Backpacker's Lament

---

16 April 2014

Arriving in Jordan I thought the first exercise (after visa formalities and exiting the airport) would be a synch. The hostel, after all, provided its street name and two nearby landmarks with which to navigate. But, as is sometimes the way with a tourist finding their accommodation, things can go astray. The ride into the city was fine, my elderly driver abused other drivers who cut in front and had forgotten the bus he himself had cut off at the first roundabout soon after exiting the airport.

We were nearing downtown Amman, clogged in traffic, hillsides clogged with concrete houses rising up in a cream mosaic. Random buildings that probably housed baquet halls lined the roads into the central city. And lines of businesses of similar industry, not competitions but rather cooperatives. And the odours that come with the territory - open garbage skips, dust, unrregulated car fumes. The smells of the developing world that overcome the senses but adorn one's intrigue and nerves.

So when my driver hoped to take me to the street of my hostel, it was blocked by a cop. No U-turns allowed. He took me further along, and instead convinced me the street was "just back there, three or four minutes". Afterwards, I knew he really had no idea and had thought it easier to unhitch this foreign fare. So, trusting as I was, I got out and headed back along in the direction he gave. So begins the battle of finding a hostel in a foreign land. First, there were very few street signs, but trust took me along the forked street he had suggested. Two, three, four, five minutes go by, no hostel. So begins the interrogation of the locals, who, in bewilderment, did not at first understand my "al-Hussein Street, al-Hussein Street." Wow, how hard could it be, having grown up with so many Husseins in Western media, had they been mispronouncing the name all along?

The locals told me "this way", then "that way". The another says "up there". To proud to acknowledge they didn't really know. Two shop keepers even instructed me to go in exactly opposite directions. Allah! Instinct took over, but then the streets, the fake brand shops, the mini souks started melding into one. The light was dimming. I'm gonna get killed, lose all my shit, and get eaten by dogs on the edge of town! But there, at last it was, the Arab Bank - one of the landmarks mentioned on the internet booking voucher thingee. Now I know why these landmarks are so crucial. With very little reliance on the small municipal treats that we in the West take for granted, like street signs! The locals rely heavily on such landmarks. Exercise over, hostel found, and as I write this on my acquired bed in a small room on the first floor, the call to prayer echoes around the city. The Arabian night beckons me to venture outside in search of food. I just hope I find my way back, maybe I'll pin the remaining pages of this diary as a guide on street corners.

---