After the Indian visa fiasco I wrote about previously (read the Jerusalem post down below first!), Maren and I had to figure out where we would go next. Since it was Thursday evening and we had a flight from Cairo to Mumbai on Monday, we figured we would have to go straight to Cairo. There was one complication: in order to travel by land from Israel to Egypt, you must get your visa in advance. All other methods of crossing you get your visa on arrival. Both Egyptian visa offices in Israel are closed on Fridays and Saturdays. We had no intention of staying in Israel any longer, so we caught an overnight bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat, at the southernmost tip of Israel next to the border with Jordan. We met three Argentinean girls when we got off the bus heading for the same place as us. The five of us taxied the short distance to the Jordanian border where we had to sit around for a couple of hours until the border opened at 8 AM. We crossed, caught another taxi to the nearest town of Aqaba, and then found a mini-bus heading north. There are few busses running on Fridays, so we had to wait another hour or two for the bus to fill up before it left. There was one American guy on the bus named Drew who has spent the last year studying Arabic in Damascus. Our group (now 6) spent two hours on the bus, and arrived in the town of Wadi Mousa in the afternoon. Along the way, I could tell we were in a very different land. There was desert in every direction, though not the sand dune type. It was more of a barren, dirty, rocky wasteland. We passed small villages and even some Bedouin people, the nomads of Jordan’s deserts. Wadi Mousa is the tourist town that has been built around the entrance to Petra, the most famous sight in Jordan. We all walked to a hostel we had read about and settled in. The Argentinean girls went straight to sleep. Even though Maren and I were exhausted, and despite the temperature still in the high 30s, we decided to head to Petra for the rest of the afternoon.
Petra is the site of an ancient civilization of people called Naritians (sp?). These were Semitic people that built a town in and around a massive river gorge sometime around 100 or 200 BC. Various groups of other people came through, and the Romans eventually annexed the town a few hundred years later. But, mostly due to some devastating earthquakes, the town was abandoned around 600 AD. The main remnants of the town are the carvings and tombs in the sandstone walls of the gorge. Petra is a huge site which could take a week to fully explore. We met up with Drew at the ticket office, and he joined us for most of the afternoon. As we began to walk in, we saw some of the carvings and tombs along the main road and began to realize how incredible this place was. It was very expensive to enter, 33 Jordanian dinars (nearly 50 bucks!) which is insanely high by 3rd world country standards. We paid 38 JD to get a 2 day pass and after all that we saw, I can easily say it was worth every cent. We entered the very narrow canyon with enormous sandstone walls on both sides of us. There were various geometric carvings all along the ‘road’ into the center of Petra. After awhile, you turn a corner and see between the canyon walls in front of you the incredible picture-postcard view of The Treasury. The Treasury is the most famous and most photographed icon of Jordan. It is a gigantic wall carving that, through its protected location in the canyon, has remained nearly unchanged after two thousand years. You can go inside the huge door at the base to see the royal tombs, but it is not particularly interesting (neither are the insides of most of the thousands of tombs carved into the rock around Petra). The view from the outside, however, is absolutely stunning.
Past The Treasury, the canyon opens up a bit, and there are numerous tombs and smaller rock carvings, as well as quite a few Roman ruins, including a large theater. Drew continued on his own, while Maren and I decided to do a nearby hike. We started up the rock cut stairway, which led to switchbacks up the side of the canyon. Forty-five minutes (and a few liters of water) later, we arrived at the High Place of Sacrifice. From the top, we had a 360 degree view of the surrounding area, including much of Petra. We laid down on the smooth stones and enjoyed the cool breeze, only to find ourselves waking up a half hour later;) Afterwards, we trekked back into town, exhausted, and ate a big pizza for dinner.
The second day in Petra was even more incredible than the first. At the entrance, we took a seldom used and somewhat treacherous alternate path we had read about. We dropped into a dried riverbed and followed it around the main path through Petra. Along the way, we had to scramble up and down former waterfalls and squeeze through narrow sandstone walls. Fortunately it didn’t rain; we read that we would have to find a way out in a hurry if we felt even a few drops because flashfloods could be on the way. The path took a couple of hours, and we only passed one other person, a Bedouin-looking guy on a donkey. We finally exited near the back of Petra and walked through Roman ruins. We continued on until we reached the base of our hike. There is a popular route filled with tourists (and donkeys) leading up to the Monastery. The hike took a bit over an hour, until we turned a corner and were faced with the incredible stone carving. The Monastery is, in my opinion, even more impressive than the Treasury. It is larger, more intricate, and in perfect condition. We hiked still further up until the trail split. We took both paths and were rewarded with some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The view was of the incredible canyons, mountains, and gorges that stretch for a hundred kilometers in nearly all directions. And behind us down below was the beautiful Monastery. We rested for a long time and enjoyed the views from both peaks. Maren and I took over 500 pictures in our two days in Petra, and as incredible as they are, I am not sure they do it justice. The natural beauty of the surroundings, the amazing tombs and stone carvings, and our two days of trekking and climbing make Petra one of the most memorable experiences of my travels (so far;).
