A Japanese guy called Saul joined us in the car, just for a ride to the bus station. When he got out at the deserted station, someone there told him since it's Friday, Muslim holy day, there are no more buses to Amman. The way it works is this: bus drivers work if they want to on the weekend. So no one ever really knows if there's public transportation on any given Friday (in the Arab world that I've visited) until the moment it should normally depart. Even the hostel could not tell us whether there would be a bus to Amman and if there was, what time (even a general idea) it would depart. But Saul didn't seem too upset and decided to join us on our adventures for the day, which would eventually and circuitously land him in Amman.
Shobak Castle
Our first stop was a stop at the castle in Shobak, a crusader stronghold dating to 1115 and later conquered by Saladin (first sultan of Egypt). It was a great place to explore, and the fun part was running into a couple I had seen at the camp last night. An Israeli guy from a Kibbutz in the north and a Hawaiian American Israeli girl, now from Jerusalem. They invited me to join them down the deep dark well passage that descends from the castle deep into the mountain for 300 steps and emerges at the bottom. This is where the people went during the siege by Saladin and also where they obtained water. For 50 or so, the steps had nice 90 degree edges. Then they deteriorated into more of slopes than steps. The Israeli guy had a flashlight which helped quite a bit, but it was still getting treacherous. Sliding rather than stepping down the last half, after 20 minutes, we made it to the bottom and looked for the water. It eluded us, so we scrambled around in the dank dark chamber until our feet got wet. We found the channel and inched along it sideways, single file until we got to a room at the end with a ladder. Such a mysterious nice chamber with a ladder up to oblivion, disappointingly lead only to a trap door that was sealed off. But there were bats hanging from the concrete ceiling. A bit of algae. So we slinked back out in line the way we came in though the narrow well passage. Another ladder with rungs much to far apart led to a functioning opening, we saw the light of day and made our way up and over to the brilliance of the sun on the side of the midday mountain.
To our dismay, our taxi driver, dressed in a button up shirt and slacks with dress shoes, was now perched on the concrete edge of the outside portion of the water basin and was dancing to his Arabian music blasting from the car. His hands were twirling and feet tapping along the ledge. His sunglasses glistened and his smile widened when he saw us. So this is what drivers do as they wait for their passengers. He tried to spread the good vibe and we danced for a minute too. 
Kerak Castle
The Kerak Castle was expansive and majestic. I brought my headlamp this time because it was full of secret rooms and chambers and passageways and underground tunnels. The best part was climbing up to the shelf of the lofty room where I imagined dozens of knights would have clanked their goblets of wine in rowdy drunkenness and gnawed on turkey legs together under dim torchlit chandeliers. Once on the shelf near the ceiling, we were able to crawl through a clerestory window opening and walk through the secret hallway along the edge of the building. Eventually it led to a dead end, but it was fun while it lasted to be so high and look down upon such a grandiose high-ceilinged room. I imagined I could have been a spy up there in earlier days, crouching behind the stone window ledge but hearing every word echoing throughout the chamber, then escaping down the mountainside and through the wild red fox valley to tell the enemy of the knights' next plan of attack.
Wado Wada We piled back into the car and were headed off to Wadi Mujib--a large nature reserve I had been told was a must-see. From the King's highway, we headed west, diverging down toward the Dead Sea. Just as we turned onto the Dead Sea Highway, police cars crawled out with flashing lights and we pulled over (me, nervously). Oh boy, now what… apparently this section of the highway was closed, all the way up to Wadi Mujib. Taking place was the special meeting of the World Economic Forum on "Economic Growth and Job Creation in the Arab World." There were talks by President Zardari of Pakistan, the Queen of Jordan, and Tony Blair; for security, this entire section of the highway was closed for the next few days. Atrocious! When Obama spoke at MIT, it was maybe a two block section of Massachusetts Avenue closed for an hour! Sheiser, no Wadi Mujib. But nothing to be done. Water over the damn. Now what?The taxi driver, Aref, had some ideas--there's a wadi near hear, back up the road toward Kerak, backtracking, but it's quite nice, and no entrance fee. Sure, not many options at this point. Let's do it! So he drove us up there and we turned off the highway at a nondescript something of a schoolyard-looking place. Dozens of kids ogled at us as we got out of the car and attempted to change discreetly into hiking/swimming gear. This hike would be though water most of the time. The watercourse started as a concrete channel on a ridge, with a check dam and no good place to walk except on the thin concrete curb alongside. A group of locals came sauntering towards us with a herd of goats. This trail ain't big enough for the both of us, I thought. We were very high up and a sheer drop to a certain death in a lonesome obscurity was mere centimeters to our left. But we and they and the goats all managed to squeeze past each other unscathed.
So we continued and the channelized waterway eventually gave way to a natural stream. It was decorated with plenty of plastic bags, food wrappers, plastic and glass bottles, ripped old soggy garments, from who knows who and why. All the things you would never see on a hike in the US but are par for the course in a developing country. So unpleasant and detrimental to the scenery. Determined not to let it detract too much, the first difficult part was where we had to climb under a precariously wedged boulder which a strong waterfall cascaded over, under, and around. It was impossible to get up to the next level without getting drenched. Crumpling over my camera to keep it safe, I worked my way up the slippery rocks.
From here on up, the trash decreased dramatically and the scenery became more verdant. The next difficult part brought an end almost entirely to the trash in the stream and the vegetation increased to make for a very lush and sumptuous landscape. It was getting more beautiful by the minute! 
The stream was made up of a hot spring and a cold spring which merged throughout and as a result it was a warm water all the way through. I wanted to keep going, but as a result of our late start, we didn't have a lot of time. Aref told us that at some points, we would need climbing gear to get over the waterfalls, which we didn't have. We had to get to Amman at a reasonable hour and we still had a couple hours driving. Very reluctantly we turned around. "Next time call me ahead of time, I'll bring climbing and camping gear because it takes 2+ days to do the whole wadi. Apparently this guy was no simple taxi driver. He was a full-on tour guide that knew the 22 wadis of this part of the Jordan river valley like the back of his hand. If only we had known him before, I would have loved to spend a few more days exploring these unpopulated gorgeous streams and waterfalls that are not in the mainstream guidebooks. On the way down, Aref diverted us to a perfect little pool, built by the Romans where the hot and cold spring meet. It was hidden and lush and warm and wonderful!
Late in the evening, we got into Amman and sat in LA-esque traffic to get into downtown. We tipped Aref, parted ways with Saul, then Ben and I went to a crowded shwarma shop, ate one and it was so good we turned right back around for another. Amman is not the place to relax with a beer in the evening but unfortunately, this is what we really wanted post-hike. So after a few failed attempts at finding bars, we were literally hand-held to an English pub (complete with a red phone booth in front) by a guy on the street. The Jordanians were incredibly friendly and helpful; two made calls for us to get address and directions, and a third ended up walking us four blocks or so to the doorstep. The pub was a beautiful expat haven--a hide-a-way of the simplest of pleasures not enjoyed by many in this land. Naked-headed women, men and women sitting together at the same tables, a group of hefty Nigerian businessmen speaking English--we made ourselves at home at a tall table and blended right in. Usually I go for the beer but I suddenly felt like a tequila sunrise of all things, and was happy.
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