Finishing up in Israel

When we arrived in Aqaba, my enthusiasm for bargaining was at an all-time low. We found ourselves at the bus station in the downtown area, and a few guys came up to us to ask where we wanted to go. After minimal haggling, we got a ride to the hotel and Hussein, the gentleman who took us there gave us his card so that if we wanted a ride to the border the next day, we could call him, since he claimed the hotel charged an outrageous amount for that ride, and he was correct. Upon arrival at the hotel, I inquired and did in fact learn that the rates Hussein requested were reasonable, so the next morning, after one more dip in the pool, we called him up and he came to pick us up with his brother in their tricked out taxi with the Hello Kitty seat belts.

Passing through the land border between Aqaba and Eilat involves a lot of showing your passport and a lot of going where they tell you to go. You answer questions about why the hell you were in Jordan, and in my case, they dump your bag out on a table. They are very courteous throughout. Interestingly, they flip through any thick book you have with you, in my case, a Hebrew-English dictionary. I saw this at multiple security checks and had never really seen it before. Apparently people are smuggling weapons in dictionaries.

On the other side we cabbed it to Eldan, the Israeli car rental company, who utterly failed to have some record of my reservation, but had cars anyway so while children ran amok in the office and I prayed for death, she found us another car and we were on our way. Incidentally, all cars it would seem in Israel have a small keypad near the emergency brake where you enter a security code before starting the car. The car will not start without the correct security code. I have never seen this before, and yet in Israel, every car seems to have one.

We passed through Eilat swiftly, or as swiftly as the insane traffic would allow. What little I saw of it looked like Orlando. Overfed tourists ran wild in impossibly dorky looking clothes, large fanny packs hanging in every direction, criss-crossed by violent sunburns. The 20 minutes we spent getting to the highway were more than enough. Quickly thereafter, the desert highway 90 opened up and we spent something like two hours driving straight through desert scenery that looked more or less like the American Southwest, though smaller scale. That day, after a falafel stop at Ein Bokek, we visited Masada, the mountaintop fortress where a bunch of Jewish Zealots holed up against a Roman siege, ultimately killing themselves to avoid capture. Since killing oneself is bad in the eyes of Judaism, they came up with a brilliant idea. They drew lots, and then one guy killed everyone and then himself, so only one person would have to commit the mortal sin of killing himself, which is apparently worse than killing others. I had thought this story was a bit mythologized, but as it turns out, they actually found the lots that they used to draw names, so I guess the story is true after all. The ruins of Masada (which was at one time a summer home for Herod) were kind of underwhelming after seeing the Roman ruins at Jerash or wandering around an ancient city as well-preserved and grandiose as Petra, but the setting on top of a mountain and the views in every direction are pretty impressive.

We slept in a nearby guest house filled with vacationing Israeli tourists where once again children ran amok. There seems to be a correlation between religiousness and inability or lack of desire to teach one's children manners. Throughout my time in Israel, and in fact on many other occasions in my life interacting with religious Jewish families, it seems the children are free to make as much noise and disturb as many people around them as they like. The adults don't seem particularly cognizant of this themselves, and in fact they often share (unsurprisingly) the same lack of consideration for those around them that they are passing on to their children. This is hardly exclusively a religious issue or an Israeli issue, but I saw it so often that I had to mention it.

We woke up at the crack of dawn and drove to Ein Gedi, the second of two public beaches from which the Dead Sea is accessible. Floating in the Dead Sea is one of those things you "have to" do when visiting Israel, or so I am told. I wasn't sure quite what to expect, despite the numerous descriptions and images I'd seen of people floating in the super-salty water. The water is greasy as is often reported, and sure enough, no effort is required to keep your body afloat. As has also been reported, even a little water in one's mouth does not taste good. Aimee got more of a mouthful than I did, and for that I am very grateful cause I got the tiniest drop in my mouth by accident and my entire face got sucked into itself like a black hole.