It took about three hours to get all the way back to our hostel. They were putting on a BBQ on the rooftop which we happily joined. We met a couple of English guys, a father and son, who were planning on going to Cairo the next day, so we joined forces. We took a shared taxi in the morning from Petra to the ferry terminal just outside of Aqaba. We chose to take a ferry to Egypt to avoid paying the expensive Israeli ‘departure tax’ again (we had just paid it two days earlier). Also because you have to get a visa ahead of time to cross the land border from Israel to Egypt, which could take some time. Instead, we could skip going back to Israel by taking the ferry from Aqaba to Nuwaiba on the east coast of Sinai Egypt. We arrived in plenty of time at the ferry terminal, but they didn’t take credit cards for the expensive ferry tickets. No one could tell us the exact price beforehand, so we had decided to wait to withdraw money, but there was not a single ATM at the terminal. I had to go back into town in Aqaba to get money. The taxis at the ferry terminal wanted 12 JD (13 euros!) for the return ride to the nearest ATM. I left the terminal, walked along the road, found my own taxi, and bargained the driver down to 1 JD to take me into town. He dropped me off at an ATM which didn’t take my card. I then proceeded to walk through the entire town of Aqaba, stopping at 5 different ATMs, none of which worked! I was sure Maren was getting very nervous back at the ferry terminal with our luggage. After over an hour of searching, the 6th ATM I found miraculously worked. I caught a mini-bus back to the ferry terminal for ½ JD. Maren was incredibly relieved to see me, nearly two hours from when I left, and less than half an hour before the ferry’s departure time. We ran to buy our tickets and made our way onto the ferry.
In spite of our rush to board the 1:00 ferry, the boat sat around until nearly 4:00 when we finally left! We couldn’t go outside, so the trip was pretty miserable. We arrived in Nuwaiba, along with the two English guys, in the evening and found there were no more busses going to Cairo. We talked to several people, walked to the empty bus station, tried to bargain with the taxi drivers, and finally decided to take a ‘mini-bus,’ just a van turned taxi-on-demand. This was the sketchiest looking ‘taxi’ I have ever taken in my life. It appeared to be already full, yet they said they would squeeze us in the back. The luggage rack on top was already filled, but they said they would put ours on top of the other luggage! We were incredibly skeptical of this whole situation, particularly when one guy said the trip would take 3 hours. But the price was so cheap (about 8 or 9 euros each) compared to a normal taxi (25-30 euros each) that we eventually decided to go for it. Once we got in, we drove around the town for another hour looking for even more passengers to completely fill the van! We crammed three more guys in (I think there were 13 people total now) and finally hit the road. I say ‘road,’ but the road across the Sinai Peninsula was the sorriest excuse for a paved road I have ever seen. There were huge portions of the road missing all over the place. There were sections we had to come to a complete stop to figure out a way around the massive potholes. We had to drive on the sand around the road more than a few times. Considering how terrible the quality of the van was and how much weight it was carrying, we probably averaged under 20 km/h! By the time the road began to improve, however, we began to fear for our lives as the driver had a lead foot. We arrived in Cairo 7 or 8 hours after we left, after 1 o’clock in the morning!
The van, predictably, did not even drop us off in Cairo proper. The driver dumped us out in a crowded, dirty market underneath an overpass on the outskirts of the city. It took a long time just to figure out where the hell we were. The taxis wanted huge sums of money to take us into the city (double or triple the price we just paid to get there!), but we got really lucky and found a nice Egyptian guy who was heading into the city himself. I thought he might be trying to scam us as we piled into another mini-bus. We got dropped off on the side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere, then waited for another mini-bus which took us, to my disbelief, to downtown Cairo! We left our English friends and, after even more confusion, found the hostel we had reserved. After much-needed showers from all the dirt and sweat of our journey, and a ‘welcome tea,’ we made it to sleep around 4:30 AM.
Also, for those that didn't see on Facebook, I found out while we were in Jerusalem that I have been accepted into the University of Hamburg! I will be starting a 2 year Master's program in Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics in the fall! Very exciting!!
We are currently in Veranasi, India and leave for Thailand at the end of the week. Will write about Cairo and India ASAP! And pictures are coming soon, I promise!
May 30, 2010
Jerusalem
Our first experience in Jerusalem was quite a shocking one. We got off the bus and decided to walk to the Old City where we were staying. We quickly discovered we were walking right through the center of the ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood of the city. Every person we saw, literally every single one, looked the same. The men and boys all dressed in black ‘suits’ with black, brimmed hats and two long curls of hair on either side of their face. The women and girls wore, without exception, dark colored long skirts and a long sleeve button up blouse. It seemed like a scene out of a movie. Fortunately, Maren and I had realized there was a chance we would be walking through this neighborhood, so we had both changed out of our flip flops on the bus. She had put on jeans and a sweater as well. This turned out to be a good idea, as we passed signs ‘instructing’ women how to dress so as not to ‘distress’ the residents. That concept seemed pretty sexist to both of us, but I suppose I should not question their traditions.
