Petra...by horse, by foot, by donkey, by camel...and by night

A blog post by Melissa. While normal people decide to see Petra over four days (according to the friendly folks in Petra...all of whom seem to be tour guides) Adam and I decided to see it over 24 hours. Thankfully we had several options for saddle transport which made our fast tour possible. I was able to convince Adam to ride a horse in to the main entrance, then a donkey, then a camel.

We arrived in the afternoon, which turned out to be great because all the tour groups were leaving and by sunset we nearly had the monastery to ourselves. There are 800 steps up to the monastery, but Adam and I cheated and rode donkeys half the way up. The donkey rides were supposed to be to the top, but the two young Bedouin boys who took us up in their donkeys told us we were at the top when we actually still had a couple hundred stairs to climb. Adam wasn't quite embracing our donkey ride. I think his exact words were "Melissa I'm going to kill you" as we climbed up narrow stairways in steep cliffs and our donkeys preferred teetering close to the outer edge. If they weren't on the edge, they would head right towards tourists walking down the steps scaring them and making them scatter out of our way. Needless to say, we declined the boys' offer to give us a donkey ride down the mountain.

So we made record time walking down from the monastery, but we still had about 4 miles left to walk on foot. We bartered a camel ride for half the distance. Let me tell ya, as far as riding goes, camels are the way to go. They are very comfortable. It's also a smooth ride. Camels don't really have hooves, they have pads, so they don't make a sound when they hit the ground.

After a gluttonous buffet at our hotel, we went to Petra by Night. The park employees light the main path by candle light all the way to the treasury (that's the building that you've seen in thousands of pictures of Petra). They had Bedouin music and Bedouin tea for us there with the entire courtyard filled with luminarias. Since the moon was full, Petra was all lit up and very magical. I drove Adam crazy taking pictures every five minutes, but I got some great ones that I'll post when we can download photos to my laptop.

Kosher in Israel

A blog post by Adam. We were just in Eilat. It's a resort town on Israel's sliver of the Dead Sea. The snorkeling was great and as we mentioned in a previous blog post, prices weren't too crazy. These facts, however, we're not as surprising as the abundance of shellfish at the various restaurants. Shellfish is not kosher, and I sort of had the expectation that treyf (not kosher) food would be hard to come by in Israel. Not in Eilat.

In the USA, I choose to avoid treyf food, in order to remind myself of my Jewish identity even when it appears that I'm barely conscious that I'm eating (in some circles I have a reputation of eating so quickly that it is unclear if I chew or swallow-whole). I also choose to eat kosher-style because I can, whereas so many Jews who wanted to in the past could not (i.e. those living during the Holocaust).

In Israel, however, I don't really need to remind myself of my Jewish identity, since it's pretty much all around me. And in many ways Israel is the response to the Holocaust so merely being here memorializes those who are not. So, if not for religious reasons, why be kosher in Israel?

Still, I couldn't do it. It just didn't feel right and maybe at the end of the day that's what it is more about. Rather than my rational reasons for not eating treyf, it just feels wrong to eat pig and shrimp when you're Jewish. Plus, I don't like shellfish and the smell of bacon makes me want to hurl. Double plus, the shrimp dishes were more expensive than the chicken ones. Now there's a Jewish value we can all get behind.

The cost of Israel

A blog post by Adam. Israel is not cheap. And I don't say this just because I am (...cheap, that is). Even some Germans we met felt that Israel was even more expensive than Europe. An Israeli lamented about housing and food costs. Here's a sampling of some of our costs...

Cost of one night at a disgusting (i.e. dirty walls, grimy floors, moldy bathrooms) hostel in Tel Aviv: $65 for two.

Cost of the cheapest place we could find in Be'er Sheva: $108...the room includes a mini bathroom.

Melissa in a tiny Be'er Sheva bathroom.

Cost of a gallon of gas: $8 or more.

Cost of one falafel: $6.50.

Cost of a plate of food at a falafel stand: $13...that's fast food, folks.

Housing. Gas. Food. It's all pretty expensive. It's no wonder we've met several Israelis with two jobs. We're constantly blown away by just how much basic necessities seem to be and often wonder how the average person survives....plus we haven't even started looking for gifts....don't expect much.

That said, we did meet a few travelers who had a medical emergency, in which one of the travelers had to be taken to a hospital by ambulance and then apparently spent half a day in the hospital. The cost? $250 for the hour long ambulance ride. $300 for the hospital stay. That likely beats healthcare reform any day of the next decade. I guess not everything in Israel is so expensive. And while we often complain about US healthcare costs, shouldn't food and shelter be even more affordable than healthcare? In Israel all Israelis have access to national healthcare but are they also able to meet their other basic needs? What good is one without the other? It makes sense that there have been recent protests about cuts in social services.