We continued our drive north on the same road, arriving at Beit She'an an hour or so later, passing en route the border crossing and desert bus stop where I'd waited two blog posts previously after failing to cross the border into Jordan at Allenby. As we rolled into what I hoped was the Beit She'an park where we were told we'd find Roman ruins that make one gasp aloud, Aimee realized she had probably left her phone at the guest house near Masada, or possibly just lost it outright. Panic ensued, and the women at the ticket booth was nice enough to allow us to use her laptop so that Aimee could notify a friend to shut off her phone until we attempted to resolve the issue, which we never did. In the meantime, I walked towards a cafe 20 feet from where we sat, and as I neared a short wall of the outdoor cafe where we sat, I realized that just beyond the wall lay the city we had come to see, and although I did not gasp, I did say "Holy shit." Upon walking around, it was enjoyable, though unlike ruins in Jordan, in Israel they put ramps and banisters and lighting rigs and other structures to prevent you from walking all over the ruins and to light them up at night so they can charge you for another ticket, which I understand, but it really disrupts the ambience in my opinion and makes it impossible to forget for a moment that you are at a tourist site. At Jerash for instance, it was pretty easy to look around and think for a moment what this place must've been like 2000 years ago when it was an actual functioning Roman city. At Beit She'an, you'd be more likely to think, I wonder what time the the "Sound & Light" show starts and what band they got to play here tonight.


The next stop may as well have been the Twilight Zone. We drove first past Lake Tiberius, an enormous lake in Northern Israel. At the southern end, we encountered several campsites packed with tents, barbecues, and people I wouldn't want to spend ten minutes around let alone a weekend. Why come to an incredibly beautiful lake like that, and then sandwich yourself into a tiny area with 100 other drunk assholes? I can't imagine there would be a moment of silence at that campsite the entire time, and yet countless people flock there on their long weekends and holidays. Apparently there are numerous other choices of location, but the few campsites we passed on our way were all packed and littered with garbage and empty drink containers. As we turned West, things became increasingly hilly and green and we angled our way up and up to Amirim, a vegetarian community that interested me greatly and that's where things got weird.

We pulled into Amirim and spotted a sign that said "the restaurant." Not knowing much about how the place worked or how many restaurants there were, we went into the restaurant and after encountering a reasonably friendly woman who spoke English very well, we sat down, flipped through a menu which I was happy to see had many vegan options, and had what was ultimately a very enjoyable meal in a really pretty and welcoming old house. The woman as it turns out runs the only Kosher restaurant in Amirim, since as in much of Israel outside of Jerusalem, people are largely secular. This woman was not so much. She asked if I was of the Jewish faith. Those were her words. Without going into too many specifics, we spent a few hours in Amirim. It was quiet, the roads were small, and the setting was beautiful. That being said, each person we encountered was weirder than the next. We met people who'd been living there their whole lives and never left. We found maybe a half-dozen restaurants, though often they were in peoples' homes and although there were signs, places were closed, or people inside ignored us. A few times, people were outwardly friendly or welcoming, but mostly people seemed surprised to see us. We talked to one woman who ran a bakery who was friendly who told us that it's a requirement of living in Amirim to be vegetarian, though owners do rent out to people who are not. In the late afternoon a strong wind began to blow through and we took our leaves gratefully. Although it was a beautiful place, I was demoralized to find so many strange and unfriendly people there. One of the weirdest made a remark about how weird vegans are, since most of the places there are vegetarian. So much for it being a place where people can come and see that vegetarians and vegans are normal people.

A few hours here, a few hours there, and before you know it we're back in Jerusalem spending one last day in the old city, which was Aimee's first and only day there. I finally made it to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where I watched swarms of Christians take turns kissing and touching various things that supposedly came into contact with Jesus in some capacity. Sometimes they touch artifacts and close their eyes while the Jesus juice flows through them. Other times, they rub the artifact, then rub their hands on their face which is the scientifically proven way to transfer Jesus's ectoplasmic residue into your own body. The mob quickly overwhelmed me plus something I ate, and I spent the end of my trip largely in the bathroom. Three weeks of Egyptian food including falafel on the street and yet it's in Israel I finally get struck down.