Amman WavesMay 30, 2010
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| So little happened yesterday that it doesn't merit it's own entry. We moved to our chosen hotel in the morning with a great feeling of relief. We'd decided to spend a little more and gone for "nice" rather than just "OK". Riffat was not having a good time with what seems to be Tonsilitis, so we were going to be in the room a lot. So we now have a large family room which would sleep 4 comfortably and lots of floor space between the beds. Nothing smells bad or looks dirty and everything works! After the bathroom you got in and out of as quickly as possible, it was a joy to freshen up and just relax. For the rest of the day we just stayed in the room enjoying doing nothing. Obviously, poor Riffat was not doing well and slept as much as she could. But I think we both have a little sight-fatigue now. We've seen so much and it's been great but it's nearly a month now of things of great historically significance. There's just so much in this part of the world! So Remi and I were happy to laze around in the room all day, doing nothing but popping out for food and supplies. In a few days we fly off to Thailand, where it will be more about scenery, people & being somewhere very different. And of course food! I think we're ready for that change now. I still love Jordan though. People are friendly but not overbearing, things are organised enough to not do your head in, but chaotic enough to be interesting. It's a little expensive, but I'm happy to be here. I'll write more about Madaba when we've actually done something here. So, after a full day of doing nothing, we decided that Remi and I should go out somewhere today. I found a water park this side of Amman that looked like fun. It's not really Riffat's thing, but is ours, so it made sense to go. The hotel people arranged a driver to drop us and pick up later. Being sunday, the kids were back at school so the place was nearly deserted. There was a "lazy river" where you sit in inflatable rings and float around a river circuit, which was fun if low on thrills. More lively was the wave pool which was fun for a while. But the best part was clearly the set of water slides and tubes. All were fun, but the best were the white open slides (4 in a row) which take you at steady speed down one small dip and then drop you quickly down on a significant drop. You gain enough speed that spray from your feet flies into your face making it impossible to breathe or see much. Then it flattens out and you hit the pool at speed in a big giggly, confusing rush. Lots of fun. Our trip broke the day up nicely as the whole lazing around thing was starting to wear a bit thin. Back at the room, one thing I've noticed is that we seem to be ending up close to loudspeakers a lot. In Wadi Musa we were close to the mosque. Our first place in Madaba was even closer to a larger mosque which blasted out the call to prayer at a mind-numbing volume. Here the mosque is further away but we're right opposite a school where they seem to do a lot of directing / lecturing the kids by loudspeaker out in the playing field that we overlook. Today they were doing some sort of synchronised dance thing but the way the instructions were being called out it sounded like the kids were being yelled at for half-killing each other or something. It sounded really full-on in the traditional fear-the-teachers style. Anyway, as the school day starts pretty early here, we get the full rant straight into our room at 8am. A bit irritating at the time, but it's those little things that stick in your memory and remind you of what it was like in a place when you're back home and everything's normal again. |
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