My pickup wasn’t until midday, so there was no need to get up early for the first time this trip. The question was how I was going to run. After sunrise I headed down to the pool area, knowing even one mile would be many laps, but it was what I’d have to do. I doubted I could stand more than a mile of this, but I wandered around waiting for my watch to get a signal. The gate said the beach was closed but I could see groups of people already making their way down there, so I thought it’d be nice to run laps of this short road instead. I waited about five minutes but still no signal, so started anyway. Distance was being recorded but I wasn’t sure about the accuracy of the pace.

For the first lap I ran down to the water and took some photographs before heading back up to the top. Every lap after that didn’t include the last step hill so I wouldn’t be pushing too hard. I was supposed to do only one mile but ended up doing 5K, with the last lap starting as the sun peeked over the mountaintops. Sadly I got no map recorded for this run, and I wondered if there are issues with GPS in this area. Yesterday the driver had been unable to use his phone as it kept connecting to the Israeli network, maybe satellite coverage here doesn’t allow GPS? Whatever the answer, I had no map. I noticed none of my photographs here were geo-tagged either.

I went straight to breakfast, and this was the best selection yet. I started off with some pastries, water, and Earl Grey tea, then tried some of the cooked food. I had chicken sausage that contained a barbecue sauce, and hash browns that looked like potato wedges but tasted like ordinary chips. Potatoes are strange here.

I’d then got close to four hours until my pickup. I thought it’d have been nice to have gone in the Dead Sea again, but I’d handed my towel back yesterday, not having thought I could have kept it for today too. That’s what others had done. Instead the morning was wasted, knowing that when I reached Amman I’d have a couple of hours of daylight to see more sights there. Anything I couldn’t see in Amman today would need to be on the Sunday when I return after the marathon instead.

At just before 12:00 I checked out, and waited for the driver for today. I wanted him to take me to the Sydney hotel, a hotel where I’d be joining the Impact Marathon group for the next week. He didn’t really know where he was going though, and wasn’t keen on taking me there as he thought I would be at the Meneur Hotel again even though I had no booking for that. I offered to show him on my map where it was but he snapped back he knew exactly where it was. A few minutes later he pulled up on the side of the road and questioned its name, and if it was in Amman. This time I showed him the map and he nodded, and got me there in about fifty minutes with only one wrong turn which was easy to correct.

I went upstairs and was met by Nick Kershaw in the lobby. The last time I saw him was in Malawi in 2018. Before the pandemic. Apparently I’m the first person to do three inaugural Impact races, so that’s nice! There were people there who had done three or four of the races in general though. I was then shown my room, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was one all to myself. I’d expected it to be a shared dorm room like others had got, and like what I’d had on previous races. I had originally paid extra for it to be, but considering the difficulties and delays of the last couple of years I hadn’t expected it to still be.

After a quick catch-up I then booked an UberX that arrived a couple of minutes later. It was only 3 JOD to get me to the old Amman station for the Hejaz railway. This line used to take pilgrims from Damascus in Syria to Amman, and then to Medina in Saudi Arabia. After twenty or so minutes, the driver stopped short of where he should have and didn’t understand where I was going. I typed ‘railway station’ into Google translate and he asked a local for directions and got going again, actually still heading towards the place his SatNav was saying. For his trouble I tipped him an extra 2 JOD as it was still cheap.

When I reached the gate to the train station, it was closed, but I saw someone walking over to it from inside. I’d heard there’s usually someone inside who can show you around, so I waited to see if he’d let me in.

“Ticket?”

“I’ve not got one, where do I get one from?” I said as I removed my wallet from my pocket. “No, no, ”he gestured to me to put my wallet away and pointed to a smaller gate to the side.

He let me in through the gate, and then led me around the old station. I felt a little uneasy as I wasn’t sure where I could and couldn’t go. The language barrier didn’t help with this at all.

I walked past trains and carriages and was allowed to go on board one of the trains and inside some of the carriages. I hadn’t realised one of them was the Royal carriage, and even looking back at my photographs I would never have guessed from how it looks inside. Once I’d passed them all he tried to order me a taxi, but I wasn’t really sure what was going on.

“Fifty dinars,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he meant as I’d declined a taxi. I then realised to my horror that he was now talking about the price of the tour. It’d only lasted ten minutes at best, it wasn’t worth that. I checked my wallet, and didn’t have that much on me. I then had a thought.

“Can you…, ” I asked him, as I opened the calculator app on my phone and showed it to him. He wrote a single ‘3’.

“Three dinars?” I asked, to confirm I’d understood correctly. He nodded, so I gave him a five dinar note, and decided he could keep the change. It wasn’t that much after all. I’d appreciated him opening the gate for me to look around.

Instead of taking a taxi from the railway station, I walked alongside the road until I found myself walking through a bustling marketplace filled with all sorts of goods. There were stalls filled with brightly coloured fruit, and other places that sold household goods. I worked my way through this until I came out the other side and was onto a road that was lined with mechanics and shops selling auto parts. It took over half an hour, but eventually I made it to the Roman theatre and odeon. This was covered by the Jordan Pass as well so waved that, as I walked on in.

The theatre is impressively big, and is in good condition. Either side of it there are small museums you can look around as well, and don’t take much time. After I’d been around both I then walked up the steps to the top of the theatre, and realised just how steep they are, meaning it was much slower getting back down afterwards. It was busy, and wasn’t easy to get photographs without other tourists in. I’d spent too much time there, and was now unable to go inside the Nympheum, which was a ten minute walk from the theatre. It didn’t matter really though, as I could photograph it from the gate.

Along this same street there were many stalls and shops, and these continued all the way to the Grand Husseini mosque. Sadly that mosque had construction work going on outside, and my arrival was just as they were praying so I couldn't go in. The only place I had left to see now was Rainbow Street and I knew roughly where it was, and that it’d lead back to the hostel as well. I walked up a couple of incredibly steep streets, probably not going the best way there at all.

Rainbow Street was filled with all sorts of shops and food places, and down some of the sidestreets I could see colourful baskets hanging from ropes across the street, and murals and other types of artwork on the walls. I felt if there was anywhere I could get some decent ice cream from, it would be here. I’d been looking for some in shops I passed ever since I left the railway station, and so far had seen none - every ice cream freezer I’d passed had either meat or ice cubes inside.

When I passed a place advertising slices of pizza of 2.50 JOD I thought a small snack wouldn’t be a bad alternative. I’d got no idea how late the evening meal would be, and my lunch hadn’t been great and was earlier than I’d normally have due to the time of my transfer. This pizza was massive however, bigger than my head. The place next door sold ice cream, so I managed to get some of that finally as well. I later found out that Nick (Impact) knows the owner of that place. I’d finished seeing all of Rainbow Street by this time, so took a slow walk back to the hotel.

For the next couple of hours I sat on the terrace as people talked about past experiences. One runner, Nick Butter, had run marathons in every country and this would be his 999th. Other than him, most had done maybe a dozen at most. For one, this would be his first. What an adventure to have!

As it got closer to 19:30 we walked to Rainbow Street for the meal. It was hidden away by trees, and a large table by the bread oven had been prepared for us. It was then a feast like no other with bowl after bowl being brought out for the starter, that we could help ourselves to. This was followed by the mains: chicken with almonds, beef burger with potatoes, and a vegetarian option. The dessert was thankfully much smaller, but I decided I’d had enough already.

Everyone continued talking for sometime after that, and continued to do so as we took the long way back to the hotel so we could see the colourful baskets now lit up. By the time I got to bed it was 23:00 already.