After leaving Tel Aviv, I was off on a bus to Jerusalem. What I didn`t know was when I got off the bus at the main bus station, I would have to enter a security area and have my bag x-rayed (like at an airport) and a visual search of my purse. Crazy how they really check everywhere. Anyways, after a long time wandering around the bus station, looking for food as well as how to get out (as I didn`t want to have to re-enter if I went out the wrong door), trying to figure out where to go and almost giving up and taking a taxi (but I held out and found the right bus, and got off at the right stop and found the right entry to the old town and even found my hostel in the back alley`s)…I felt victorious! But at this point, I was a little tired and cranky (to say the least), but I was there and ready for a new city. I knew there was a lot to see there and wasn`t in the planning mood, so once I arrived, I just wandered around the old city and just got lost. It was tough as every street looked the same and not really any street signs. I actually like getting lost and it`s fun to find my way back, but this time it was a little overwhelming at first as all the locals were trying to lure me into their stores and offering to show me everything, yet I didn`t want any of it. It was hard to even walk through the busy and narrow streets. That night, when I was sitting in my hostel, I met 3 really great new friends (Tara from Canada, and Andy & Rory were from Ireland). We were talking about maybe renting a car to see more of Israel for the next day or two and knew it was the only way to get around the outer areas (and with Shabbat on Friday/Saturday there would be no public transport). I was super tired from my late night in Tel Aviv and decided to chill for a while when they went out to dinner. The funny thing was, as soon as they stood up to leave, three other guys came and sat next me on the couch, but they were only wearing boxer briefs. No top, no pants and it was so strange. Tara said my jaw dropped, and they didn`t know what to do (leave for dinner or stay with me a little longer) as I was so in shock from these new guys in their underwear. Funny as they were told by the hostel management they couldn`t sit there like that, so one of the guys went upstairs to get them all t-shirts (like that makes it all better?). It was a little too funny as I know it`s hot, but there is a level of being too casual. So the next three days were jammed packed with fun, adventure, drama and lots of sightseeing. I`m going to try to highlight it below with some of the funny stories we had.
Thursday August 14th – Jerusalem all day:This was a full day to see the old city in Jerusalem, and we walked a ton. Tara, Rory, Andy and I set out to see the the Christian quarter first and started at the Crusader Citadel and the Tower of David Museum. This actually was an interesting museum that explained the history of Jerusalem in a concise and easily digestible format and gave us a great view of the new and old city. Next we were off to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the site where it is believed that Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. Here we ran into two friends that Tara and Andy had met in other cities (Sandra and Keelen) who both continued with us for the rest of the day. So the 6 of us were off to see the gold plated Dome of the Rock as it was only open from 1:30-2:30 and early in the morning. If we didn`t make it today, we would miss it as it would be closed the next two days for Shabbat. So this was a priority. We knew it was hard to find and to just get in to the area, we had to enter more security gates, and we came onto The Western (Wailing) Wall first. This is Judaism`s holiest shrine. It was interesting as men had to go to one side to pray and women were only allowed on the other side. I also noticed the men`s side was 3 times as large, yet there were many more women praying, and the women`s wall was packed. Why??? Also at the wall, many people write down prayers on little pieces of paper and stick them in cracks on the wall. I asked before I approached the wall and was told it was fine for anyone to leave a prayer so I did. There were women praying there for a long time, and I enjoyed taking the whole scene in. Afterwards, we had to exit the area, and make a quick U-Turn to enter a different security gate and then enter The Dome of the Rock. Felt like I have waited in a lot of lines to just go through security. It was about 30 minutes to wait to go through the security gate and unfortunately, they wouldn`t let Andy in as he had a laptop with him, and they are not allowed. Why we never found out – were they afraid he would type something about his experience from inside??? The Dome of the Rock was amazing. It`s a functioning Muslim mosque today, so as we came near to go in, we were quickly told no. I guess we really didn`t look like we were Muslim, and we accepted this and walked another direction towards to gold plated dome. It was impressive with the size, shiny gold and colorful ceramic tiles all around. At this point, we have been walking a lot, it`s really ho,t and we are all sweaty, tired, cranky and hungry and when you are hungry and can`t find food anywhere…no one is a happy camper. It came down to us saying, “we will stop at any place that is near that has food and eat there.” Price really didn`t matter. When we found a place to eat (and it was hard), the people eating said it was horrible food and to go elsewhere. We were so hungry…we actually wondered if we should take the advice of the patrons or give it a try. We all decided we could make it a little longer, but when we did find a place, we all inhaled our food so fast and it was really good. The rest of the day was us trying to find a rental car and an ATM. We went to 3 ATM`s that didn`t work or accept any of our cards (how can we spend money if we can`t get any)? You would think they would have more ATM`s in a tourist area. Then we also got shut out of 6 different rental cars places as they were all booked. Guess everyone else has the same idea with Shabbat and reserves them more in advance. We finally found a place and had a car for the next two days. Yea!
