King Solomon's Palace Eilat

... passed the next step was passport control. Dino got a 3 month entry stamp in his English passport within 5 minutes. Shona got told to wait (Dino's English passport didn't have Syria in it, but Shona's only passport did). The next thing Dino knew was she was being sent to an office to be questioned some more. Dino waiting unsuspectingly on the sidelines suddenly gets called into the office ...

... including a natural bridge. There were other trucks driving around but not too many that it often felt like we were the only ones in the desert. We stopped in the shade of a cliff and Mr Salamah pulled out his kettle, made fire and boiled tea while we pulled out our fruit we had bought for our lunch (only dinner and brekky were included on this tour).he made sweet black tea and we sat on a blanket in the shade, had lunch and he lay down for a snooze so we ...

... z.B.den Lagerraum aufraeumen oder den Rest vom Essen zu unserem Kompost geben, an dem sich rund um die Uhr Voegel, Igel und Fuechse bedienen. Dann ist es meistens Mittag, ich ess was und geniess die Stille bei einem Nickerchen oder einem Buch. Irgendwann am spaeten Nachmittag kommt dann das Frischfleisch, dem man die Zelte zeigen, Tee servieren und immer dieselben dummen Fragen beantworten muss. Nach dem Sonnenuntergang - den ich selbst jetzt nach dem achten Mal immer noch ...

... see even more of the same. It's like that paradox relating to space by which: from any and all points in the universe, the rest of space looks exactly the same. Thought impossible to describe, perhaps that best explains the desert's extraordinary vastness. Between the different-colored deserts, the enormously tall cliffs which changed hues according to the light, and the landscape that seemingly stretched forever, it felt like we were existing in a different world. Spacetime moved ...

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... you know it he said something to the effect of "Your eyes are the color of the sky. You will stay here and be my wife." Clearly, this was a ploy to get to America. Regardless, though, I've never been a fan of bursting someone's bubble. But this time, I had no qualms about showing him the light. I stopped and walked away. I consulted my friend Katie about the situation. We walked briskly away to our tents. All in all, it seems it was a good idea not to accept this proposal ...

... not improving my Ivrit. The accomodation makes the MKSH (see earlier entries) look quite pleasant, but when I'm not working or by the pool I am usually sat outside on the nice, comfortable seats on the volunteer area lawn with the whoever is around. The pub is open every other night and they had a party the other night to say goodbye to the Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian students from the Arava institute who had just finished their year long environmental studies course ...

... s hindsight and learning for future trips. At the time, we agree that Shor will take us to some interesting views. Just a short distance we come to a broad expansive view over the Timna Valley. Basically he tells us that no one goes into the desert for 2 days at this time of year. We're back in the jeep bouncing away, when Harvey, out of the blue, starts talking about artificial intelligence and a software project that might be interesting to study ...

... they make yours. I'm perfectly warm the whole night despite everyone else complaining how freezing cold it was and I attribute this to my ninja outfit, which made me rather invisible all night long! Side note: don't think sleeping in one big tent after having a bunch of sick kids is a good idea, which is backed up by a trip to the hospital for some of our sicker people the next day.

... taxi drivers, touts, camel riders and stinky dunnies... you know, angry pharaohs and the like, but even still, I get it. I had been worried about crossing the Israeli border. Israeli security is notorious. Getting past El Al security the first time we went to Israel was a real pain and bordered on harassment. Actually for Mum it was harassment. They were really nasty to her. But the land crossing, while thorough, was a breeze. Maybe because we were already on record as having been to ...