Qasr Burqu' (قصر برقع)

Yesterday Miss A, Yo and I went to Qasr Burqu’. This castle is waaaaay out in the eastern desert by way of the Amman to Iraq death-highway. So we (by “we” I mean “Yo”) drove and drove and had nothing but sketchy directions and an apparent willingness to die of thirst or lack of caffeine. We passed by a zillion military guys standing on the side of the road and wondered what was going on until we were buzzed by military jets flying low and doing cool acrobatics. Later we saw stuff blow up in an apparent exercise for important spectators. Cool.

We passed through Azraq and headed toward the Iraqi border.

Eventually we passed though a town affectionately named “Pump Station H5” on our map and continued further east to Ruweished. From there we were to take a dirt road north-ish. There was actually a sign posted which indicated the precise dirt road we should take! With that, Miss A jumped into the back of the truck and we headed north on a dirt road passing several Bedouin tents and a cemetery. About 30 minutes later Yo spotted a basalt nubbin protruding from the landscape. I must admit that at this point I was a bit alarmed that we had found it, and that it would suck. Once we actually drove up to the castle we could see how nifty it really it. It wasn’t even ungodly hot yet. It was quiet and beautiful out there. The castle is in bad shape, and there is plenty of graffiti, but it’s still a cool site. We walked around for a while and climbed all over the rubble. Before we sat down for some hummus we took a group picture:
And then a Weewah-style picture:

After lunch we drove into Ruweished, currently home to displaced Iraqis.
Ruweished, as far as we could tell, has no inhabitants over 10 years old. We drove up to a gas station for some Solar and saw the que of trucks obviously heading for Iraq. We cut ahead of them, and several kids gathered around to talk with us and fuel up the truck. They wanted to know if we are tourists and if we’re going to the border. All that sort of stuff. Having fueled up, and feeling thankful that none of the truck drivers we cut off tried to kill us, we headed back to Pump Station H5.

We were trying to find the site of Jawa, but instead we traveled on a dirt road until we about reached Syria, and then turned back. On the way back to the highway we came across three men standing looking at a car with it’s hood up. We offered them a ride to the town, but they said they were ok. It was a long walk, I hope they got their car running. So instead of finding Jawa we marveled at the amount of cairns out in the desert. There is so much human modification to the desert, and all of it indicates boredom, I think. It’s really beautiful out there. We headed back to Azraq and had coffee and sheesha at our now-preferred truck stop/coffee shop. After much sitting and smoking we decided to eat at Huston’s in Shemansani (sp?). We were all jonesing for Mexican food. I don’t drink any more, but Yo and Miss A seemed to enjoy the margaritas there as well. What an amazing day!

We left at 06:30 and returned at 21:30. I slept very well last night.

Next Saturday to Ma’an?