Friday, August 15th – Road Trip part 1: Early this morning Andy, Rory, Tara, Sandra and I set out for our day trip north. After an hour and a half, we stopped for a “quick break”, which turned into snacks, which turned into lunch. I don`t normally make gas stations as my lunch stops, but everyone else got food, so hummus it was. Andy surprised us by buying a CD as there was no music in the car. What he got was non-stop 80`s, which normally I would have liked. But this had a special twist to it as all 20 songs ran together, were by local singers (that were really bad) and all the pitches were off which made it hard for Tara and me to sing along (but we did our best). I will say song #19, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, was my favorite! Finally after a couple hours in the car, we arrived at Nazareth. We wanted to go here as it was the childhood of Jesus and where he preached, taught and worked in his father`s carpentry shop. We saw a couple carpentry shops and wondered…. Nazareth was also the town where the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to announce the birth of Jesus. We spent some time wandering around town, seeing the Basilica of the Annunciation and drove to the highest point for a lookout.
Next stop was the Sea of Galilee as we wanted to swim. Only difficult part was all the beaches were private with huge entry fees, and all along the sea, there were signs that prohibited swimming and no one was in the water. So we wondered…is the water not safe? Will be get arrested and thrown in jail if we swim against the prohibitory signs? We decided it wasn`t worth chancing as we don`t know the rules for breaking a posted sign. We finally found a water park to enter through to get to the sea. They tried to charge us 150 NIS each to go in ($43), and we said no as we didn`t want the water park and the park closed in 30 minutes, but the sea was open later (logical…no). After much discussion, we got the price to 50 NIS each, then 30, then finally 10 NIS each ($3). How`s that for bargaining skills??? So off to the Sea of Galilee we went and it was a nice treat to have fresh water and we swam and swam. There were huge waves (not sure why in a lake with no boats) and the water was so hot and shallow, but still a nice treat.
After our swim, we drove north to the Golan Heights, and took a back road right along a double barbed wire fence that borders Jordan. It was kinda scary to see what they did to keep people in/out of each country. At that point, we thought to turn around and in the turnout we hit a couple rocks and got stuck and thought we had a flat tire as Andy pulled something out of the tire that he thought punctured it. Andy and Rory checked it all out, removed the rocks and we decided to continue on and monitor the car (knowing we had a spare tire if we needed to change it). In the end, the car was fine, and we drove to the top of the mountain to watch a glorious sunset (as you can see me in the photo sitting in the chair). We found this spot after walking by many signs warning us of “mines”, so we thought we were safe if we stayed on the path and not going off-road. Afterwards, we had a couple hours drive back to Jerusalem along the west bank, but we really couldn`t stop anywhere and again…no food. I think this is a trend with this group. This time no food due to Shabbat and everything being closed and then not being allowed to stop in the west bank. We finally got back to Jerusalem and stopped at a grocery store, and I found some white meat (deli turkey or chicken…I didn`t care nor the price as there were no prices marked). I later found out I paid $10 for the turkey, but it was really good and healthy! All in all, a long, long day driving (thanks Andy) and able to see a lot more of Israel not accessible easily by buses.
Saturday, August 16th – Bethlehem and the Dead Sea: We braved the narrow city streets and walked across the old city to find a service taxi to take us to Bethlehem (as we weren`t allowed to take our rental car ) . We also had to bring our passport as it would be checked to pass the Palestinian borders. On the bus, they stopped us for 30 minutes to check everyone (meaning the locals had their passports taken off the bus and checked in an office, our foreign passports were laughed at and we put them away. Locals without proper ID were kicked off the bus – no refund! But we were on our way and made it to Bethlehem. Once we got to Bethlehem, all the local taxi`s were trying to rip us off and over charge for a short trip into town, but we walked up the steep hill and past all the local stores which was fun to sample local treats (or Rory did as I wasn`t brave to eat street food), but he said it was all good. We finally came to the Church of the Nativity, which is one of the world`s oldest functioning churches and is built like a citadel over the cave cited as Jesus` birthplace. As we were exploring, came across the Grotto of the Nativity, which is the birthplace of Jesus and pretty cool to see. As we finished looking around, we were asked to leave as noon mass was about to start.
