with people shouting down to the street below that I had to move to another corner. And someone ate my apples, which is a bit off (and one would be heavenly how). The muezzin loudspeaker considerately clamped on to the balcony must be loud enough…

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…

Approached the Ministry of Interior this morning fearing the worst. But the man behind the desk looked up my name, ticked and stamped the piece of paper, and the West Bank permit was in my hands. One more legendary bureaucratic hassle out of the way. With Christine, the 6ft Berlin advertising student, I took a…

Joined Maxine (Oz), Mat (Brit) and Christine (German) in a taxi tour of the Desert Castles. The inanimate landscape of black gravel, yellow sand, dust devils and pylons passed by as we chatted about travels. The women have vast experience, and are only a little older. “Disneyland” is the group euphemism for Israel, and it…

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…

Mr Abdul Hamil (?) has 2 rooms adjoining the living room; the one I shared with Khalid had a glass fronted wardrobe with glassware, photographs and Christmas cracker type plastic toys (?). There was a pile of mattresses in the corner – we had two, and two were laid in the living room for, I…

The road south to Madaba gave me my first glimpse of Jordan’s upper country. Outside Amman, you see modern, large houses for the commuting upper classes. There are many fields, and surprising amounts of green. Madaba is quite a large town, but very quiet. The map mosaic [6th century, oldest Holy land map known –…

Camped in a thorny field with views to the hills, and a bench to sit eating my dinner on. Crossing the Allenby bridge was certainly an experience, and worthwhile if unpleasant. Half past six in the morning, walk past a queue of maybe fifty Mercedes taxis, loaded with baggage and bodies, bluff my way through…