From “The Pilgrimage” by Paulo Coelho:
“When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don’t even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach much more importance to the things around you because your survival depends on them. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in difficult situations. And you accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.”
In the past week, we have had two different individuals totally extend themselves to help us out. In both situations, the help was unsolicited yet invaluable. Both situations are examples of small “favors from the gods” that we will remember for the rest of our lives.
The first occurred just after we had crossed the border into Jordan. We were haggling with a taxi driver, trying to negotiate a fare for the 2 hour drive to Petra. Unfortunately for us, it was a slow time, and he was the only driver. Thus, he would barely budge from his initial price that was nearly double what we had been prepped to pay based on our research and talking with other travelers. At that moment, another cab pulled up and from it poured 4 dudes with beefy backpacks and climbing ropes. At that moment, we were in a bit of a stand-off with the driver. We wanted to hold our ground, yet the circumstances of having just entered a new country, and standing in an empty parking lot with only this less than friendly cabbie and his crony, had us feeling just a bit vulnerable. The newly arrived climbers must have sensed this as one of them, Oren as we would soon learn, walked over and asked us if we needed any help. We briefly explained the situation. He then brought down the ire of the cab driver as he calmly suggested perhaps we should contact the tourist police. The 4 Israeli guys then proceeded to make it rather clear that they were not leaving to enter the border station until we had resolved our situation. In only a moment or two, the driver agreed to a price that was much closer to the appropriate rate. Before leaving, Oren handed us his card and offered that we could contact him should we have any questions or need any assistance once we were back in Israel.
The act in and of itself was impressive. But even more-so was the genuine nature in which the help was offered. We did take Oren up on his offer and emailed to inquire about hikes that he would recommend around the Sea of Galilee. He responded quickly with detailed descriptions of two hikes and some kind words about Pacific North-Westerners.
The second situation occurred just yesterday as we struggled to negotiate the chaotic streets of Tel Aviv in our fly ride from Budget. This city is rife with one way streets and quite interestingly, many of actual street names don’t seem to match the names that are printed on our map. After about an hour of trying to find a hostel (we actually finally did locate the one we sought only to learn they were full), we had pulled off the road to get our heads together and figure out how to get back to the part of Tel Aviv where many of the budget hotels are located. At first, we didn’t notice the young, bald-headed guy that was gearing up his motorcycle on the curb next to us. As we looked over he gestured questioningly if we needed help. Against our cynical “this guy must want something in exchange” preprogramming, we humbly said, yes, we could really use some help. He then showed us on the map where we needed to go, and offered for us to follow him as he explained the one-way streets would make the crossing difficult at best if we were not familiar with the city. True to his word, ten minutes later he pulled off in front of a row of guest houses. He graciously declined with a smile our offers to pay him in money or beer, and then off he went. Yet another situation of unsolicited, genuine assistance with no strings attached. If we have too many more of these, that cynicism I alluded to above may be vanquished for good.
Before signing off, I would like to offer a contrast to the taxi driver in the first anecdote. So as not to leave the door open for assumptions about Jordanians, or more specifically, Jordanian cab drivers, it must be said that for the most part the people of Jordan that we met were absolutely lovely. We felt very safe and very welcome throughout our time there. And, we had a delightful cab experience upon returning to Aqaba from Petra. As we got off the bus we were immediately approached by a gentleman who offered to drive us to our hotel. On learning that we needed a bathroom first, he called his buddy at a nearby hotel to obtain clearance for us to make a detour on our way to our hotel which was about 15 minutes away.
After his initial kindness and fair price, we decided to contact him to drive us from the hotel to the border the next morning. For the length of the drive, he gave us a guided tour of Aqaba and spoke with great pride of all of the new construction and the gigantic Jordanian flag that flies over the city center. After we thanked him and commented on how much we appreciated his country, he sang us a beautiful song of gratitude. This was especially pleasing as the man had a fantastic voice. He then explained that he often sings his four children to sleep at night. After exiting his car and exchanging farewells, we headed back to Israel with wide smiles and warm hearts as a result of the kindness of strangers.
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