A postscript...in Eilat (Israel's premier resort town) prices seem to be cheaper than anywhere. Gas is about a $1.00/gallon cheaper. Food in the grocery store was less. And we stayed in our cheapest hostel yet. Why? An Israeli told us the taxes are much lower here because the government wanted to entice people to move here. As far as we can tell, if you don't mind millions of tourists, it's not such a bad place to be.

Walls

A blog post by Adam. Israel is famous for its walls.

There is the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where thousands of Jews come to pray every day. We haven't seen this yet, but will soon.

There is the wall between Israel and the West Bank, which has been highly controversial (and deemed illegal by the Israeli Supreme Court) because it was used to unofficially take land from the Palestinian territories. We saw parts of this wall when drove through the middle of the West Bank to the Dead Sea. The highway we were on had protective walls on both sides, essentially splitting the future Palestinian state in half. I'm not sure how Palestinians get from one side to the other.

There is, of course, the wall around Gaza. We may see this later in our trip.

Then there was a wall we were not expecting....a giant wall between Israel and Egypt - two countries that have been at peace for over 30 years.

An up close view of the wall between Israel and Egypt.

The wall stretching on for miles...

This wall is not historic or religious...it's still in the process of being completed. And it doesn't appear to be primarily for security reasons. Rather this is a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants and drugs. In a country built on immigrants, not all immigrants are welcome...certainly not gentile African immigrants coming into Israel for work and asylum. We've seen some of these immigrants throughout Israel. The people who cleaned the bathrooms at our Dead Sea campground were from South Sudan. The cleaning man I spoke to said he had been in Israel for two years and that he had seen most of his South Sudanese compatriots deported.

Israel is the closest rich nation to North Africa (or at least the only one that can be reached without getting on a boat or plane). The fact that people want to come to Israel and the fact that Israel needs immigrant workers is a sign of its success as a nation. But how does gentile immigration work in a Jewish state?

Human vs. Beast

A blog post by Adam. We had braved the Dead Sea so we were ready for the next desert. That is the Negev, which comprises 60% of Israel's land.

Forty percent of the Negev Desert is protected through parks and reserves. At the same time, eighty percent of the Negev is military training ground. Since all of the land in the desert only equals 100%, some military and preserve land overlaps. Ultimately, we did our best to stay out of the firing zones...

We did a few short hikes in Makhtesh Ramon which is a like a giant desert crater (except it wasn't formed by a volcano or a meteor) and like a canyon (except it wasn't formed by flowing water). Rather it came to be due to geological forces that are hard to explain. Wikipedia may have an answer. For those of us who don't understand geology, the key fact is that there are only 7 makhteshes in the world (2 in Sinai, 5 in Israel) and Ramon is the biggest of all.

A view inside Makhtesh Ramon.

Special prism shaped rocks in the Makhtesh.

Makhtesh Ramon is home to more than just sand and rocks, though. Nearby you can also find the infamous Alpaca Farm. And the Alpacas were ready for our visit. The Alpacas practically tackled me...

Llamas swarming Adam.

A hike through the desert

A blog post by Melissa. Today we went on one of the most amazing hikes of our lives. Although it was rated "extremely difficult" we made it! The wind was howling through the canyons and any piece of sand that had a drop of water on it had a tiny little plant, but they were far and few between. It felt like walking on Mars. We climbed up to the top of a plateau then down its rocky cliff on the other side. We had great views of the Dead Sea and tried to imagine what it looked like even a hundred years ago when the sea was much bigger. Now that the Jordan River is dammed, the shores of the Dead Sea are receding and it is drying up. Once we got to the bottom of the plateau there was a warm stream running down the valley and all of a sudden there were birds singing, prairie dogs and lots more people. At the very beginning of our hike we saw an Ibex. I thought that since we saw one so soon there would be plenty of chances to take a picture of another one, but unfortunately we didn't see any more on the rest of our hike.

Yom Haatzmaut in Tel Aviv - A big village or just another big city?

A blog post by Adam. We arrived in Tel Aviv on Yom Hazikaron, or Memorial Day. While we missed the evening ceremonies, we were present at 11:00 am when the entire country observed a moment of silence. At exactly 11:00 people stopped walking, cell phones went quiet, and cars stopped dead in their tracks. For an entire minute the noise, hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv ceased, and all was silent. How incredible that an entire country would stop in honor of fallen soldiers...not exactly the American style Memorial Day.