The first view of the walled Old City of Jerusalem was pretty amazing. Our hostel was just inside Jaffa Gate, the most used entrance through the wall. We climbed all the way to the roof where we would sleep, and we had a view of every major site in the Old City. The Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount were only a few hundred meters away. We spent our first evening just walking around a bit and getting something to eat in the New City. It got pretty cold at night on the roof, so we had to bundle up. In the morning, we took a free walking tour of the Old City. It definitely helped both of us orient ourselves better as the narrow winding streets can become confusing. We stopped by the Basilica of the Ascension, where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. The next stop was the Western (wailing) Wall. The Wall is open 24 hours a day and always seems to be packed with people. We picked a day where dozens of bar mitzvahs were taking place, which was pretty entertaining. There were big groups of guys everywhere singing and dancing. The men are separated from the women at the wall, so the women had to watch from afar. We walked onto a nearby rooftop to get some cool views. The next stop on our tour was the ancient Roman ruins where we learned some of the history of Jerusalem.
Later in the afternoon, we walked just outside the Old City to the City of David. This was the original Jerusalem and was discovered relatively recently. The ruins at ground level were fairly interesting, but the coolest part was underground. There used to be a spring which served as the city’s water source. The people carved a tunnel through the rock to bring the water to the town. Maren and I walked down several flights of stairs until we reached the tunnel. It is still filled with water! The water was over knee deep in some places, and the entire walk was through complete blackness. There were recommendations to bring a flashlight, but we only had the light of each of our cell phones to guide us. The tunnel is about a half kilometer long and very narrow. I had to duck my head through most of it. The walk took over half an hour, but it feels like hours and would be horrible if you were claustrophobic.
The next day we took a day trip to Bethlehem, which is not far from Jerusalem. We should have done a lot more research, however, because neither of us realized Bethlehem is in the West Bank! We opted out of an expensive tour, and took the bus there instead. The bus dropped us off at a military checkpoint and we were both confused. As we looked at the huge wall dividing Israel we figured out what was going on. We had to answer some questions to the security guys because we didn’t have our passports (they were still in Tel Aviv), but they let us through. We were still far from the main sights in Bethlehem so we negotiated a cheap taxi to take us. We got out at the Church of the Nativity, the traditional place where Jesus was born. It was crowded, and there was a long line to go down to the spot itself, so we first walked around the city a bit. There was definitely a different feeling of being in the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It is more run-down and impoverished, and I could feel the tension from the security guys. The city of Bethlehem is not at all beautiful, and I am sure there are better places to go in the West Bank. We returned to the church and saw the site of the birth. The other sights in Bethlehem didn’t sound that interesting, so we called it a day and headed back.
That evening was Friday, the start of the Sabbath. Maren was busy taking care of some things back at the hostel, so I decided to walk around the Old City to see what was going on. Everything is closed in Jerusalem from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Everywhere I walked there seemed to be Jews all hurriedly walking in the same direction. Many of them also had on funny fur hats that look Russian. I realized they were all walking to the Western Wall, so I did as well to check out the party. This was a totally different experience than seeing the wall the previous day. It was completely packed with Jews, and only a very small number of tourists. It really felt like a party, there were people singing and dancing everywhere. I was told that there were even more people than a usual Friday night, because the following week was the celebration of Israel’s independence.
On Saturday, we walked just outside the Old City to Mount Zion, which is not much of a mountain, just a hill really. The buildings and churches there have really interesting architecture. We first stopped at the sight of Mary’s ‘eternal sleep’, and then saw the site of the Last Supper. From the rooftop, we got a view of the Old City, New City, and East Jerusalem. We spent the afternoon walking through the New City. It was very quiet because it was Saturday. We walked through a couple of parks and some cute neighborhoods. We found an outdoor café that was surprisingly open (and crowded) on our way back.
