After hurdling through the detours and pot holes on my way to Souq Jara, I came to find a place where handicrafts, food, drinks, Antiques, vanity items, collector’s items and even paintings could be found. The Souq Jara experience is something that I like to include in my monthly agenda at lease once as the ambiance, the hustle and bustle of the hundreds of wandering people is something that will always leave me refreshed and in a contemplative mood.

Souq Jara is a weekly Bazaar; or a flee market if you want to call it that. Located at the heart of Amman; Jabal Amman to be exact, if you find yourself somewhere near the first circle on a Friday between the hours of 10:00 am and 10:pm, make sure to take the detour towards downtown and then take a right as you reach la Vazza, and you’ll find the Souq to your left.

Now there are many reasons why I like Jara. One of which includes the fact that I could find lots of interesting items to buy and a multitude of people that hail from all parts of the globe. Slowly becoming a main attraction for tourists, Souq Jara still retains quite a good deal of its original ambiance, an oriental market place that’s packed with people. Due to the streets architecture, the surrounding beautiful old houses “as old as they get in Amman” funnel people closer and closer to each other towards the end. And when I say “the end” I don’t mean the end of this joyous experience. Once you reach the last bit of the market, you’ll find that the organizers have cleverly disguised the stair case leading towards the Wild Jordan Cafe into a stage! Yes, a stage where local artists are invited to perform once a week at 8:30 pm for as long as they desire. The shows usually last for about an hour to an hour and a half. With a presence list that includes Humam Ammari, Reef, Jadal, Salam Hmoud, Vengo and many others, the weekly show is enough to get you motivated enough to go through this Jara experience.

I personally prefer to show up sometime around 6 pm so that I can catch a bit of heavenly sunlight and bask in the glory of the old architecture that is the epitome of this experience. Along with a quick order of a cup of coffee from the available stand and a mankooshet za’tar from the stand right next to it. Once I’m done, I like to buy myself a glass of fresh lemonade and mint and just walk slowly around the market. No matter how short the street is, I cannot help but spend hours just walking around and exploring the stands and the people in the market. I find it a very fascinating experience to find people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures interested in the same thing all packed up nicely into the same couple of hundred square meters. Regardless of how much actual shopping is done, I still find a good level of diversity and turnover when it comes to stand owners. With products ranging from the latest best selling novel to an old antique set of earrings, one is most certainly going to buy something off that market.

Jara also presents a very delightful sitting area situated right down the middle of the market where a person can enjoy the sunlight and oriental\jazzy music played on the sound speakers and even enjoy an agheela! When I’m done with the market, I always find myself going to any of the surrounding coffee shops or restaurants\pubs in the same region like La Calle or the Old View Cafe.

So when it comes down to it, if I had to think of a reason of why I’d dislike winter, it’d be the fact that Jara is out of season in the winter and I cannot experience anything like it until summer beacons again. When sure enough, Jara comes back into my life like a recurring old friend that i wait for in anticipation.

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