I woke up at 4:30am again this morning, totally nervous and excited at the thought of heading out to Jordan to go see Petra. Despite being an American and carrying a US passport, I was still born in Israel and felt a bit apprehensive about entering Jordan- an Arab country. I feared my presence would not be welcomed.

We were to be picked up at 7:30am outside our hotel room by the touring company assisting the tour. We had to squeeze in a quick breakfast (which started at 7am) at the hotel before heading out. The opportunity to eat would not present itself until 2:30pm, the itinerary showed. We were not allowed to carry food, and they would not sell food at the site at Petra.

Leaving Israel

Following our rushed breakfast, we lined up outside and waited for our ride to arrive. As 7:40am passed, I started entertaining thoughts that our tour group was just a scam to get our money. After all, we had booked on the internet all the way from back home. Finally, at 7:45am, the car came to pick us up. We were briefed while driving out of Eilat- towards the Israeli/Jordanian border- about how the border patrol would work. It all seemed so formal and serious, somewhat intimidating even.

Walking the No Man’s stretch to Jordan

We reached the border roughly at 8am, and after waiting in about 6 different lines (3 for each country), and walking a “no-man’s land” stretch of a few hundred yards, we were in Jordan. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get our Jordanian visas. From there, we hopped into a minivan and headed off to Aqaba, Jordan’s southernmost city.

Reached Jordan

Our group consisted of Tobia and I along with two Argentinean Jews. Our tour guide, Samer, was a young Bedouin guy, spoke English extremely well, was very knowledgeable, and I took an instant liking to him. He even got American nuances, culture, slang and mannerisms… I was most impressed. The entire drive out to Petra we asked him so many questions about culture, life, religion and anything we could think of. He graciously answered all of our questions and explained life in Jordan to us, from his perspective.

Aqaba

We reached Aqaba 20 minutes into our drive in Jordan. It is a nice coastal town. Samer explained that it used to be a Bedouin area up until 2001. It seemed to be developed quite quickly, because we saw a Burger King, Quizno’s, McDonald’s and even a Safeway Market. It still had some original local touch too.

Petra from a distance

Wadi Musa

Following Aqaba, we drove roughly 2 hours through the desert with a couple of quick stops along the way to get to Petra.

Kitty on horseback

Once in Petra, there was a lot of walking to do. During the first stretch of the walk, horseback rides were available. Tobia hopped on a horse and rode it, with the help of a nice gentleman for a small portion of the stretch down to the treasury. The entire walk to the treasury was downhill and took 45 minutes. Along the way, Samer pointed out historically significant things that took place and were constructed at Petra.

When I got my first glimpse of the treasury I was completely in disbelief. It is enormous- pictures can’t even begin to do it justice. It was a nice reddish colored stone, and it was simply carved into an enormous mountain. Samer gave us a brief history and gave us a few hours to roam the entire place. The misconception about Petra is that it’s all about the treasury. It doesn’t take a lot of walking further down the trail to see much much more.

Tombs

Narrow passages

The Shrine

The Treasury

The Treasury

The Treasury

Camels for people who want rides

As we walked down, we were constantly passed up by gentlemen on horses or camels offering to give us rides in whatever direction we needed. It is a very touristy place, and the locals know how to work their magic. “A camel is like a desert Ferrari, come along for a ride”. I gotta give them credit for being entertaining. There were also little booths all over the place selling lovely goods and art. We bought a variety of things.

Eventually we reached a stadium, saw hundreds of tombs, and finally saw Aaron’s tomb. It was quite an impressive tomb.

More tombs

The stadium

Nice colors

Aaron’s Tomb

I like this scene.

It was extremely hot all day, but it felt particularly hot as we made our 1 – 1.5 hour walk back to the top to meet with our driver and Samer.

Me, Marcos and Daniel at lunch

Lunch

Roughly at 3pm we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant. We were all so hungry, but the food just kept coming and coming, and we simply could not finish all the good food.

On our drive back to the border, we chatted the entire time with Samer. We talked about Islam and the Koran among other things. Samer shared some nice messages from his religion, and we could get the sense that he was very thoughtful.

Kitty, Samer and I

I found Jordanians to be very nice and respectful a people. One thing that moved me in particular was how when they walk up and down streets or other outdoor locations, when they recognize someone, they will stop to shake hands and talk. There is no concept of pretending not to see one another, as is common here in at least California and the Bay Area. And it didn’t matter if people were of different “classes”. So many times I would see well dressed folks, or even Samer just go over to elderly street cleaners, exchange some pleasantries, shake hands, and chat for a little while. There’s truly no “I’m better than you” and I appreciated and respected that very much. It just felt genuine.

Leaving Jordan

Returning to Israel

We got to the border at around 5:30pm. We said goodbye to our driver and to Samer, we actually exchanged emails (and have kept in good touch since), and we made our way back into Israel. It took about an hour to cross. In large part, we believe it took a long time because one of the Argentineans had what seemed on the Israeli side to be a troublesome/questionable family background. He got interrogated for quite some time and we had to wait.

Eventually we got back to our hotel around 7pm. We were exhausted but extremely happy with a sense of total accomplishment. We totally stepped out of our comfort zones, saw new places, experienced new adventures, and met great people.

By 10pm we were out cold, sleeping.

Another big breakfast

I ended up falling asleep hard at 9:30pm last night, clearly still jetlagged. Unfortunately, I woke up at 4:30am and couldn’t sleep anymore.

We went down to breakfast at the 7am start time and yet again had a fabulous and enormous meal.

Why am I so happy? I didn’t even get out of the car.