We got a late start out to the Mount of Olives on Sunday. The Mount of Olives is in East Jerusalem, which is the Arab part of the divided city. We took a bus, which turned out to be a mistake, because we still had to walk up the very steep hill on this very hot day through the massive Jewish cemetery. From the top of the Mount of Olives, the view over the Old City is incredible. We walked down the hill and saw a couple of churches. We walked through the famous grove of olive trees and to the Virgin Mary’s tomb. I am embarrassed to say, however, that we never found the site where both Jesus and Mohammad ascended into heaven. I guess we should have asked more questions or done more research. That’s what happens sometimes when you don’t take the guided tour…
We walked through the Lion’s Gate to get back into the Old City, which was the only one of the 7 entrances we had not yet been through. On Monday we took a day trip to the Dead Sea, which definitely lives up to the hype! We took a bus through the West Bank, and along the sea for awhile. We got off at a beach just outside the West Bank called Ein Gedi. It is a free beach, though very rocky. As we walked down, we saw a couple of dozen people floating out in the water, then a few other people on the beach covered in mud. We walked down the beach about 50 meters until we found the mud pit. I had to reach deep inside a hole in the ground to find some gray clay. Then I dunked it in water and started covering my whole body! Maren did the same and we walked back to the main beach covered neck to toe in mud. We waited for it to dry, then went out into the water. At first, you don’t notice how salty the water is because there is nothing to distinguish it from any other beautiful crystal clear blue lake;) That is, until you try to swim. Despite being a swimmer, I have never in my life been able to float very well. I floated so incredibly easily in the Dead Sea it made me laugh. Even when you breathe completely out, there is no chance you will sink. We both kept our faces out of the water, but I did get a tiny drop of water in my mouth and it was so salty it burned. We picked a very strange day weather-wise to go the Dead Sea. It was very hot, the sign said 41 degrees! It was also incredibly windy and dusty. We ate our picnic lunch near the beach while a windstorm blew dust and garbage all around us. We had planned to go to the nearby fortress Masada after Ein Gedi, but the air was so dusty we could barely see the mountains only a couple of kilometers away. We decided we wouldn’t be able to see much at Masada and it wouldn’t be worth it. After the bus back to Jerusalem, we went on a quest to find the best falafel in Jerusalem. After doing some research, we hunted down a place called Moshiko. There, I had what I am certain is the best falafel in the world. For 17 shekkels (3.5 euros), we both got a gigantic pita with fresh falafel and every type of topping you could imagine. We ate them at a table in the middle of a crowded street with a squeeze bottle of sauce so they didn’t get dry. Mmmmm.
Tuesday was our last day in Jerusalem. We would have left earlier, but our Indian visas were still not ready in Tel Aviv. We decided we needed to go back to find out what the problem was. In the morning, we went back to the Basilica of the Ascension (we hadn’t gone inside on our tour). It was pretty amazing inside, nothing like a church. It is made up of numerous rooms on several levels that are all controlled by a handful of different groups of Christians. Don’t ask me how the Ethiopian Christians got their own section. We saw the site of the crucifixion and resurrection, but didn’t stay long due to all the swarming tourists. We caught a bus in the afternoon to Tel Aviv. We had been told our visas should be ready that evening, even though they originally should have been done the previous week. We checked back into the same hostel we had stayed at previously, but the visa office was unexpectedly closed, so we had to wait for the morning.
Maren and I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday trying to sort out our visas for India. It was incredibly frustrating. The idiots at the visa office were hardly helpful and to this day, I have no idea why it took so long to get our visas. We even made a couple of trips to the Indian embassy to talk to them directly, but they wouldn’t let us inside. I was very close to calling off India and demanding my passport back. The delay was messing up all of our travel plans and it seemed like it was going to be more hassle than it was worth. Originally we were planning on going to Petra, in Jordan, on the 10th for a couple of days, then to Cairo for 4 or 5 days before our flight on the 17th. By Thursday evening, we were told our visas were ‘almost’ ready and we sat at the visa office for over an hour after agreeing that we weren’t leaving till we got our passports back. Finally, by some miracle, they arrived. We returned to the hostel, called our airline, and started rebooking our plans. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant someone from our hostel recommended to get a special sabihe (the Tel Aviv version of a falafel we had tried previously). This one came on a plate, however, with amazing hummus and several salads. It was a perfect meal for our last night in Israel.
There are a couple of things I forgot to mention in my last blog. The first is the weather. Northern Israel was quite warm and pleasant, though it rained a couple of times. It was mostly between 24-28 degrees during the day. Jerusalem was hotter though, in the 30s every day, which made the conservative ‘dress code’ even more inconvenient. The other thing is the cats. There are stray cats EVERYWHERE in Israel! Apparently there used to be a mice problem when the British were here, so they brought over some cats to take care of it. Now there are cats mulling about in every city. Some of them appear to be in good shape, but others (i.e. the ones crawling through dumpsters) are very rough-looking.
Obviously I have much more to write about, but this post is getting quite long! I will write about Petra, the adventure getting to Cairo, and Delhi (where I am writing this) as soon as I get the chance!
The first view of the walled Old City of Jerusalem was pretty amazing. Our hostel was just inside Jaffa Gate, the most used entrance through the wall. We climbed all the way to the roof where we would sleep, and we had a view of every major site in the Old City. The Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount were only a few hundred meters away. We spent our first evening just walking around a bit and getting something to eat in the New City. It got pretty cold at night on the roof, so we had to bundle up. In the morning, we took a free walking tour of the Old City. It definitely helped both of us orient ourselves better as the narrow winding streets can become confusing. We stopped by the Basilica of the Ascension, where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. The next stop was the Western (wailing) Wall. The Wall is open 24 hours a day and always seems to be packed with people. We picked a day where dozens of bar mitzvahs were taking place, which was pretty entertaining. There were big groups of guys everywhere singing and dancing. The men are separated from the women at the wall, so the women had to watch from afar. We walked onto a nearby rooftop to get some cool views. The next stop on our tour was the ancient Roman ruins where we learned some of the history of Jerusalem.
