Our Middle Eastern whirlwind: Jordan, Egypt, Israel

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In the end of November 2009 Tanya and I dusted off our backpacks and flew from US to Jordan, where we hooked up with our friends Tolya and James, who traveled from Dubai.  During the following two and a half weeks we traveled around Jordan, visited Egypt (Sinai only) and made a couple of brief but memorable stops in Israel.  Although we had only tentative initial plans about where to go beyond Amman, our trip turned out to have a monstrous range of experiences including snorkeling coral reefs in the Red Sea, night ascends in Sinai, walking the walls, roofs, streets and tunnels of the old city in Jerusalem, camping with the Bedouins of Wadi Rum desert, Petra, a weightless float in the Dead Sea and a couple of slight adrenalin provoking dips into the nuances of the Middle Eastern politics.  Full as it may seem, this list, however, cannot convey the peculiar mix of smells, tastes, sights and sounds that can be only sensed by being there in person, nor a bitter sweet cocktail of emotions, thoughts, and feelings that it provokes and that keeps reverberating through your mind long after coming home. 

Day 1  Chicago - Amman

We flew Turkish Airlines Chicago – Istanbul- Amman.  Even without delays it took us a full day, taking off at 9 PM in Chicago and lending around 9 PM in Amman (local times).  On the way, from the airport to Palace Hotel in downtown, our driver, who, unlike most Jordanians did not speak any English, tried hard to take us to a hotel of his own choosing.  But we insisted and with some help from passersby we found our place.  After settling into the last available room (26 JD for a double, here’s the view of the street from our window), we went for a little stroll around the downtown, drank freshly squeezed juice at the corner joint (Palestinian Juices, on the right) and went back to the hotel. 

Day 2   Amman – Wadi Rum

After breakfast in the hotel, we walked to the Roman Theater, Forum and Odeon (about 15 – 20 min), through the hassle and bustle of downtown streets.  Then climbed Jabel Al-Qal’ through the steep and narrow staircases that start across the street from the Roman Theater, passing by people’s houses and backyards, and walked around the Citadel Hill (Temple of Hercules and Umayyad Place ruins, views of the city).  Came down back to the hotel, had a quick falafel, observed that all fire extinguishers in Amman’s restaurants and hotels were tightly wrapped in several layers of transparent plastic, also covering the nozzle, so that it would probably take about 10 – 15 minutes to get it out (“but it doesn’t get dusty this way” was one explanation we heard).  Then we went to the airport to meet Tolya and James.  From the airport a prearranged taxi took us to Wadi Rum (about 3 hours, 75 JD), mostly through the desert, stopping on the way at a local joint for some delicious falafel, humus, tahini.  When we got to Wadi Rum it was already around 7 PM and dark.  We switched cars at the visitor’s center and went another 20 – 30 min. to Mehedi’s camp in the desert (mehedi.wadirum@yahoo.com).  Then went for a walk – bright moonlit mountains, ringing silence in our ears after a noisy drive.  After dinner around the fire we went to sleep in our tent. 

(More Amman photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/AmmanJordan?feat=directlink)

Day 3    Wadi Rum

In the morning we could take a good look at our camp.  After breakfast, around 8:30, we climbed into the back of a Jeep that looked like it rolled out of the first Indiana Jones movie set  and drove to see 6 or 7 major attractions in Wadi Rum.  Some places like Hazali Canyon were quite crowded with large tourist groups, and in some we were the only people.  From a distance, the mountains looked like giant rock monsters coming out and disappearing into the sea of sand.  At closer range, the mountains looked a bit like giant chunks of brownish chocolate ice-cream that started to melt from the top.  After about 7 – 8 hours of driving around, a desert sunset, we came to our new camp for the night.  Everything was already setup.  After dinner with Mehedi, his assistant Emily, cousins and friends, we had a little party for Tolya’s birthday with cake, music, dancing and poi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjeIYWSuNAo)spinning.  Another long walk in the moon lit desert before getting into our sleeping bags.

