The Road to Ein Gedi
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2006
1
68
80
Trip End
Oct 21, 2008
Ein Gedi,
Dead Sea Region,
Israel
Thursday, June 5, 2008
We arranged to meet in Jerusalem but there was a celebration stopping traffic which left me running round like a headless chicken amongst the flying flags and dancing until eventually we managed to find each other outside the Independence Park. I got into the Prius they had hired and we were on our way ..well not quite. The combination of Arabic signs, a concrete wall, and an army checkpoint covered in camouflage told me we were not on the road to Ein Gedi.
'Where are we?' I asked the soldier at the checkpoint. He walked up to the car and looked me stone cold in the eye; 'Ramalla' he replied. I hadn't realized how close to Jerusalem the capital of the territories was. There was no time for Arabic tea or getting ripped off by taxi drivers today so we turned round and got on our way.
Before long the run down streets of Jerusalem turned into desert, The Prius' engine kicked in over the battery, and there in the distance was the Dead Sea. We headed south for an hour along it's receding shoreline and turned into Kibbutz Ein Gedi.
Driving through the lush palm trees of the Kibbutz it was not surprising to find that the Guest House was out of our price range. It was getting late now. 'I could look for couch surfers on the wireless' suggested Raph. It was surely too short notice to find four couches but it gave me an idea.
'Have you heard of couchsurfing.com?' I asked the two girls at reception. 'It's a website where beautiful, kind people let travelers stay on their couch'. 'Really beautiful, kind people' said Raph. 'Or sometimes even the floor's ok'. 'And what if the floor's dirty?' asked the brunette, looking up from her computer. 'We'll clean it, we'll clean the whole house!' said Raph. 'So if you happen to know any such beautiful, kind people...' The blonde girl was blushing slightly. 'Here's my number' I said.
We went to the kibbutz restaurant where we got the dinner buffet for 70 shekels per head - pricey but it was a feast. Before long we were the only guests left and as the staff cleaned up around us we took the hint and started to leave. On our way out we got chatting to the staff and explained that we had nowhere to stay. Some conferring went on and the girl who seemed to be the manager came back to us. 'We have a spare room you can stay in' she said. At the same time my phone rang. It was Mya from reception...
We had now been offered two rooms to sleep in - enough for all of us! It was almost miraculous. Israelis may complain about their aggressive culture but I couldn't imagine receiving this kind of generosity in England. We all joined in to help the staff clean up in the dining hall and then followed them to the apartments. Mya pointed me to a couple of mattresses on the floor. It was a basic 2 bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom.
Most of the staff were sat out on their balconies or on the chairs outside, relaxing after a hard days work. They were all in their early twenties and fresh out of the army. The government will apparently pay for them to do unskilled jobs like these for 6 months when they leave.
We sat out with them till the early hours when I went to bed. Raph offered to walk the German girl he had been chatting with home. I think they must have got lost or found some more work to do because he never found his way back.