Later in the afternoon, we walked just outside the Old City to the City of David. This was the original Jerusalem and was discovered relatively recently. The ruins at ground level were fairly interesting, but the coolest part was underground. There used to be a spring which served as the city’s water source. The people carved a tunnel through the rock to bring the water to the town. Maren and I walked down several flights of stairs until we reached the tunnel. It is still filled with water! The water was over knee deep in some places, and the entire walk was through complete blackness. There were recommendations to bring a flashlight, but we only had the light of each of our cell phones to guide us. The tunnel is about a half kilometer long and very narrow. I had to duck my head through most of it. The walk took over half an hour, but it feels like hours and would be horrible if you were claustrophobic.
The next day we took a day trip to Bethlehem, which is not far from Jerusalem. We should have done a lot more research, however, because neither of us realized Bethlehem is in the West Bank! We opted out of an expensive tour, and took the bus there instead. The bus dropped us off at a military checkpoint and we were both confused. As we looked at the huge wall dividing Israel we figured out what was going on. We had to answer some questions to the security guys because we didn’t have our passports (they were still in Tel Aviv), but they let us through. We were still far from the main sights in Bethlehem so we negotiated a cheap taxi to take us. We got out at the Church of the Nativity, the traditional place where Jesus was born. It was crowded, and there was a long line to go down to the spot itself, so we first walked around the city a bit. There was definitely a different feeling of being in the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It is more run-down and impoverished, and I could feel the tension from the security guys. The city of Bethlehem is not at all beautiful, and I am sure there are better places to go in the West Bank. We returned to the church and saw the site of the birth. The other sights in Bethlehem didn’t sound that interesting, so we called it a day and headed back.
That evening was Friday, the start of the Sabbath. Maren was busy taking care of some things back at the hostel, so I decided to walk around the Old City to see what was going on. Everything is closed in Jerusalem from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Everywhere I walked there seemed to be Jews all hurriedly walking in the same direction. Many of them also had on funny fur hats that look Russian. I realized they were all walking to the Western Wall, so I did as well to check out the party. This was a totally different experience than seeing the wall the previous day. It was completely packed with Jews, and only a very small number of tourists. It really felt like a party, there were people singing and dancing everywhere. I was told that there were even more people than a usual Friday night, because the following week was the celebration of Israel’s independence.
On Saturday, we walked just outside the Old City to Mount Zion, which is not much of a mountain, just a hill really. The buildings and churches there have really interesting architecture. We first stopped at the sight of Mary’s ‘eternal sleep’, and then saw the site of the Last Supper. From the rooftop, we got a view of the Old City, New City, and East Jerusalem. We spent the afternoon walking through the New City. It was very quiet because it was Saturday. We walked through a couple of parks and some cute neighborhoods. We found an outdoor café that was surprisingly open (and crowded) on our way back.
We got a late start out to the Mount of Olives on Sunday. The Mount of Olives is in East Jerusalem, which is the Arab part of the divided city. We took a bus, which turned out to be a mistake, because we still had to walk up the very steep hill on this very hot day through the massive Jewish cemetery. From the top of the Mount of Olives, the view over the Old City is incredible. We walked down the hill and saw a couple of churches. We walked through the famous grove of olive trees and to the Virgin Mary’s tomb. I am embarrassed to say, however, that we never found the site where both Jesus and Mohammad ascended into heaven. I guess we should have asked more questions or done more research. That’s what happens sometimes when you don’t take the guided tour…
We walked through the Lion’s Gate to get back into the Old City, which was the only one of the 7 entrances we had not yet been through. On Monday we took a day trip to the Dead Sea, which definitely lives up to the hype! We took a bus through the West Bank, and along the sea for awhile. We got off at a beach just outside the West Bank called Ein Gedi. It is a free beach, though very rocky. As we walked down, we saw a couple of dozen people floating out in the water, then a few other people on the beach covered in mud. We walked down the beach about 50 meters until we found the mud pit. I had to reach deep inside a hole in the ground to find some gray clay. Then I dunked it in water and started covering my whole body! Maren did the same and we walked back to the main beach covered neck to toe in mud. We waited for it to dry, then went out into the water. At first, you don’t notice how salty the water is because there is nothing to distinguish it from any other beautiful crystal clear blue lake;) That is, until you try to swim. Despite being a swimmer, I have never in my life been able to float very well. I floated so incredibly easily in the Dead Sea it made me laugh. Even when you breathe completely out, there is no chance you will sink. We both kept our faces out of the water, but I did get a tiny drop of water in my mouth and it was so salty it burned. We picked a very strange day weather-wise to go the Dead Sea. It was very hot, the sign said 41 degrees! It was also incredibly windy and dusty. We ate our picnic lunch near the beach while a windstorm blew dust and garbage all around us. We had planned to go to the nearby fortress Masada after Ein Gedi, but the air was so dusty we could barely see the mountains only a couple of kilometers away. We decided we wouldn’t be able to see much at Masada and it wouldn’t be worth it. After the bus back to Jerusalem, we went on a quest to find the best falafel in Jerusalem. After doing some research, we hunted down a place called Moshiko. There, I had what I am certain is the best falafel in the world. For 17 shekkels (3.5 euros), we both got a gigantic pita with fresh falafel and every type of topping you could imagine. We ate them at a table in the middle of a crowded street with a squeeze bottle of sauce so they didn’t get dry. Mmmmm.
