We tried to sleep in a bit after our New Year's Eve in the desert, but first we were woken by quite heavy rain (in the desert!), then by the chattering of those who hadn't stayed up til 2AM and almost finished a bottle of Jordanian whiskey and then by Ayman organizing camel rides for some of our friends... Finally he came to fetch us a bit after 8 and we dragged ourselves to the usual unexciting breakfast, disappointed that there was Nescafé rather than real Bedouin coffee...
We left shortly after, most of us sleeping through the 4 hour bus ride back to Amman. It was expected to snow, and we hoped we would see a white Amman. By the time we got there, it was really freezing cold, blustery and rainy. No snow yet. We checked back into the Belle Vue hotel, took a much appreciated shower and bided our time til dinner. The museum was closed on a Friday anyway.
For our last meal there was much confusion. Ayman gave us two choices and we voted, "Jerusalem" restaurant won. Then in the reception of the hotel, he said we were going back to Jafra, which we had already tried, I asked why and he just said, ok then we go to Jerusalem... It was too wet and cold to walk so we bundled into cabs and headed downtown. When we reached Jerusalem, we changed our minds, the place just had no atmosphere and it really felt like a cafeteria under harsh fluorescent lights, so we ended up in Jafra after all.
This gave us the opportunity to try some of their other dishes, I had the oriental pastry with cheese and thyme - kinda like a pizza, and Werner had the grilled chicken in garlic sauce, both were excellent and we weren't even able to finish.
Ayman convinced everyone to go to the bar on rainbow street so we agreed, but we needed to take taxis again, he spoke to one taxi driver and we hopped in with our Finnish friends... After quite a bit of driving and chatting to the driver, we found out he had no idea where we were going and neither did we. But there aren't that many bars in Amman... First he took us to a weird place, we said it wasn't the place, so he asked around and then stopped in the middle of rainbow street, telling us to walk the rest of the way. Naively, we asked how much we owed and he said it would be 5 dinar (R100) but because he had to go around it would be an extra two. This was ridiculous, it had only been a 5 minute drive and Ayman had told us taxis wouldn't be more than 1 or 2 dinar in the city. So we argued for a while and eventually ended up giving 5, while he drove off in a huff.
Ayman convinced everyone to go to the bar on rainbow street so we agreed, but we needed to take taxis again, he spoke to one taxi driver and we hopped in with our Finnish friends... After quite a bit of driving and chatting to the driver, we found out he had no idea where we were going and neither did we. But there aren't that many bars in Amman... First he took us to a weird place, we said it wasn't the place, so he asked around and then stopped in the middle of rainbow street, telling us to walk the rest of the way. Naively, we asked how much we owed and he said it would be 5 dinar (R100) but because he had to go around it would be an extra two. This was ridiculous, it had only been a 5 minute drive and Ayman had told us taxis wouldn't be more than 1 or 2 dinar in the city. So we argued for a while and eventually ended up giving 5, while he drove off in a huff.
We walked in the direction he pointed but we found we were going in the wrong direction from where we remembered the bar to be. By this stage we were a bit fed up and really cold so we just headed back, it was a bit of an unfortunate end to what was otherwise a truly amazing tour!
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