Adli Yacubi

Tag: Travel

  • Part 1: Jordan, Sweet Jordan

    Part 1: Jordan, Sweet Jordan

    Notes from a week of sightseeing, in three parts.

    Queen Alia Airport
    View from Queen Alia Airport in Amman, Jordan.

    She said, “I need to have my work visa renewed and the closest place for me to go is Amman, Jordan. I don’t want to do this alone. Can you meet me there? It will take about a week…” I had just begun to recover after almost two weeks in Abuja, Nigeria for a hectic work engagement. By that Sunday, my Emirates flight touched down at a fairly quiet Queen Alia International. The wonders of online booking!

    For the next few days we would play a waiting game for Sadia’s work to email her an official letter. This letter she had to use to make an online application. She was supposed to then get an appointment and then we needed to pick it up at the visa offices in Amman. Simple enough. But the online app kept on crashing as soon as she pressed the button to confirm. The nightmares of online booking!

    But, meanwhile, we were in Jordan! Sadia and I had been to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. We had been to Turkey for a week. We had been to Malawi… But never to Jordan. And there is so much historical sites to visit in Amman and surrounding areas, we decided to make the best of it. After all, was it not Prefab Sprout who kept on reminding us “Jordan, Sweet Jordan. Hand me any cup you find that’s lying spare. Jordan waiting for me there…”

    IMG_3536
    Sadia and I with Amman in the background.

    So how do you get see as much as you can, staying as close to the capital as possible just in case the letter arrives or you need to dash off to the embassy if all else fails? You get an uber driver, that’s what! But with a strong taxi lobby in Jordan, uber and Careem (a competing taxi app in the Middle East) now operate under the radar. So henceforth, when I speak of our uber driver, I will call him ‘Mr Amman’.

    When Sadia arrived at the airport in Amman, it was the most convenient thing to use her app to get to midtown. She didn’t realise that uber wasn’t legit. When Mr Amman arrived to pick her up, he explained his position. But we are from South Africa. We’re quite accustomed to supporting the underdog. And so for our stay in Jordan, Mr Amman became our go-to guy.

    For starters, he found us an apartment that was way more competitive than staying in midtown. I asked him, “Mr Amman, what is cost of living like in Jordan or at least in this town.” “Mr Adli,” he said, “it is too much expensive. To live ok, in an apartment and to eat everyday you need maybe 1000JOD.” Good with the numbers, Sadia adds, “That’s almost R20 000! A month!”

    “Would that include a car?” “No! Just rent, food and so on.” Over the next few days I realise that public transport is virtually absent in Jordan. There are no trains and maybe public buses but not too many because, for all our drives through the city, I didn’t see any. The Jordanian Dinar (or JOD, pronounced JD!) is strong. You need R18,72 or $1,41 to buy 1JOD.

    Sadia and I realised long ago that, whenever we travel, it’s a mistake to constantly convert currency when buying things. You allocate your money for food, accommodation, travel and so on and then you go about your travels. If you constantly convert, you will stay in your hotel room! The one good thing about the Middle East is that, generally, food is cheap. And when I say cheap, I mean street food!

    So if you like shwarma, falafel, kabsa and so on, then you can survive quite well in Jordan. Of course, all over the Amman, there are also outlets for American food franchises such as KFC, McDonalds, Burger King and others I had not even heard of such as Popeyes. What is also very useful, is to rent an apartment and then stock up with your basics such as coffee, bread, cereals and so on from a local supermarket.

    IMG_3500
    Apartment blocks with shops below.

    For the next few days, while waiting for the letter, Mr Amman took us all over his city. The hills of Amman gives the city an interesting character. It’s like Cape Town’s Bokaap but times 100. This makes for very many quaint streets with its many twists and turns in a city with mostly white buildings. Mr Amman tells us that this, the colour white, is a city ordinance. So if you haven’t been paying attention to the street names, you can get very lost in Amman!