Tuesday was our last day in Jerusalem. We would have left earlier, but our Indian visas were still not ready in Tel Aviv. We decided we needed to go back to find out what the problem was. In the morning, we went back to the Basilica of the Ascension (we hadn’t gone inside on our tour). It was pretty amazing inside, nothing like a church. It is made up of numerous rooms on several levels that are all controlled by a handful of different groups of Christians. Don’t ask me how the Ethiopian Christians got their own section. We saw the site of the crucifixion and resurrection, but didn’t stay long due to all the swarming tourists. We caught a bus in the afternoon to Tel Aviv. We had been told our visas should be ready that evening, even though they originally should have been done the previous week. We checked back into the same hostel we had stayed at previously, but the visa office was unexpectedly closed, so we had to wait for the morning.
Maren and I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday trying to sort out our visas for India. It was incredibly frustrating. The idiots at the visa office were hardly helpful and to this day, I have no idea why it took so long to get our visas. We even made a couple of trips to the Indian embassy to talk to them directly, but they wouldn’t let us inside. I was very close to calling off India and demanding my passport back. The delay was messing up all of our travel plans and it seemed like it was going to be more hassle than it was worth. Originally we were planning on going to Petra, in Jordan, on the 10th for a couple of days, then to Cairo for 4 or 5 days before our flight on the 17th. By Thursday evening, we were told our visas were ‘almost’ ready and we sat at the visa office for over an hour after agreeing that we weren’t leaving till we got our passports back. Finally, by some miracle, they arrived. We returned to the hostel, called our airline, and started rebooking our plans. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant someone from our hostel recommended to get a special sabihe (the Tel Aviv version of a falafel we had tried previously). This one came on a plate, however, with amazing hummus and several salads. It was a perfect meal for our last night in Israel.
There are a couple of things I forgot to mention in my last blog. The first is the weather. Northern Israel was quite warm and pleasant, though it rained a couple of times. It was mostly between 24-28 degrees during the day. Jerusalem was hotter though, in the 30s every day, which made the conservative ‘dress code’ even more inconvenient. The other thing is the cats. There are stray cats EVERYWHERE in Israel! Apparently there used to be a mice problem when the British were here, so they brought over some cats to take care of it. Now there are cats mulling about in every city. Some of them appear to be in good shape, but others (i.e. the ones crawling through dumpsters) are very rough-looking.
Obviously I have much more to write about, but this post is getting quite long! I will write about Petra, the adventure getting to Cairo, and Delhi (where I am writing this) as soon as I get the chance!
May 4, 2010
A tour through northern Israel
Wow, this trip has finally begun! Right now, Maren and I are in Safed (there are about 5 other spellings), in northeastern Israel, not far from the Sea of Galilee. Yesterday, we biked around the entire sea! More on that later...
First, there are a couple of things I forgot to mention in my last blog, as well as the trip to Hamburg before we left. My hip is feeling really good. It is nearly completely healed. I am walking without a limp, and only notice it when I walk up stairs. I think I could run already, though I am still holding off on anything too strenuous. The other thing was something which happened while Maren and I were driving back to her house in Marx. We were on a local highway when we spotted a car on its side in the ditch ahead of us. It was starting to get dark and it was raining a bit. We both could tell instantly that whatever had happened had just occurred, as the headlights and windshield wipers were both on. Based on how many cars were on the road and the fact that we were the first to stop, I would guess the car went into the ditch only ten or twenty seconds before we showed up. We ran over and there was a very distraught lady staring up at us from inside the car, which was beginning to fill up a bit with water. We dragged her out, which was tough because the car was on its right side. Within a couple of minutes, 4 or 5 other cars had stopped to help. We ended up waiting about ten minutes for the ambulance, then answered some questions from the police. The lady told us there was some animal in the road, and she swerved to miss it and the car rolled into the ditch. It was quite a random experience, I have never been 'first on the scene' like that before.
