Shalom Israel

En Avdat National Park

Yesterday we said goodbye to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as we traveled across the Jordan River into the State of Israel. It was quite a day, as I said on my fb post. We took a cab from our hotel in Madaba, near Amman to the Hussein Bridge, which is the Israeli border. It was about a 45 minute ride, and went very smoothly, the driver an old chatty and pleasant older fellow. Immediately after saying good-bye we realized we forgot my backpack in the cab, which contained, among other things, my camera, my phone, and both of our passports. We waved to the driver, and screamed, but he was already too far gone to notice. A kind young man offered for me to ride with him in pursuit of the taxi, but a turning bus blocked our way for a couple of minutes, and even though we continued our pursuit for about ten more turns of the clock, we never did catch up with him. We looked for the phone number of our hotel who had recommended the driver, but we could not find it anywhere on the web. There was only one alternative; go back where we came from and have the hotel contact the driver. The young man dropped me back off at the border, and Diane and I took another cab for the 45 minute drive back to Madaba. When we got there, we were told that the driver had realized we had left the bag, and had returned to the border to look for us. So back to the border we went, hoping to connect with the man, after having secured his number from the hotel. Eventually we found each other. All in all, our carelessness only cost us about 2 and a half hours of time and a bit more than $100.

The border was another story. On the Jordanian side we were shuttled between three different guards, each with a specified purpose; pass security with the bags, pay the Jordan exit fee, passport review. We then had to sit over an hour and a half waiting for the bus to drive us across several miles of no-man’s-land to the Israeli border side, where long security lines awaited us and where we had to wait another couple of hours for our bags to clear inspection. At this point, we had to purchase tickets for the shuttle that took us through the Palestinian West Bank and into Jerusalem, dropping us off in the old city, outside the city walls. We had a very late lunch/early dinner in an East Jerusalem eatery, then took a cab to our hotel. Needless to say, once in the room, we just stayed there for the remainder of the day.

Today, we started our day early. Took a trolley car (here called a “light train”) to a train station, and there we caught a train which delivered us to the Tel Aviv Airport, where we picked up our rental car. Rather than returning immediately to Jerusalem, since we were already on the road, we chose to go explore the Negev Desert, which was on our plans for the following day. It would not have been a good day to visit Jerusalem, as the temperature was in the 40s, with a strong wind and menacing skies. We thought it would be better further south, once in the desert, but no such luck. It stayed cold, windy, and the low clouds, mixed with wind-blown sand made visibility very poor.

We stopped for lunch in the sizeable city of Be’er Sheva, which offered nothing of interest, except blocky high-rises, large malls and lots of fast-food American joints. Eventually we made our way to En Avdat National Park. We had it all to ourselves. The very overcast skies certainly did not make for ideal picture-taking, but at least, the day was not wasted.

We were excited we got to see several Nubian Ibexes in the park.

After En Avdat, we continued on to Makhtesh Ramon, a massive, naturally formed crater that’s 38 km. long and 450 meters deep. The sandy/overcast skies did nothing to enhance the view, but we did enjoy watching several young army recruits tackling some rock-climbing as rescue-training exercise.

Then, it was 2 ½ hours back to Jerusalem. On the way, we got caught by a huge downpour, which we are told will continue through tomorrow, and perhaps even longer.

The temperature is in the 40s, but with the wind feels much colder. This is what you are up against when you travel, you just never know. But we’ve been lucky so far, and we can’t complain. Still loving every minute (well, almost.