(More Wadi Rum photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/WadiRum?feat=directlink)

Day 4 Wadi Rum – Aqaba - Eilat   

We rode the jeep back to the visitors center and around 11, met our driver Ahmad (ahmad_wadirum@hotmail.com) who took us to the Israeli border near Aqaba (20 JD).  This border was open even though this was the day of Eid (Muslim holiday when everyone eats lamb to celebrate the sparing of Abraham’s son).  We quickly moved through a couple of windows to get our passports stamped by sleepy Jordanian border guards (5 JD per person exist fee) and walked alone for about 200 meters to the Israeli side.  A young Russian speaking guy with an assault rifle in his hands, in jeans, sneakers and a summer t-short walked back and forth around the caged entrance.  We waited in a little buffer area outside, after some questions and a passport check.  James, who has an Arabic middle name, was taken aside for about 20 min. of more extensive questioning.  After a couple more quick security checks we were in Israel.  A taxi ($30 US) took us through downtown Eilat to the Egyptian border, which turned out to be closed until 9 PM.   Spending a night in Eilat was not our original plan, but after snorkeling in the coral reef on the beach by a bar within a walking distance of the border, having a few drinks and a delicious shakshuka, we did not feel like getting busy with another border crossing that night.  We settled in a large camp/hostel (SPNI field school) near the bar in a large separate room with bank beds, and then went to downtown Eilat to get a feel of the city.  After two nights in the desert, this western looking resort town waterfront felt strangely unexpected, especially with every other person speaking our native Russian.  Before turning in for the night, we had a shisha at a small Arabic place by our camp.

(More Eilat photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/Eilat?feat=directlink)

Day 5  Eilat – Taba - Tarabin (Nuweiba)   

We ate breakfast at the camp’s cafeteria and walked to the Egyptian border for about 30 min (this time it was open).  Tanya and James did some more snorkeling on the way, while Tolya and I talked some cognitive science, lying on the warm pebbles.  Exiting Israel was much quicker than entering, although on the Egyptian side, there was a 30 - 40 min wait as there were quite a few people crossing after the holiday.  After we learned that we could not rent a car (which turned out just as well), we walked through hordes of overzealous taxi drivers towards Taba’s bus station (the prices kept dropping as we moved further from the border).  We finally got set up with a ride to Dahab (our original destination) for 140 LP for all of us (mostly through Tolya’s well honed and nearly lethal bargaining skills).  A few minutes after we drove off, we picked up some more passengers from the border.  After talking with them and hooking up with our new friend Maggie who also had no specific plans, looking out the window at a mostly treeless shore line on the left and barren rocky mountains on the right, we decided to stay at a place along the way, rather than going all the way to Dahab. We arrived to the “Soft Beach” camp in Tarabin, on our driver’s insistent recommendations, and got set up with little huts (20 LP per person) by the sea and spent 3-4 hours lying down, drinking teas, juices, and eating in the restaurant area.  A constant steady breeze blew from the Red sea as we talked the afternoon away.  In the evening, we went into the village, stopped briefly at a local dance party with horrible loudspeakers blasting traditional Arabic music, but a very hospitable and enthusiastic local crowd – one circle for men, and one for women dancers with everyone else sitting around in a larger circle.  We span poi, drank tea and smoked shisha further along the beach while watching Cirque du Soleil video on a white sheet that was getting stretched by the breeze and then listened to Maggie’s story.   

(More SoftBeach/Tarabin/Nuweiba photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/EgyptSoftBeach?feat=directlink)

Day 6    Tarabin – Rock Sea – Nuweiba – Tarabin

A pretty lazy day before a night track.  Most of it we spent on the beach at Soft Camp, except for a long excursion to Rock Sea in the afternoon, for superb snorkeling.  As it was getting dark we walked on the beach to Nuweiba to exchange money and to eat.  We walked through the dirty main street with all the shops with shopkeepers that can bargain with you in about 10 different languages.  Man watching TV in a street cafe as it was being projected on the building wall, cheered along a sudden loud and long wedding motorcade.  Ate at a restaurant where we were asked to pick our own fish that was then grilled to order.  A seafood soup was delicious too.  Failing to find an ATM or an open bank, we exchanged some money with local shop keepers and went back to the camp around 9 PM to get a couple of hours of sleep.

