None of us get out of this life scratch-and-scar free from transportation mishaps. Car accidents, missed flights, canceled trains, miscommunicated timetables, or whatever it may be, we’ve all experienced it.

And, sometimes, they all seem descend on one poor soul within a 24-hour period. That poor soul was once me.

I traveled to Jordan for a church trip to tour the Holy Land, and while my home church was in Everett, Washington, I was living in South Africa at the time. I booked my plane ticket separate from the rest of the group for obvious reasons, flying to meet them in Amman, where our tour was to begin. I had arranged to arrive a day early, though; since the trip was only a visit to Petra and the Dead Sea before crossing into Israel, I wanted to add a little extra time to explore Amman on my own.

Had I known that Amman would be my Planes, Trains, and Automobiles story, I probably would have decided it wasn’t worth the extra day.

I arrived in Amman, printed directions in hand to my hostel, because I did not have a smart phone, let alone international data. The directions were simple: get on a certain bus leaving the airport, and get off at this certain stop. I can follow directions like that! I sat on the right-hand side of the bus, ready to dutifully read the street signs to know where to exit. I watched other people get off the bus to make sure I knew the procedures to mimic. I was all set.

Except that I wasn’t, because I ended up coming to the end of the line at the bus terminal an hour later. It turns out I can’t read Arabic signs.

Luckily there were taxis there, probably waiting for all the mishaps like myself. Frustrated with myself for having missed my bus stop long ago, I flagged down a taxi and showed him the name of my hostel. He smiled and nodded and we were off, retracing the last who-knows-how-many kilometers of my bus ride.

After a little while I could tell something was amiss. My driver seemed less confident than when he first picked me up. He motioned to see my hostel information again, and I showed him. He furrowed his brows. He said something in Arabic. I stared at him blankly.

He kept driving. I soon noticed that I was seeing the same buildings over and over. We were circling about a five-block radius.

Great, I thought to myself. Typical taxi—racking up the cost by making the drive last longer than it should. But there was nothing I could do about it.

My driver finally got on the phone. Lots of Arabic was exchanged, but nothing in my situation changed. We kept driving around and around these same blocks. I was starting to feel like I’d be fluent in the Arabic I saw on signs by the time I was done, having seen them so much.

It was clear my driver was lost. And he’d phoned a friend, with no luck. He polled the audience by stopping to ask random pedestrians. Unfortunately, there was no 50/50 option to make half the buildings disappear.

Suddenly, my eyes landed perfectly on a sign: the name of the hostel! In English! I got his attention and got him to stop. He looked at the sign and gave a nervous laugh and exaggerated shrug of the shoulders that seemed to say, “Oh, how could I be so silly to miss that this whole time!”

I knew it. Classic taxi fraud.

I took a deep breath and asked how much. He hemmed. He hawed. He wrinkled his forehead to calculate. He hesitated.

Five dollars, he told me.

I didn’t know if that was a rip off or an incredible deal. I couldn’t tell if I should actually pay 50 cents for that ride, or if he gave me some absurd discount. Either way, I felt five dollars was reasonable for myself, and I paid him and was on my way.

The next day, I found an internet café to log into my email. I sent an email off to Lisa, who had coordinated the group trip. “I arrived in Amman!” I wrote to her. “Had an adventure getting to my hostel but it’s all sorted out. I’m heading out to the airport this evening to meet you guys there. See you tonight!”

And I signed off, oblivious to anything other than my plan.

Somewhere between the extra-long bus ride and extra-long taxi ride, I had seen a giant mall. I decided that I needed to visit this mall and get some clothes, because the outfits I brought weren’t quite warm enough for the weather in February.

Being on a tight budget, I decided I would walk to the mall. It couldn’t be that far, right? I walked past a taxi stand, and naturally each of the taxi drivers started calling to me. “Taxi? Taxi?” the first driver said to me. I shook my head no and kept walking. Other drivers called at me as I walked past. “Taxi?” they asked, over and over.

But somewhere between the first taxi and the fifth taxi I changed my mind. The mall was way too far to walk. After the last driver called out, “Taxi?” I spun around. “You know what? Yes, I’ll take the taxi,” I said.

What happened next was a flash before my eyes. I heard yelling in Arabic coming from behind me, getting louder as the source drew closer. I barely registered in time to notice it was the first driver to ask if I needed a taxi. By the time I recognized him, his large hand was gripping the neck of the driver I agreed to ride with. He was yelling and choking the man. The guy was clearly struggling with breathing, as he wasn’t responding.

I don’t think I even thought any thoughts at that time. Wide-eyed, I took in the scene. Was I going to watch someone get choked to death over my indecision to choose a taxi on time?

“Come here,” I heard someone say in English. I turned around and another driver was pointing at his taxi. “Get in, now,” he said to me. I probably should have quickly developed a fear of these guys and their capabilities to lose their minds over clients, but I felt he was urging me to leave the scene entirely. Maybe he knew something I didn’t know. I hopped in quickly, and we drove away. I was just happy to have a driver who hadn’t been involved in a violent brawl.

“What the heck was that all about?!” I exclaimed, bewildered.

