A drive up north

The car started screeching right out of the parking lot. Not any ole’ screech neither, it let out a high pitched howl that sounded like metal rubbing on metal every time I went to accelerate.اضافة اعلان

My friend, Laura, always a shrewd companion, advised that we turn around and head back to the car rental company. But half a block too far and unmoved by the check engine light and dashboard that kept flashing ominous warnings in Arabic, I decided to carry on.

The goal was simple: Take a road trip north towards Ajloun, stopping anywhere along the way that caught our fancy, and make it back well before curfew. The first two goals, it turned out, would be easy.

It was 10am when we left. Now, it was 10:30, and we found ourselves fighting our way through Amman’s traffic somewhere around the edge of the city. Cars and trucks were at a standstill. Horns were honking. Laura was giving directions from the passenger seat. A stream of traffic was released from the left, devoid of any lights that would have signaled go as far as I could tell. I eased the car forward, hoping for the mercy of one of the drivers flooding onto the main road. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the mercy never came and I cut off a driver speeding towards me.

He slammed on the brakes, but let me go. We were free. We sat in traffic until we found our exit and turned onto Highway 35. The road opened up. The traffic evaporated like fumes, and we were on our way.

Not 20 minutes out of the city and the throngs of people passing by the car while we sat in traffic were replaced by the occasional vendor selling produce, their displays colorful signs unto themselves with dark greens, bright orange, strawberry red, and dark purple. The hills, whose slopes where buildings would sit in the city, were mostly verdant — save for the occasional groups of houses — they hosted olive orchards, oaks, grass, and bright white stones.

I had never been to Ajloun, not in my three-and-a-half years of living in Jordan. All I knew about it is it was green. And I had grown tired, through the lockdowns, of sitting in the city, peaceful as it can be on Fridays.

The terrain dropped off north of Jerash, offering us peeks into the lush valleys below and tempting us with coffee from the shops perched on the cliffs. We both forfeited our morning coffee to quickly pick up the car and set off, worried we would need to save time to make it back before lockdown.

But the caffeine call grew stronger than that of the road and we gave in somewhere around Ajloun National University on Highway 55. A boy welcomed us in and a man inside asked us to wait as he handed his friend some money and the guy sped away.

“I will make it fresh,” the man said, as if he kept it stored in a pot somewhere behind the counter.

But it didn’t matter, we were more than halfway to where we wanted to be and we had time to spare. I slid outside and sat on a little bench watching the cars pass by, all frantic and frenzied.

A few minutes later the, guy who went to get the coffee came zooming back into the parking lot, stopping inches from my feet. He threw the coffee to the boy, who ran it inside. Not wanting to lose any more time ourselves, we took the coffee to our car and set off again. I turned off Highway 55 by a shop with a mannequin out front, but the road had no name from what I could tell.

From there, we descended into a valley of olive orchards squatting on beds of yellow wildflowers. Neatly painted bus stops served as landmarks, and kids yelled “Sayarah!” as they heard the shriek of the car passing, disturbing their football games in the gravel.

Eventually, we ascended from the wadi, and the road dropped off once more to our left, reaching out to a town nestled in another valley in the distance. This time we stopped. Road signs advertised attractions and names I’ve never heard before: Udah Water Mill, Christ Cave, and Birqish Forests. More olive trees clung to the side of the mountain and we zigzagged our way down the cliff side until we could go no further. Steep cliffs framed the town in the distance.

On our way out, we followed the signs that promised the allure of places we’d never seen before. We drove through Birqish, until the forest relented and gave way to the town of Kufr Rakeb and its green domed-mosque in the distance.

We had an hour to drive back to Amman, but we drove slowly, meandering through Irbid and Ajloun governorates.