Day 7    Tarabin – Mt. Katarina, Mt. Sinai - Tarabin

At 12 midnight we filed into a minivan and drove off to Mt. Sinai.  We got there around 2 AM, and after some quick tea with the guides, packed our staff on the camel and went up to the local village (just a few houses)  about 40 min away.  From there on it was about 3-4 hours to the top of Mt. Katarina (the highest mountain in Egypt), walking first in moonlight until the sky started to get brighter and brighter.  We did not make it to the summit in time to view the sunrise but could the first sun rays lighting up Mt. Sinai and the whole mountain range in the East.  We did have a burning bush though, thoughtfully lit up by our guide, and it warmed us up a little bit.  But no additional new commandments were dispensed at this time, perhaps because we still haven quite mastered the first ten.  Then in another hour we got to the top of the mountain and had some breakfast, before heading down.  Back at the camp where the camel waited for us, we had some tea and snacks and went up to Mt. Sinai, managing to avoid hundreds of tourists who typically visit in the morning.  In fact, on top of Mt. Sinai we found only a couple of tired shop keepers and piles of garbage.  But the views in the late afternoon sun were still amazing.  After retuning and getting some quick snack by the camel, we walked back to our starting point again in the moonlight, listening to the evening Muslim prayers echoing across the mountains.  Another quick tea with the guides and a ride back to Soft Beach.  After getting there around 9-10 PM we wasted no time (except a quick Skype call home) and headed straight for our huts.

(More Sinai photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/Sinai?feat=directlink)

Day 8    Tarabin – Taba – Eilat - Aqaba

We got on the morning bus from Nuweiba to Taba and arrived to the Israeli border around 10:30 AM.  Crossing the border took a bit longer this time, after about 20 – 30 min of initial questioning, James had to wait about 30 min more, before being cleared and catching up with us on the way to the same bar on the beach we visited few days ago.  After some shakshuka and mojitos, we did some more snorkeling, before catching a taxi to the Jordanian border.  The border crossing was generally uneventful except for a couple of tense moments when Tanya and Tolya tried to take pictures of the full moon that happened to be in the same frame as the Jordanian border post.  The border guard mentioned though that we were welcome to take pictures of the Israeli side.  We hooked up with Ahmad in downtown Aqaba and drove to a hotel in the South Beach (Bedouin Village, 25 JD double room, nice and clean) a few kilometers north of the Saudi border.  We called it a day after a nice meal at the hotel, some tea and shisha.

Day 9    Aqaba

In the morning, we went along the beach to snorkel at the local reefs known as Japanese Gardens.  Nice small corals very close to shore and lots of fish of all colors and shapes.  There was a sunken boat nearby – it looked somber and creepy, even though we new this was all a very harmless affair.  After a few hours on the beach, we went back to the hotel and headed to Aqaba for the evening, after enjoying the sunset from the hotel roof.  A stroll around the downtown streets and the market, buying some booze as our supplies ran out (despite the Muslim majority, alcohol stores open until midnight in Aqaba), some souvenir shopping (one of the shop keepers, posing with Tanya, was a former actor from “Lawrence of Arabia”), a nice dinner in a local market eatery and back to the Bedouin Village with our trusted Ahmad to a late night tea and shisha.

(More Aqaba photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/Aqaba?feat=directlink)

Day 10 Aqaba – Wadi Musa/Petra   

After a 2 hour drive with Ahmad, we got to hour hotel in Wadi Musa (Sunset 25 JD double, close to the Petra gates) around 11:30 and went into Petra shortly afterwards.  We watched a long motorcade with the Turkish president (or as one of the Petra police put it “The Turkish King”) enter the Petra gates right before we walked in, with heavily armed solders spread around on all hillsides around the main road.  To avoid the congestions, instead of going through the main souk, we entered Petra via a less trodden path through the Tunnel leading to Wadi Muthlim which then connects to the Petra center via Wadi Mataha.  We did not meet a single person until 2 hours later, when we got close to the carved out facades of the East cliff, and explored some of the more desolate caves on the way there.  After spending some time in the center, with Tolya almost getting into a fist fight with the local shop keepers over the price and origin of their goods, we went up the steps of the Great Temple and went back via Wadi Farasa and High Place of Sacrifice, before descending down near the theater to the souk and walking back to the gates in complete darkness around 7 PM.  In the evening, we walked up to Wadi Musa restaurants and shops and ate in a small place called Bukhara before tea and shisha in a local joint a few meters up the road (in both places our bills were clearly jacked up and miscalculated, but James managed to bring the prices down a bit). 