Last week, Maren and I were getting a bit bored in Marx waiting until we could catch a flight, so we decided to go check out Hamburg. Hamburg is the 2nd biggest city in Germany, only a few hours away by train, and Maren’s sister Fritzi lives there. We spent Thursday evening wandering around by the harbor and the ‘beach’, there is water everywhere in Hamburg. It feels a bit like Venice in some places. On Friday we did more sightseeing stuff while Fritzi was at work. We walked through the downtown area, the university, and to an island with cool views of the city. We went out with Fritzi and her boyfriend in the evening to the ‘Reeperbahn’, which is the largest red-light district in Europe. It is also where the majority of the bars and clubs are. There were hoards of young people along the streets as far as the eye could see, in every direction, until at least 4 in the morning when we finally called it a night.
Sunday was finally the day for our trip to begin. Maren and I took the train 5 hours to the airport in Cologne, then caught a 4 hour flight to Tel Aviv. The first obstacle was the immigration check. We chose what turned out to be the wrong line due to the incredibly slow lady checking passports. We chatted with people in the line next to us who were staying at the same hostel and agreed to share a taxi (we arrived too late to use the public transportation). Our line was so slow though, that after those people right next to us got through, we waited another 40 minutes! When we finally got to the front of the line, the whole room was empty. She asked us a bunch of dumb questions, she told us she would let us stay in Israel two weeks, then finally agreed three weeks would be OK. Our backpacks were the only ones on the stopped conveyor belt, and of course we had to pay for a taxi for just the two of us because it took so long. We were both so annoyed, that when we finally got to our hostel, we decided to go walk along the beach for awhile (at 3 AM) to forget about it.
Tel Aviv is a very large, commercial, and new city (one hundred or so years old). There are not many sights to see, no history or religious stuff. There are three things to do: go to the beach, go shopping, and go to the bars or clubs at night. We spent Monday doing exactly that. The weather was perfect and our hostel was literally one block from the beach. Before the beach though, we had to go somewhere to apply for our Indian visas. Not the embassy, because as their website proudly announces, they have ‘outsourced’ visa applications. So we went to some travel store who told us it would take 8-10 business days to get our visas. We had no other choice, so it looks like we will have to head back to Tel Aviv the end of this week to pick up our passports. Fortunately, Israel is a very small country, much more so that I realized. Getting back there to pick them up won’t be terribly inconvenient. We did a bit for shopping for some necessities (I didn't have any shorts!). In the evening, we walked a half hour down the beach to an old port city called Jaffa. It looked really cool at night and had some nice views. We went to a bar later on in Tel Aviv to see what all the hype was about, but we didn’t feel like a big night of clubbing on our first day in Israel. Considering we would have to return to Tel Aviv anyway, we left on Tuesday to begin exploring the north of the country.
The bus and train trips so far have been cheap, short, and relatively easy to figure out. We arrived in Haifa and spent Tuesday evening on the beach. We stayed in a cool hostel with a really nice garden out back, though the guy snoring in my dorm room the first night may have been the loudest snorer ever to sleep in an 8 bed dorm. On Wednesday we took a day trip by train further up the coast, all the way toward the border with Lebanon. We explored the town of Nahariya a bit, then caught a bus right to the Israeli-Lebanese border on the coast. There, we took the steepest cable car in the world (or so they claim) down some cliffs. We explored various caves and grottoes that have been carved out of the rock by the water. The area has an interesting history as well due to its strategic importance. We could see buoys out in the water only a few meters away marking the border of the countries. There were a couple of Israeli warships permanently stationed nearby. Later in the afternoon we walked down the shore till we found our own private little stretch of sand for a picnic lunch.
Maren and I took another day trip Thursday on the same train, though this time just a shorter trip to Akko (also called Acre). Akko is the oldest town in Israel, with an ancient port as well. The history of the old city is pretty incredible. Many different groups of people at one time controlled the area, and the city was the capital of several empires. We took our own tour through ancient ruins, Arab markets, and an underground tunnel to the sea. We walked along the city wall overlooking the water, then got some ice cream and made our way back to Haifa. The first few days in Tel Aviv and Haifa, Maren and I were trying to find a good falafel place, as it is the national food of Israel. We did find a place in Tel Aviv to eat something called a sabihe. It had fried eggplant, potatoes, a crushed hard-boiled egg, veggies, salad, hummus, and something that looked like pico de gallo. It was really tasty, but we still wanted to try an authentic Israeli falafel. We heard there were places everywhere selling them, but couldn't seem to find one that was open at 7 or 8 o'clock until our fourth day in Israel! We finally did in Haifa, and it was cheap and delicious! Now, we are finding these places everywhere, along with shawarma, which is similar to a kebab.
I woke up Friday morning covered in mosquito bites, and I have been itching ever since. But when I looked over at Maren, I quickly forgot about my bites. She got one right on the corner of her eye, which caused her whole eye to blow up and swell shut! She looked pretty funny, but fortunately it went away by the next day. We stayed in Haifa until Friday because we wanted to see the most famous sight in the city: the Baha'i Gardens (they were closed Wed and Thurs). I didn't know much about the Baha'i faith, but you can see the gardens from most places in Haifa, and they are incredible. Haifa is the world capital of Baha'i, and they spent $250 million on these gardens and the spiritual buildings around them. They make up 19 terraces on the side of Mt. Carmel, which has a wealthy neighborhood overlooking the city. We took the mandatory free guided tour and learned a bit about Baha'i, the history, and the gardens.
