Trek notes: November 1, 2019.

By now we have been travelling for several days longer, much of it on foot, followed by two days’ rest at the Tower. I have learned to trust my feet and displace my body without casting my eyes downwards permanently . This is progress. There are other things I have learned and sentiments I have been reminded of. Like how gratifying it is to be welcomed by strangers, or to find yourself to be a practical person in situations that would otherwise have gotten the best of you. How much I love reading a new book, even while I am physically  immersed in a new world too. How good synthetic cheese spread tastes - the kind that saved childhood holidays spent in the back of the family car - turns out to be perfect trail food, to be lathered, thickly, unto flatbread and vegetables, filling you up - in spite of other travellers’ outpourings of love over intricate dishes and the newest health food fads. 

We chat while stretched out luxuriously on the rooftop common room of the quaint eco-friendly guest house in Dana. My legs have refused any hard labour for the entire day, the book hasn’t left my lap for hours.

Trek notes: November 3, 2019.

I think I’ve lost weight, even if weight is all I’m concerned about every morning I hoist the backpack back up. The muscles in my neck and lower body appear constantly stretched, on alert. I take a picture of myself in my underwear in our room in the Dana Tower. I send it to my boyfriend, making sure it doesn’t show the minor cuts and bruises on my arms where I last scraped down a rock’s surface. Daniël and I woke up early for a new hike and there is a one-hour time difference between Jordan and the Netherlands. By the time he texts me back from Amsterdam to give his approval, I am on the road and once again wearing the same black sports leggings and oversized sweatshirt (his) that I’ve dutifully put on every morning while on the trail.

The happy bewilderment about the ease with which things are arranged and the eagerness of strangers to commit themselves to our cause (or at least our sleeping arrangements) is only sporadically replaced by a notion that the wild really is just that and that the kindness is but a thin veneer. In Dana two encounters give rise to that eerie sensation. First, Daniël is forced to chase off a boy in the New Village, no older than seven, who threatens to chuck a stone at us for our refusal to hand him money.

On our way back to the Traditional Dana, two men catch up to us in their car as we traipse by the side of the road. Our arms are full of grocery bags, which contain more Coca-Cola and salty chips. As the truck pulls over, the driver leans into the sliding window, telling us: “I’m a dangerous man.” He holds up his ID with a vague flourish. Daniël and I increase our pace ever-so-slightly, declaring cheerily that we appreciate the walk - and we do, especially as we get to descend now. But the men come back, the car once again swerving to the right. They have left the window open and once again the young driver holds out his arm. It’s not his ID this time, but his phone. As Daniel sticks his head into the car to read the display, he sees a translation app. Dana’s resident cool guys want to clarify. They don’t mean anything bad at all, they just want to give us a lift back to the Tower to spare us the traffic. We look out at the autoroute. The road between the Old and the New is pretty much deserted. The nature reserves and the ruins’ dust seems to have settled over the tarmac, veneer or kindness softened again. We assure the youngsters that truly, we are fine. We walk on.