Final Days

Ok, now I'm back in the States, and no longer jet lagged. I can write about the last few days of the trip. When I last wrote, we were in Jerusalem, preparing for our final dinner. This was at "Olives & Fish", around the corner from our hotel. We were all very nostalgic about the trip, and marveled at how much we had seen and done (and hardly had any arguments!). A representative of Mabat Tours was there to thank us for our visit and gave us a souvenir Jerusalem plate with some marzipan. More later about the gifts that kept on giving. Danny gave some concluding remarks, but his remarks at Rabin's grave had been so much more poignant. He discussed the ancient history, the modern history, and the social-political climate of modern-day Israel. Near the conclusion of his remarks, my friend, Joe Lowe, arrived, and we had coffee and desert next door at another restaurant, Cup of Joe. He was accompanied by his wife, Anat, and we had a chance to catch up.

The next morning, we all piled into the bus again for the trip to Ben Gurion airport. It had to be an early departure(7:30), since one is never sure of traffic conditions. As it turned out, traffic wasn't too bad, and we got to the airport early. We bade good-bye to the half of the trip who were going home, and had to quickly collect Mimi who was busy off the bus taking pictures. We then went to the other terminal for the domestic flight to Eilat. Noam, our guide, was joined by his wife, Yael, who had never been to Petra.

A puddle jumper to Eilat (so to speak, as there aren't really any puddles), and we arrived at a little airport. The bus ride to the hotel, the Rimonim (formerly the Neptune) took all of 3 minutes, and I protested that we could have walked. The rooms weren't ready since it was only 11:30, so we piled the luggage into a storage room and went out to the Aquarium, a short car ride down the old Egyptian coast. This was actually quite cool, as there was an underwater viewing station. The exhibits were fascinating and we got some great pictures. There was a Disney-style movie and ride which was a little cheesy, but cute.

Once we did get into our rooms later, I went out to walk by myself, and easily walked to the airport. Nearby was the Eilat History Museum and the Art Museum, with fish statues all around, a la the pandas in Washington, the lions in Jerusalem, and, I suppose the apples in New York. Eilat has the quality of Coney Island or Ocean City: lots of "honky-tonk".

The next morning, we again piled into the bus for the trip to the border. We had to exit Israel, and walk about 100 yards across "no man's land" to the Jordanian side. I thought I'd get a picture of the guard at the gate, but he saw me take the picture and motioned me to come over to him and watched as he made me delete the picture. Oh, well, taking orders from a 21 year old... Once we were on the Jordanian side, it was like we had gone back into the early 1900's. While we waited for our passports to be returned, some braved the toilets. None worked or flushed, and some were "squatty-potties". I was reminded of the time in 1969 when I crossed Check Point Charlie into East Berlin and had left modern civilization and gone into another era.

We found our Jordanian guide (Noam was not allowed to guide here), and took the 1 1/2 hour ride to Petra. We were supposed to ride down the canyon on some type of horse-drawn buggies, but there weren't enough for the whole group, and only the least capable rode down to wait for us. We walkers were satisfied to be able to get a little exercise, and there were some discussions from the guide of the Nabateans who build the complex.

Once we got to the bottom of the canyon, we were amazed to see the carvings that were the actual sites here. The "Treasury" was 50 feet high and carved into the rock 2000 years ago. Actually, it had deteriorated some since it was rediscovered in the 1830's by people trying to find riches (which weren't there). The evidence of the "original" condition was in hand drawn pictures by an Englishman, David Roberts. We learned of the burial caves and other things to be found at the site. We didn't climb the 900 steps necessary to get to the upper Temple. After a couple of hours, we climbed out and got back on the bus for the ride home. There was a stop at the Petra Marriott for lunch, where the food was part of the trip, but the beverages were not. Of course, the beverages were waaaay overpriced ($2.50 for a small water, $10 for a beer). Despite that, the trip had been well worth it to see these ancient carvings. And, at least, the modern facilities at the Marriott.

A return trip to the border and again a walk back to "our home". Since it was almost dark when we got back, there was a very noticeable visual difference between the lights of Eilat and the lack of lights in Aqaba.

Sleeping late on Wednesday, and even missed breakfast. We had a group lunch at an Italian restaurant around the corner from our hotel, and then piled back on the bus to go to the airport. This flight took us back to Tel Aviv, but to the little Dov Hoz Airport, on the beach. There was one woman on the flight with bizarre frizzy two-tone hair and fingernails 2 1/2 inches long. She disappeared in the front of the airplane, and we all joked that she was the pilot (or maybe a "service lady"). As Bill Cosby said, "There's one in every car". Our previous bus driver, Moti, picked us up and took us to Ben Gurion in evening rush hour traffic (it rivals Washington!). The Mabat representative worked some magic to get us into a shorter security line for our luggage. When asked "Did anyone give you anything?", we told about the Mabat plates and the marzipan. That's when the discussions among the security agents stepped up 3 notches. They furiously talked to one another, frowned, looked at us, talked more to each other, disappeared for a while, came back, and looked more at us. When our luggage was xrayed, every one of us had to open our bags and produce those plates. The agent noted that we had eaten our marzipan, as he didn't see it on the xray. Ann allowed that she had taken one bite and threw out the rest! As I said, the gift that kept on giving. Luckily, we all passed security and we were allowed to get on the plane with our "dangerous" plates. 12 hours later, we were in Newark at 4:30 am. The sleepy customs agents didn't notice or care about the curry, zatar, or figs we were carrying. Another wait and a 1 hour flight to National. We hugged our good-byes and went home to sleep the day off and try to get acclimated to this new time zone.