Day 11   Wadi Musa/Petra – Amman

In the morning, Tanya and I sneaked into Petra before the crowds around 6:30 and had a nice quiet walk to the Treasury through the souk.  Tolya and James came later after drinking coffee with the local tourist police officer who, after questioning James as a witness, apologized for yesterday’s incident.  After a visit to the Monastery and some spectacular views of the Negev desert from the End of the World lookout we got back to the souk and spend some more time exploring the sites in the center of Petra.  By 2 PM we were back in the hotel, and then caught the last JETT bus to Amman at 4 00.  A walk from the Jett office to Palace hotel turned out to take longer than expected ~40 min.  Although it was downhill, after all the walking we did in the previous two days, it felt too long, and we should have spent 1 JD for a taxi.  Some freshly squeezed juices picked up the spirits and we went to eat at a local 24 hour falafel place that was quite busy. After some more walking on the streets and window shopping we headed back to the hotel.

(More Petra photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/Petra?feat=directlink)

Day 12    Amman – Madaba – Mt. Nebo – Dead Sea - Amman

We left shortly after 8, with a driver arranged through the hotel.  Our first stop was the old St. George’s church in Madaba that contained a Byzantine mosaic map of the Holy Land/Middle East from the 6^th century.  Then we walked the narrow downtown streets of Madaba and did some souvenirs shopping.  A nice friendly town.  A visit to Mt. Nebo and some contemplation of the Promised Land, muggy as it was, which unlike Moses, who only got a sneak peek from this site, but never made it there, Tanya and I hoped to reach tomorrow.  The landscapes are so barren in these parts.  It is hard to imagine that this could have seemed very attractive, even 4000 years ago, although Sinai Mountains looked even less hospitable. We decided to skip the Baptism site (one of the two possible sites, the other contestant being on the Israeli side of the Jordan River) and went directly to the Dead Sea.  A resort type fenced beach with a pool, store, locker rooms and showers 12 JD per person.  Even though it was pretty cold in Amman, here at the Dead Sea several hundred meters below the sea level, it was nice and warm, with the water being more than 20 C.  After a couple of relaxing floats, swimming and running in the water and a detour to the sea a few kilometers south along the shore, we drove back to Amman.  We had some shawarma and sweets and said goodbyes to Tolya and James who headed to the airport.  James had a lecture to give the next day and he was already anxious to look at his notes.

Day 13    Amman – Jerusalem

We took a 7 AM bus from the JETT station office to the King Hussein bridge on the border with Israel (7 JD).  This is the most unpredictable of the three land border crossings between Israel and Jordan, since it connects Jordan with the West Bank Palestinian territories.  It is still not considered by the Jordanians to be an official border, although there is a Jordanian duty free shop and a typical exit fee of 5 JD.  About 40 min. later, we disembarked on the Jordanian side and waited along with other passengers for passport and luggage checks.  Then another bus took us across a little bridge over the Jordan River which for all its historical significance was just a trickle of water hidden behind the overgrown bushes.  We did not have to pay on this bus, since it’s the same company that sold us tickets to the border.  Then after waiting in several lines and going through about 5 security checks on the Israeli side of the border, we took a shared minibus/taxi across the West Bank territories (left photo) to East Jerusalem (another 40 min and two more checkpoints, everybody had to go out to get into a line and have your passport checked by young pretty and soft-spoken Israeli girls with serious looking assault rifles).  Around 12 (5 hours and only about 50 km later) we finally came to the Damascus Gate and met with my relatives (Fira, Alla, Iura) who I haven’t seen in well over 10 years.  We drove to the green hills of Ein Karem, and walked to the Visitation Church and St. John the Baptist Church.  Everything around us looked green for the first time in two weeks, and it felt like a pleasant and mild sunny day of early Fall in Chicago.  Later we went to the Mini Israel park in Latrun and walked around all major Israeli historical sites in miniature.  In the evening we drove to Jaffa (see right), and walked through the narrow empty labyrinth of the old city streets before getting down to the port for some local Mediterranean seafood and night views of Tel Aviv.

