Now That's What I Call Adventure ... Part IV

Oh, how I wish that reaching the bottom of the mountain was the end of the story - it certainly felt like the end of an ordeal at the time. After everyone had finished cheering and slapping backs and all that, I had to point out that I actually was going to wet myself, and rallied the troops into helping me do this normally simple feat - I can now attest that with no legs strapped to a scoop stretcher it takes 7 people to go for a no. 1 (lifting, tilting, removing clothing and holding up modesty blankets etc)

However, this important task out of the way, I then had to face up to the fact that the story had not reached a conclusion, merely a change of tempo, from scary death-defying physical feats to ... well, looking back, a crescendo of pain is pretty much the best way to describe it. I was put into the back of a pick-up truck - apparently the most comfortable vehicle available - with at least an inch of foam under my bum, and with the two undersupplied paramedics and Mike we set off over the desert to where an ambulance was apparently waiting in Rum village.

A collection of battered old Toyota pickups,
one of which whisked me across the desert ...

The driver had said he would try and drive carefully, and I'm sure he did his best, but with various bones jiggling around in my ankle and still no painkillers, I felt every small vibration, let alone the sand dunes and holes in the ground, between Um Adami and civilisation. Mike did his best to distract me - were we really singing hymns at one point? - and I smoked every cigarette available, but in the end it was just more and more and more pain ... I managed to get the driver to stop a couple of times when I really couldn't take it any more, but of course every stop was a delay in getting to drugs and the hospital, so in the end I just ate the blanket I was under and thought of cool wet grass ...

Two and a half hours later we reached Rum village at last - I was exhausted from the pain, and again breathed a sigh of relief when a trolley bed appeared and I was hoisted onto it and put into the back of the ambulance. And then, once again, my hopes were dashed - no painkillers (in an ambulance?! of course not!), and the nearest hospital over an hour away. Apparently there was all sorts of other shenanigans going on around me too - various army and police guys wanting ID and info - but all I could focus on was pain and my need for DRUGS! So I was very happy indeed to hear Mike and Vanessa give one final 'yallah' to get everyone going, and the ambulance drove off with lights and police escort ...

and no suspension ...

and a driver intent on hitting every pothole in 62.4km between Rum village and Aqaba ...


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... and after I had called everyone in the ambulance pretty much every bad name I knew in several languages, and had a good go at pulling the ambulance apart from the inside and eating my own hand, we finally arrived at Aqaba ... the land of drugs ...

The rest of the evening went by in a bit of a haze until I finally went to sleep - several senior army type guys came and talked to me, and the police tried to interview me, but Mike and Vanessa did a great job of keeping them away and trying to get me seen to and drugged up. At one point I saw Vanessa come in smiling with paperwork for my drugs, only to be dragged away again to have something stamped ... and I had to be x-rayed and interviewed before they would give me valium and strap me up with a back slab. My last memory of the day was Vanessa and the nice doctor smiling and saying that it would all be fine from now on ...