    One fine morning, a cool Autumn 24 degrees celsius, Mr Amman arrived at our apartment building. He said, “Today I think I will take you to see Jerash. You will see. You will like it too much!”

     

  • The Road Trip of an Empty Coke Bottle

    The Road Trip of an Empty Coke Bottle

    Because unburdening can be liberating, and sometimes you just need to travel…

    coke-300x199An empty, capless, two litre Coke bottle was jay-rolling across a busy Goldman Street near the pedestrian crossing. I had fetched my ten year old son from the primary school down Sixth Avenue. At 2.07pm, that part of Florida, Roodepoort, can be a traffic nightmare for about another twenty minutes but the 2-litre did not care. It does not go to school and—and now that it was empty—no home to go to either.

    So it skipped and hopped across the street. I thought for sure that my front tyres would crush the life out of the bottle but no. It somehow dodged our wheels and of the two-way traffic by inches. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that it did not wait for the traffic light at the pedestrian crossing nor did it allow the traffic officer, on duty for pupils, to halt any of the cars to give a Coke right of way. If plastic bottles have a gust of wind at their back, who needs right of way?

    When it hit the curb on the other side of the road, it spun a few times and continued to roll in the direction it was going. All along Goldman Street it rolled. On the concrete between the curb and the road, it looked as if it was merrily making its way towards the Goldman Shopping Complex. The way it rolled, with its ends bopping as it hit stones and debris, it looked as if it was hopping to a beat.

    The car radio was on and I imagined the Coke bottle going down the street to the sound of Justin Timberlake’s My Love.

    Yeah, because
    I can see us holding hands
    Walking on the beach,
    our toes in the sand
    I can see us on the countryside
    Sitting on the grass,
    laying side by side

    But 2-litre plastic bottles don’t listen to music and don’t care much for Justin Timberlake even though they may have much in common as Pop Music is often referred to as plastic. It did not bother the bottle either that Coke often uses popular music to promote its product to consumers. It did not see the irony.

    So we cannot tell what gave the Coke bottle its rhythm as it made its way towards the next intersection. As the bottle went out of sight I wondered whether plastic bottles going for a stroll really need an observer to ensure that their story will be documented?

    So, anyway, as it rolled past Seventh Avenue, a guy on his bike was standing at the traffic stop with one foot on the road, waiting to make his way into Goldman. His eyes trailed the carefree Coke bottle roll along in front him. It seemed to be almost dancing. He thought to himself what an interesting metaphor for life. The emptier you are—with less worries and stress—the happier you will be. Freer. He smiled to himself.

    The 2-litre did not look up or contemplate the biker because Coke bottles don’t cycle and could not be bothered by philosophical thoughts about life and what it all means. So it passed by the guy on the bike without even a nod and on it rolled…

    The Coca-Cola logo was now a spinning red band when the 2-litre reached the busy traffic intersection on Eighth Avenue and Goldman. Wreckless buses, expedient mini-taxis and impatient BMWs were not going to slow down or honk at a plastic bottle who cannot understand what the red man means on pedestrian light.

    I cannot say that our Coke bottle smiled when it bobbed unscathed across Eighth or that it even looked back to admire what it had accomplished. But even if I could, it was short lived because just then the bottle deflated.

    Some heavy guy, dressed in rags, had stepped on the empty bottle with his worn out boot. He jumped a bit on the bottom part to ensure that there was no air left. He took off the wrapper and put both in a huge canvas bag squatting on his trolley. There were hundreds of other squashed plastic bottles, plastic wrappers and an assortment of other used junk in his treasure.

    He pulled the rope on his trolley to haul it for another 10 kilometres to the recycling dump. He thought to himself: Why don’t all the bloody plastic refuse come rolling down the street like this empty 2-litre Coke bottle. Then he had another brain wave: When they pay me at the dump, I am buying myself a 2-litre just for myself. The plastic Coke bottle said nothing.