“Yesssss,” the driver said, either not understanding my English or not concerned with it. He was watching out the rearview mirror as the carnage continued.

We had only gone about 100 meters when he pulled over. “Wait,” he told me.

I waited.

“There,” he said. “Now you can go with him.”

Go with whom? I wondered. I thought I had already found my taxi driver!

Immediately another taxi pulled next to us. It was the first driver. The one who choked out the other guy. Apparently, he had won, and my new driver wasn’t going to play that game.

There was no way out of this. I was going to have to take the first taxi. The one I shrugged off. The one that had no qualms choking someone else for some cash. He was here to conduct business, and he meant business.

I rode in silence, somewhat afraid he should just be driving himself straight to anger management classes. When we got to the mall, he charged me only 3 dinars.

I guess my first taxi ride wasn’t a rip off, after all.

When I was ready to leave the mall, I decided to things the right way: go with the first driver. I wasn’t about to encounter another choke-out again.

“How much for the taxi?” I asked.

“Six dinars,” he said.

“Six?!” I balked. I told him I had been charged only three the first time. He insisted that it was six. I insisted it was three or I was going to walk. He finally caved and said to get in the taxi. But when we arrived at my destination, he insisted that it was six. After some unsuccessful arguing, I finally handed over the six dinars and curtly slammed the door behind me. I was so done with my transportation issues.

But they weren’t done with me.

I met an Australian girl at the hostel and we decided to journey Amman together for the afternoon. After all my taxi snafus, I was ready to have a temporary friend. Plus, we had a similar schedule: she was leaving Jordan that evening, just an hour before my church group was scheduled to arrive at the airport. We could split the taxi cost to the airport and I wouldn’t have to venture alone in a taxi. It was the perfect plan to help me with all my frustrations from the travel so far.

We arrived at the airport just fine; she left for departures and I went to arrivals to wait for my group to come. I had gotten there a little early to accommodate the Australian, but eventually the flight landed and I saw people with luggage tags passing by from the flight.

Finally! I was relieved. Once I was with my group, all my transportation would be taken care of. I was home free!

Eventually I stopped seeing people passing by with those luggage tags. Still no church group. Well, since they are a group, they’re probably last, waiting for everyone to clear immigration and get their luggage.

I waited. And waited. And waited.

Something was definitely off, and I needed to find out what it was. I approached the security guard who was at the exit and asked if there was still a large group of people ready to come through. He cocked his head, confused. No English.

I found someone at an information desk that could speak English, but they didn’t know anything about a group of people. I asked them to write it in Arabic so I could take it back to the security guard. He read the sign, still looked confused, and I realized I wasn’t going to get any answers from him.

Did I even know what day it was anymore? Or what time? Had I misread the time the flight was arriving? But I had seen people from that exact flight come through! I went back to the information desk and asked, with desperation in my voice, if I could maybe use their computer to log into my email and look at the flight information. Graciously, they let me.

And there it was: only two minutes after I had sent my email to Lisa saying, “See you tonight!” she had replied back: “WAIT! We are not arriving today; we arrive tomorrow! DON’T come to the airport today!”

If only I hadn’t so confidently signed off at the internet café after sending out that email.

”Ugh!” I said out loud. I explained to the information desk that I had the wrong date. Between time zone changes and overnight layovers, I had miscalculated the timetable by 24 hours.

Now what was I going to do? I didn’t have a hotel to stay in. But maybe the hotel we were supposed to go to as a group would have a room for the night. That’s what I’ll do!

“Now, what bus will take me to this hotel?” I asked Information. “Or do I just need to get a taxi?”

“Oh, those services are long gone,” he told me. “The last flight was well over an hour ago. There’s no buses or taxis here. The airport is now closed. Transport won’t run again until the morning.”

As if on cue, the airport lights started shutting off. They started locking doors. Homeless people started dragging themselves in and setting up little beds on the few public chairs in the waiting area. It was very clear what I was doing that night: joining the homeless on the benches.

I didn’t get much sleep at all. Between grumbling at myself for misunderstanding the dates, sleeping in a cold and uncomfortable airport, and trying to guard my luggage, I still have it burned into my brain what that airport waiting looked like that night. While it was my first time staying overnight in the public part of an airport, unfortunately it was only the first in a list of many other stays after many other mishaps across the world. Some things are just unavoidable.

At the first sign of buses and taxis rolling again, I finally started to have some luck: there was a shuttle to the hotel. And, they were going to mercifully let me check in super early for our reservation. I arrived and crashed, sleeping hard to make up for my night of homelessness.

In the afternoon, I decided I needed to get out and stretch my legs, so I went for a little walk. I was not going to get involved in a taxi this time.

As I was walking down a street, a taxi pulled over next to me. The driver rolled down their window.

“Hey, how are you?” he said.

I looked at him. It was my first taxi guy. The one that, I swear, started this whole domino effect. In this whole giant city, somehow we managed to cross paths again.He seemed excited to see me. Maybe surprised I had survived at all.

“I’m fine! Just… walking,” I replied.

He waved goodbye and drove off.

Goodbye, taxi.