Panoramas of the crater

We left the town of Mitspe Ramon, fueled up, and drove down into the crater, south towards Eilat. The crater was really beautiful from below. We could see so many eroded columns and different rock patterns. At least a half dozen times, we pulled over to the side of the road to check out the scenery and take pictures.

Mmmmmm … Yotvata chocolate milk!

A couple hours into our drive, we came by Yotvata, a place I recalled from more than 20 years ago that is known for its excellent chocolate milk and other dairy products. Naturally I had to stop and enjoy some wonderful chocolate milk. Tasted just as good as I had remembered!

Getting back on the road, Tobia was perusing her guide book and noted that there was a safari type zoo nearby, called Hai Bar. The whole premise of the safari is to return biblical animals back to the wild and to keep them from going extinct.

We first took the “indoor” tour, seeing animals in closed off large cages, with attempts to re-create their habitat around them. Following this, we took the safari-like drive. We saw lots of ibex, oryx, Asiatic asses, and ostriches. I found ostriches to be extremely aggressive. Many of them blocked parts of our road, while coming over to size us up. They’d peck at our car with their beaks and use their bodies to intimidate and threaten us. It was a bit nerve wrecking at times, but also kind of an exciting, amused rush at the same time (or maybe just in retrospect).

Various animals we saw

A couple of angry vultures

Dumbass

Woah!

We saw these once the ostriches let us through.

From there, it was on to Timna Park, a really large park full of beautiful different rocks and colors. Some the more memorable things we saw: mushroom and a half rock, mushroom rock, Solomon’s Pillars, cave engravings, and a temple. It was really hot out there- close to 100, and we did a lot of walking. There were also lots of arches and caves with tough hiking involved.

Spiral Rock	Conquering Mushroom and a Half Rock	Kitty at Mushroom Rock	Rocky terrain
Arches	Kitty in arch	Left entrace to crater	Right entrance to crater
I love the different colors.	The Shrine	Solomon’s Pillars	Sphinx Rock

With all due respect to these 6000-year old art pieces, I can draw better blind-folded.

Finally, lunch!

I inhaled a late lunch around mid-early afternoon. It was a hummus dip with vegetables and other platters. All the walking and heat took their toll on me.

We left the park and headed off to Eilat. It was extremely hot and humid down there. We checked into our hotel, instantly put the A/C on, and fell asleep for a couple of hours.

Our hotel in Eilat

Later in the evening we went out for a stroll on the promenade right along the Red Sea. Even at 8:30pm it was still 100 degrees out, though completely dark. The promenade was nice enough, just unbearably hot and too full of people (the whole see and be seen environment).

As our feet were hurting, we were dealing with jetlag, and were also preparing to head to Petra the next day, we decided to turn in for the night with no dinner. We shared an ice coffee and headed back to the room to shower and sleep.

As I laid in bed this morning, unable to sleep, I was also really starving. I had barely eaten anything on the plane, and I also vomited so much the previous day.

Thankfully our hotel’s breakfast started at 6:30am. Exactly at that time we lined up outside the dining area, only to be surprised that about a dozen other people showed up right around the same time.

Finally, breakfast!

We feasted like royalty on burekas, eggs, salads, spreads and other sweets, stuffing ourselves to more than compensate for having eating so little the previous 24-36 hours. I was thrilled! For her part, Tobia was less than amused by the two Korean ladies sitting behind us speaking loudly in Korean. It annoyed her that we traveled halfway around the world to come in contact with “her peeps”.

Following breakfast, we headed down to Be’er Sheva to see Abraham’s well. As we were likely the only people who had come in to that point in the day, the staff treated us with much excitement and attention. From there we continued to Tel Be’er Sheva- which is an (UNESCO) archaeological site, believed to be the remains of the biblical town of Be’er Sheva. Afterwards we continued to the Air Force Museum and I saw my favorite childhood plane, the Lavi. I was obsessed with its development back in ’86. I also got a good look at an F-15 jet.

Abraham’s well	Tel Be’er Sheva panoramic	Excited to head down into the cave
Entering the cave	Some of the planes (and parts thereof) we saw at the air force museum	And, of course, my favorite – the Lavi!

Our falafel lunch

For lunch we had a great falafel meal at a small hole in the wall place. The gentleman who ran the place was very nice and extremely helpful in giving us directions. We fueled and headed off to Sdeh Boker to see David Ben Gurion’s hut and his memorial. I knew a little bit about Ben Gurion, of course, prior to visiting his hut and memorial, but learned a great deal about the man. I found his life and achievements quite interesting and impressive. I guess Tobia’s love of history had some influence on me here.

The area where Ben Gurion is buried is very beautiful. It’s a nice deep canyon. In the surrounding area, we saw tons of Ibex animals. In fact, we saw two lock horns and fight some 30 feet away from us. It was quite a sight.

Ben Gurion’s Hut	Ben Gurion’s study	Ben Gurion Memorial
Ben Gurion Memorial	The canyon just beyond Ben Gurion’s Memorial	Ibex nearby

Scary overhang above Makhtesh Ramon

Tobia reminding me where the crater is

From Sdeh Boker we continued on to Makhtesh Ramon- the largest crater in the world. We walked around a good deal and got to see many different angles and terrains inside the crater. This was another example of something I had no idea existed in Israel until just prior to going there.

Following the crater, we went to check out a lama and alpaca farm. It was also home to donkeys, camels, and horses. I was able to hand feed the animals. When the lamas are together, they fight for the food and spit. One of them spit and snorted on me- it was kinda nasty but ultimately memorable.

Feeding at the lama/alpaca farm

Lovely teeth

Some of the other animals at the farm

We had dinner here, beside all these soldiers

Around early evening we were completely exhausted, so we grabbed some burekas and pizza slices for dinner and turned into our room for the night. We bought some internet access time and wound down while also watching TV.