Afterwards, we hired a private taxi to take us to see the Palestine/Israel wall, known as a “Security Fence” by the Israelis and the Palestinians call it the “Apartheid Wall”. This has been compared to the Berlin Wall and the Great Wall in China. It`s so high and used to keep people out. All the locals have left graffiti showing displeasure and hatred on it. Next we were off to see Shepherd`s Fields which has some biblical importance (but I hate to say I don`t remember why).
Now lunch was another adventure. Found a great place for a chicken kebab, and as I was eating, I watched the owner drop and make fresh falafel`s. I was memorized watching them drop the mixture into the oil and watching them cook. I think the cook saw this and asked if I wanted to have a fresh, hot falafel. I did, but was so full, and said no. But he still brought us each one on the house, which was great, and I will say, a fresh falafel was amazing…like nothing I have ever had.
Road Trip Part 2 – Dead Sea We were finally back from Bethlehem and in Jerusalem. In the afternoon, we were off in our rental car for the Dead Sea to swim. Funny part is driving in Jerusalem is quite and challenge, and I have to give credit to Andy for keeping his cool. Andy was driving on the crazy roads, Rory was trying to navigate, and the rest of us were in the back playing with music. We were so lost, going up and down all sorts of streets and we later found out the maps we had were all wrong. Plus the streets were packed with cars that it took us a good hour or more to get out of town (and it should have taken 10 minutes), but we were finally off for an hour drive to the sea and found a great place that was free to enter (very rare as most places charge a lot!). Along the way there, we finally had some good music as Andy bought an AV cord so we could plug in an Ipod. Each person got to choose one song, so it was quite the mixture with Tara and me choosing popular songs to sing to, and the boys kept choosing other music that we haven`t heard of. So it was a little bit the battle of the sexes for music, but we made it work and had a fun time.
So the Dead Sea is is 400 meters below sea level and is the lowest point on earth. It has such high salinity (due to evaporation), that you just bob about in the surface like a cork. What was surprising with the Dead Sea is the water was super clear, yet it`s filled with so much salt and an oily broth so people can float. All the ingredients in the sea are like a science experiment as compared to ocean water. The Dead Sea has 20 times more bromine, 15 times more magnesium and 10 times more iodine, yet the water has a lot of health benefits and people come here to get better from different illnesses.
Now the only problem with this water is you can`t get the water in your eyes or it burns as Andy, Tara and Keelen all learned the hard way and “the bottled water team” had to come in to rescue and flush out the eyes. I was very careful as I didn`t want to feel that. The other thing is if you lick your licks, not good. Now I love salt water, but if you lick your lips, it burns and tastes horrible. So we just floated around, later found a mud hole and all started to rub mud all over ourselves. Then we decided to add little rocks to our wet mud and it made me think of a Nestle Crunch Bar. So fun as you can tell from the photos! I think my swimsuit is ruined as the mud really hasn`t come out and the oils in the mud and dead sea ate away at the material. Good think I left a new bikini with Debbie and will get it in September in India. Anyways, we stayed to watch the sun set and the moon rise over the water and it was really a great evening. I even was able to drink a beer at 400 meters below sea level…so that was fun.
When I got back to Jerusalem that night – I was hoping to have my new credit card as I had my second replacement card sent to a hostel in Jerusalem (and gave them 6 working days to get it there and it should take 2). Sadly, Chase screwed up again and didn`t get the complete address on the UPS slip and the card was rejected for delivery and there was no way to get it redelivered until Monday (and I was leaving on Sunday). I was so frustrated and had to deal with it now and was finally able to have a new card sent to Amanda in New York as she will be meeting me in Kenya on the 29th. I figured at least I know I will have it. So after 3 replacement cards, sent to three different countries, I should get my new card in the Kenya a month after it was canceled.
So that`s it for Israel. I was off to Jordan at the crack of dawn on Sunday as I had a 6 hour bus to Eilat, then had to get a taxi in 120 degree heat, deal with crossing the Israel border (was easy and really strange to walk across a border to another country with departure procedures then entry procedures to Jordan). But I met two nice people in line from Italy and ended up sharing a cab with them to Petra since there were no buses at 4pm. All in all, I woke up at 7am and got to my hotel in Petra at 7:00pm. So a wonderful…12 hour journey.