Shalom Plaza Eilat

Thursday 16th July we left around 9.30 am in a taxi to go to Wadi Rum about 120kms north and we passed through Aqaba the tax free port of Jordan which borders Israel across the bay where the Red sea ends north. Most travellers cross into Israel from here and from this side you could see the high rise buildings of the Israeli town of Eliat. Between Aqaba and Eliat was a tract of land – no man's land between the borders reaching north from the Red sea ...

... an extremely noisy and chatty group of Russians, the Red Sea is 20 yards in front of us and that beckoning coral bridge another 10 yards to the left. I'm listening to Sondheim while reading about Mr. Darcy's zombie fights, while Rich is reading a book about the history of languages and probably multitasking and listening to a Slate podcast at the same time. No wonder those tropical fish held no wonders for us. We were already on sensory overload.

... Geschaeft und wuerde lieber am Strand faulenzen, anstatt dringend anfallende Arbeiten zu erledigen. Der Witz dabei: Emily schuftet sich seit Wochen den Arsch fuer Zedane ab, arbeitet wahrscheinlich mehr als alle unsere Bedouinen-Kollegen zusammen und hatte dabei, wie gesagt, keine drei Tage frei. Ach und die "dringend anfallenden Arbeiten" waren gar nicht ihr Job - die hatte ich schon laengst erledigt. Zwei Naechte darauf uebernachtet sie dann nach getaner Arbeit nicht ...

... for people telling me what to do or where to sit so I just plonked myself in the corner and watched and waited, my stomach was still hurting me and I was having to visit the bathroom which was about as clean as a night out down chippy ally in Cardiff with **** everywhere, was not the best. After a while a few westerns started to emerge and I ended up talking to a load of them, really nice people some in big tour groups some individuals who were all nice. They had ...

... and the Married to a Bedouin book. We then started our walk back to the bus. The walk back down the siq was very long as I had a blister on my heel and it was really hot. It had already been a long day and we still hadn't reached our bedouin camp. We had spent 8.5 hours at Petra and I was ready to sit down and relax. We got to the Bedouin camp and it was not what I had expected. I thought it would be just our group sleeping in 1 or 2 large tents and a ...

... from Egypt. If I had just taken the bus to Jerusalem everything would have been o.k. instead like a dork, I decided to get on a plane for the 1 hour ride to Tel Aviv, and then I had to get a special Nesher taxi to drive me over to Jerusalem. If you are going to Israel, no matter where you're coming from, get ready for some pretty annoying questions. I was nice at the begininning but towards then end when the security chick took my camera and decided ...

... on Bedouin couches in a Bedouin tent. For a while, we were entertained with Bedouin games. However, once lunch was served we lost all interest in playing games. For lunch, we were offered several traditional, fresh vegetable salads. The favorite salad ingredients were tomatoes, cucumbers and mint leaves. We were also served maglooba and watermelon. Lunch was very much needed as was the relaxation and rest that came with it. After eating our fill for lunch, we had a few hours of ...

... prowling around and that they are saving us. In the morning, Shor says that they were probably chasing jackals. At breakfast, a woman from the khan offers that the dogs had been examined by a psychologist and it was determined that they think they are seeing something, but nothing is there...they are crazy! All the guests are full of stories about last night's dogs and parties; it seems that no one got much sleep. Maybe the parties are part of ...

... the bark of the acacia tree when he saw the burning bush. Our visit to Timna Park took us back to the Stone Age and beyond as we tried to imagine what it must have been like to graduate from stone tools to metal ones and to survive in that harsh environment. Knowing that early inhabitants of the area would have marveled at the same massive stone pillars and sought shade in the same caves helped bridge the thousands of years separating us.

... police strategically positioned along the queue. I looked around, no-one else seemed to think it odd that they were there. The queue moved along and we came alongside one of the said policemen, I just couldn't resist asking, on an absolutely need to know basis, whether this was a 'normal' thing or if they were here for a specific reason. And his very reassuring reply was that they were always here for the Israeli lights as they are high risk. Marvellous! Had a bit of a mini ...