To Eilat, Petra and back in 48 hours

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Ahalon (Hello in Arabic) and welcome to the final (big) blog of my journey in Israel. I’ve been having mixed feelings about going back home because over the past few days I’ve had thoughts of extending my stay here to live and work on a Kibbutz, but it seems that to do this you need advanced planning. So, it’s not possible for this journey but I will make it happen in the future very soon. A kibbutz is a community of people living and working together; and people from many places come to volunteer on them for 2-6 months. It’s on my travel-to list without a doubt.



Over the course of the past two days I have been to the South of Israel, Eilat, and crossed to border from Israel into Jordan to go to Petra. It was a very adventurous and memorable 48 hours! Not to mention tiring, but more often than not when I travel, I get on a “traveling high” and being tired doesn’t phase me—I’m too excited about the next happening so I ignore how tired I may be J My travels down South started when I woke up at 4:30 on Monday morning to take a taxi to the Kiryat-Motzkin train station. From there I rode into Tel Aviv University station and hopped into another taxi to go to the Sve-Dov airport. This is the domestic airport in Tel Aviv, and for Israel being such a small country, you can only imagine how small the domestic airport is. I had been in a small airport similar to this when I flew domestic within Australia. The flight from Tel Aviv to Eilat is less than an hour and I was landed by 9:00 AM. Upon arrival, I went on a search to get American dollars. I had to get American dollars because I needed it to pay the Jordan border fees (later on I found out that I could have paid in sheckels. A reason it’s important to read and pay attention to details thoroughly when traveling! Oops. Lessons learned!) I was able to go to the post office and do my money business there. Soon I was holding $60 American dollars; giving me a bittersweet feeling because I knew I was going home in 2 days. After the airport I hopped into another taxi and went to the Dan Panorma hotel in Eilat. It was a 5 star hotel, and very nice! Like I said, it was an early birthday present to myself. I heard from multiple sources that the aquarium in Eilat is a “must see attraction” so that was my first stop after checking into the hotel. I went to the bus stop right outside of the hotel to wait for the bus, waiting, waiting, and waiting. After about a half hour of waiting, another couple that was waiting had run out of their patience and decided to take a taxi. They were going to the same place I was, so lucky me, solo traveler, I received a free ride to the aquarium with the couple. It was a couple from Finland—who spoke little English so we communicated by showing on the map where we were going. They hand gestured for me to come into the taxi with them. Traveling solo has many perks—and this is one of them. And it’s a reminder of how helpful and friendly people can be. The aquarium had many attractions to offer—and I also had a package deal that included lunch in my visit. (I booked my aquarium visit with the hotel). The aquarium went below sea level, which gave a beautiful view of the underwater sea life of fish and coral reef, beautiful. As I was leaving the aquarium, a cab driver stopped me; trying to hit up a customer for a cab ride. Knowing that the cabs are more expensive than a bus, my initial reaction was no, but the cab driver continued to hassle me for a ride. I got in, but instead of paying for the ride, the cab driver found some other customers to come for the ride as well. As a young solo American traveler—here’s another perk of traveling solo. Instead of being dropped off at the hotel right away, I rode around in the cab with the driver as he did his job. This was an experience that would probably never appear in America! I spent the evening driving around with the cab driver, and in between picking up customers he also took me to an authentic hookah bar (Shisah it’s called in the Middle East). At the Shisah bar, there was a view of the bordering counties with Israel; I could see Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Just a little farther South was the border with Egypt. We drove some customers to the border with Egypt, and to the border with Jordan.



And onto my journey with Jordan…the tour began at 6:45 AM when I was picked up from the hotel lobby. Sadly, my favorite part of hotel stays (continental breakfast) was not served until 7 am and so prepared for me was a breakfast box. The tour had 10 other people on it, so a very nice sized group. People from Canada, Franace, Argentina, and one other American were on the tour. Crossing the border into Jordan was time consuming—but it was all worth it. Once we got through the border it was about a 2 hour drive to Petra. The drive was beautiful and we had our tour guide, Mohammaed, who was full of knowledge about Jordan. He was a very helpful and friendly tour guide through out the whole day. Driving through Jordan was an experience in itself—we saw camels, Arabs in their regular attire (the head wraps/thawb). Arriving in Petra, we loaded of our Buses and walked to where we were able to ride a horse into Petra. I have never actually ridden a horse (only a pony) so I chose to take the horse ride for 800 meters. They told us the horse ride was “Free” but with a tip. I had wanted to tip with sheckels, but, sheckels are unable to be converted into dinar (Jordanian money.) I had no sheckel bills and no American money on me, so the tour guide was very helpful and borrowed me dinars. He became my bank for the day, as I later borrowed money from him for a camel ride. Petra is an amazing site to see, and there’s nothing to prepare a person for the experience. As soon as you enter into Petra, you are surrounded by the beautiful red stone full of history , and beautiful carvings. The people of Petra (the men) are very forward when they see a beautiful young woman. I got many looks, many men asking me “Are you married?” in hopes of having me as their wife. Our tour guide warned me that some of the Beodowin men will try to exchange me for camels. He told me to say I was already married to him. The Bedouin who gave me a ride on his camel told me that his father had 4 wives, one of the wives lived in the Bedouin tent and the other 3 wives lived in a house in the village. Seeing is believing—and being immersed into this culture gave me a higher understanding of what it was about. The Jordanian men are beautiful too! But very straight forward and it’s important to be aware of this when entering that culture. Being the youngest person on our group tour—I suppose I was easy “bait” for the tour guide to use. He told me I was swept away by “The curse of Arabia” and used me to make jokes for the tour the remained of the day. What a day we had….we arrived back to the border in the evening, and I took my plane ride back to Tel Aviv at 8:45. It was an easy reversal of how I got there to go back. Expect instead of early morning, it was very late at night. I arrived back in Kiryat-Ata at Moti and Pdudya’s past midnight.

This evening I will get on a train and head back towards Tel Aviv into Rehovot, where I still stay with Reuven for the night. Tomorrow my flight will leave at 11:45 in the morning. I’ve had some amazing experiences in Israel, and it’s truly a big thanks to my friends here. My friends have helped me to feel very welcome, and that only makes me want to come back to Israel as soon as possible. I’ve learned and gained knowledge that will help me in the future, and I realize that I really enjoy being immersed in this culture. I’ve begun my research on Kibbutz programs! I believe I will write once more about my travels, but until then, I love all of you and I will be seeing you very soon back in Minnesota. Happy Hallo-eve!



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Comments

[g an d g]

Hope you can live and work on a kibbutz soon. Love g a ndG

[g an d g]

Hope you can live and work on a kibbutz soon. Love g a ndG

[g an d g]

Hope you can live and work on a kibbutz soon. Love g a ndG