That evening, Yom Haatzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, began. We went to Rabin Square, and watched a performance of singing and dancing. There we met Steve and Shelley from Toronto who have spent 6 months of the past few years living in Israel because their 20 something son has also been living in Israel. They were incredibly friendly and very proud of Israel. At one point Shelley commented that while Israelis could be a little brusk and pushy she knew that if she was ever in trouble or hurt on the street everyone would stop what they were doing to help her out. Israel was the kind of place where people looked out for one another. It was sort of like a giant village. True to form, before we left the performance Shelley provided us with her son's email address so that he could help us with our plans to do the Sea to Sea hike in a couple weeks.

After the performance we wandered the streets where people of all ages were out - some singing, some dancing, some spraying shaving cream all over, some just hanging out and chatting with friends. It was quite the scene with so much energy. Just before arriving at our hostel, however, we passed a man who was sprawled across the sidewalk with a very infected leg protruding from a blanket. Although hundreds of people walked past him nobody stopped to help (including us). It was awful and so different than the image Shelley had presented an hour before. Why did nobody stop? Was it because help had already been called? Or because he was a person of color? Or because Tel Aviv was really just like any other big city, where people take care of themselves and tend to avoid strangers. We will never know, though we certainly can't help but ask ourselves why we didn't try do anything to help.

A stop in Germany

A blog post by Adam. Melissa spent the nine-plus hour flight to Frankfurt watching four movies with a few breaks for eating and using the bathroom. She had been deprived of movies for months as we tried to save money for the trip, and so she had no choice but to devote all her energy to her tiny screen. Without sleeping for even a minute she was pretty tired when the plane landed (I, of course, got at least some sleeping in). Still, determined not to waste the full day in Frankfurt (we landed at 9:00 am and our flight to Tel Aviv didn't leave until 8:00 pm) we headed into town on the train.

We wandered for a while after some bad directions from a confident German - this was actually the third German we had encountered who provided erroneous directions. We eventually found our way to the historic center of the city where we had two hot dogs (i.e. frankfurters) and then moved on to the Frankfurt Jewish Museum.

Adam in the historic center of Frankfurt.

Melissa in the historic center.

The Jewish Museum was decent though we were both so tired we spent as much time sitting on the museum benches as did looking at the exhibits. They had an impressive collection of Judaica, though Melissa wondered where it had all come from. Was this the remnants of the Frankfurt Jewish community killed in the Holocaust? The final exhibit was a video on the founding of Israel which was fitting for us since we were headed to Israel, but seemed out of place at a German museum. Certainly very few Jews remained in Frankfurt after the war, and perhaps many of those that did remain moved to Israel. But some Jews stayed and there are still Jews in Frankfurt today - I met them when I was in Germany in 2006. When your museum about Frankfurt Jews ends with Israel rather than Frankfurt it seems the message is that Germany is no longer a place for Jews...this is sad for Germany and for the tens of thousands of Jews who call Germany home today.

As we pondered our experiences at the Jewish Museum in a half wake stupor, we made our way onto a Main River boat cruise where Melissa fell asleep within minutes and I didn't do much better.

We then returned to the Frankfurt airport, hiked from one end to another, waited for our plane and flew to Israel.

A mess and we're on the road

A blog post by Adam. Not surprisingly, preparations for the trip were not completely smooth. I made a mess of the room, Melissa felt like her world was devolving into chaos, and together we spent several late nights try to put it all back together. Still, in the end we made it on to the plane....

Our plans for the trip (not set in stone) are:

Leave the U.S. on April 13, 2013
Arrive in Israel on April 15, 2013
Leave Israel on May 13, 2013
Arrive in the Dominican Republic on May 15, 2013
Santo Domingo, DR - May 19 - June 14
La Romana, DR - July 2013 - January 2014
Ecuador - February 2014
Argentina - March 2014

Blogging

A blog post by Adam. This is our blog. We've never done this before so we don't really know what we're doing. Plus we're trying to do this from an iPad mini, which is less than ideal.

Before we begin, a few disclaimers...

We plan to provide updates on what we've done, but also impressions and reflections on what we've seen, heard, and experienced. Hearing provides some challenges since we don't speak Hebrew or Arabic and our Spanish is far from perfect. So, at times we may mis-hear. We may not understand everything going on around us and we may completely misinterpret what's going on. In other words, we advise that you continue getting your news from more reputable sources.

Second, we have a camera that sometimes takes great pictures. We're not sure how to do this with an iPad, and we're also not sure how to get the camera shots onto the blog without a real computer. Since we anticipate very limited access to a real computer for the first month, most pictures will likely be added later.

This is getting wordy. We don't anticipate the rest will be much better....