(More Jaffa photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/OldJaffa?feat=directlink)

Day 14    Jerusalem

In the morning with some light drizzle we started at the Jaffa Gate and got tickets to enter the walls.  We went clockwise on the walls first around the Christian and Muslim quarters all the way to the Lion Gate, taking in the sites and sounds on the inside and outside of the wall.  Even from above, the old city looked remarkably alive for its age, although things looked more rundown as we walked further along the wall and at a couple of places you could get on the wall through broken fences.  From the Lion’s Gate we semi - randomly walked through the streets, churches, got on the roofs, a shortcut frequented by the members of a local Yeshiva, stood by the Western Wall and took a tour of the old tunnels under it; then came to a mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian quarter, before going back to the Jaffa gate and heading home for dinner.  We spent all day in the old city and could have easily spent a whole month.  With its mix of smells, colors, religions and races, soldiers, merchants and school boys, Jerusalem’s old city makes a strange schizophrenic microcosm, a grotesque image of our world, alive, tragic and beautiful all at once.

(More Jerusalem photos http://picasaweb.google.com/firosha/Jerusalim?feat=directlink)

Day 15    Jerusalem – Amman

This morning we went counter clockwise on the old city walls (the Rampart walk) from the Jaffa gate (same tickets).  This route is much shorter, about 1 km, and goes along only the Armenian and Jewish quarters up to the Dung Gate.  From there, along with a steady stream of Orthodox Jews we came again to the Western Wall, passing through an even heavier guarded entrance (in addition to several solders with submachine guns, a young guy in civilian clothes, who for all his appearance could have easily blended in with a crowd of undergraduate students in any major Western university, except for a hand gun loosely held in his hand with a finger on the trigger at all times).  Then we slowly made our way to the Damascus Gate doing some last minute shopping on the way, and watching steet life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyYiNnnmnw).  After getting tickets for the same shared taxi-van, we waited in the depth of a courtyard overflowing with parked cars while about 20 Palestinian guys argued at the entrance whose car should come in and go out first.  The ride back to the border was quick and uneventful, a couple of gas stations, some Bedouin tents, like the ones we saw on the Jordanian side by the Dead sea, low barren hills.  Exiting the Israeli side went quickly, although the price to exit seemed double of what we paid in Eilat.  All seemed to go well, until we took a bus across the river to the Jordanian side and got pulled off the bus by a Jordanian border officer.  We waited for some time in the hallway of a one story building at the border, before being told that we did not have appropriate visas to enter Jordan again “on this private road for the locals…not an official border crossing”.  They did not explain very clearly what was wrong, but the sense I got was that we had gone back and forth between Israel and Jordan too many times and needed a new visa to Jordan to enter again.  It did not help when we mentioned that at the previous border crossing we specifically asked if our visa would be good here and were told that we wouldn’t have any trouble, or when I asked if we could just pay a fine or an extra fee.  A bus going the other way took us back to the Israeli border and 5 security checks later (since we already left the Israeli side before we had to formally enter it again) we were back where we started from 3 hours earlier.  As our flight from Amman was leaving at 6:30 the next morning, and borders were open only for a few hours longer, we ended up taking a taxi ride ($125 US after intense negotiating) to the Sheikh Hussein border crossing in the North and on the way there had about an hour and a half to contemplate the West Bank territories.  Contrary to what one would expect from the news accounts alone, along the highway things looked fairly quiet, subdued and agrarian except for occasional barbed wire around the farm fields and green houses and a couple of Israeli patrol cars that we saw going in the opposite direction.  We also passed some small shops, a couple of archeological sites, some marked and some not, and some caves by the side of the road.  Generally, not much was going on around, and the scenery got noticeably greener as we traveled north.  The border crossing at Sheikh Hussein was relatively quick (although crossing on foot was not an option), plus two seemingly bored Jordanian Tourist Police officers asked us to come and register before leaving the border.  We split a taxi back to Amman with a young English traveler (28 JD total per car).  After checking into the same hotel with a sigh of relief, we went for our last dinner (you pick a fish that you like, it’s weighed to get the price and then cooked for you) and shisha with tea before bed.

Day 16    Amman – Chicago

At 6:30 we were in the air heading toward Turkey.  A couple of hours in the truly Babylonian Istanbul airport (all people, all languages, all colors combined).  A suspicious Turkish security guard at the gate with lots of questions about where exactly we went and why.  Another 14 hours in a half empty plane and we are back in Chicago with -12 C temperature snow and cold wind.  But at least we new right away that we landed in the right place.