After the gardens, we hopped on a bus to Nazareth. Despite being the home of Jesus, the city is entirely Arab, one of the few in Israel outside the Palestinian Territories. We spent Friday evening walking through the old city. Our hostel was absolutely amazing, a gigantic old Arab house right in the souq (market). The hostel itself was beautiful and had an interesting history. And everything we could want to buy was just a short walk (and haggle) away. We spent Saturday checking out the sights. We went to the Basilica of the Annunciation, at the sight where Gabriel informed Mary she was pregnant with the Messiah. We also went to the Greek version of the same church, where the Greek Orthodox people believe the event happened near Mary's Well. Maren bought a head scarf in the market so that we could go into the nearby mosque. I think it was actually the first mosque I have ever been inside, usually they are closed to non-Muslims. The next stop was an amazing spice shop. This old, famous store at the end of the souq was huge and had every type of bulk spice you could imagine. Needless to say, it smelled so good we didn't want to leave. We stopped for some Arabic coffee and special sweet pancakes at another famous shop. Finally, we walked out of town and up a hill called 'Hill of the Leap of the Lord' or something where Jesus ran to get away from some angry Nazareth mob. Maren and I cooked some tasty vegetable pancake things for dinner with some fresh produce in the market.
I enjoyed Nazareth very much, the Arab culture there differs from the other places we have been. People talk to you much more as you walk through the streets, which is usually (but not always) a good thing. On Sunday we took another bus to Tiberias, the biggest city on the Sea of Galilee. We weren't interested that much in the city, as it was mainly just commercial and boring. There were huge hotels along the beach charging money to get down to the water. We ended up staying in a cheap hostel just a couple of blocks from the water, but we had to walk quite a ways to get to a free, yet rocky, beach. It was worth it though, the water felt great! For dinner, we both got gigantic shawarmas that we could barely finish. We needed lots of energy for our plans on Sunday.
The idea was to get up early to start our bike ride, but we failed miserably. After breakfast, checking out of our hostel, and getting set up on our rental bikes, Maren and I didn't hit the road till half past 11. We completed the full loop around the Sea of Galilee, 55 kilometers, and returned our bikes just before 6 in the evening! The first 25 km or so were on the side of the highway, hilly, hot, and mostly miserable. I think it must have been over 30 degrees. I am very grateful we did this part first, however, because the second half of the ride was fantastic! There was a tree-lined bike trail for much of it, and we found a deserted beach directly across the lake from Tiberias. We were drenched with sweat from the ride, but we found a sandy little spot and ran into the warm water with all our clothes on. We ate a picnic on the beach and the final 20 km were pretty relaxing. The guy running our hostel was nice enough to drive us to the bus station, where we left for Safed.
We found a cute guest house on a hill on the outskirts of Safed. Maren and I are paying dorm room rates, though we are the only people in our room. The place has a huge garden and lots of places to relax. We both were pretty exhausted from the ride and slept very well. Today, we walked into town to check out the old city and the artist's quarter. Safed is the smallest city we have been to so far in Israel, and it is definitely a nice place to relax. As it is on a hill, there are great views everywhere you go, we could even see the Sea of Galilee to the south. We bought some cheese a tiny local famous cheese shop and some ice cream as well. We spent the late afternoon reading books in the sun in the hostel's rose garden.
A few more things about Israel, so far. It is a pretty expensive country. Prices are mostly comparable to western Europe. One major exception is transportation, which is actually very cheap. Some food items seem incredibly expensive though (5 or 6 euros for a box of cereal). There are also soldiers everywhere, i mean EVERYWHERE! It is pretty evenly split between male and female, and they are always very young. About half of the guys I have seen are carrying rifles with them, and some of the girls are as well. They carry them everywhere, in the mall, on the bus, even into those caves we went to in the north! It is just a regular part of life around here I guess. Despite the scary western media about Israel, I have felt incredibly safe here and have not had any reason to feel otherwise. The mix of people is pretty interesting as well. In Tel Aviv, it looks like any European beach community, young people walk around in swimsuits and flip flops. In other places, there are Hasidic Jews everywhere you turn. And then there is everything in between: Arabs, soldiers, and tourists. Most signs are in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
Tomorrow, we are leaving for Jerusalem. We are planning on several days there as it should be by far the most interesting city in Israel. We will have to head back to Tel Aviv to grab our passports, but we might just do that on a day trip. Other day trips will hopefully include Bethlehem and the Dead Sea! I have lots of pictures, I will try and post them all on Facebook and Picasa in the next couple of days!
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