September 8, 2000

We arrivved in a flurry of 3 border crossings in one day (need to make it into Israel beroe the Friday Sabbath.) After getting off at the Damascus gate we proceed into the narrow, crowded allys, teeming with people, market stalls and lound thumping arabic music. The street of the old city wind and twist like a maze, very much like the arab medias we'd been in before, but this was definetly not an the Arab cities we've been in before. There was a very strong sense of tension and mistrust in the air, as you could tell by the Israeli soldiers walking around with Uzis and the religious friction of a mainly arab population, mixed with christian year 2000 pilgrams carrying crosses down via delarosa (the street that jesus carried the cross to his cruxifiction), and the general hustle bustle of fast moving hasidic jews rushing off to prayers, pushy big russian woman and lost backpackers looking for a bed. We ended up going with this Aussie guy we met on the bus over to the Al-Arab hostel in the heart of the Christian quarter.There we met Jati, a Brit who had spent some time in India and he was staying in Israel for a while looking for work on a Kibbutz, he was the cook at the hostel where he made simple curry lentils and omelettes.

It was a very crowded room with our 2 beds next to the corner in a a 10 bed room, I could look out and see the Dome of the Rock and Al-Asqa mosque in the hazy distance, listening to the street mix of Arab hawkers, call-to -prayers and distant church bells all competing for attention. Nights at the hostel were a shared communal like feel with everyone eating at the same time and then wandering off to sit outside on the balconey or lying on top of each other watching some worn out video, there were a few pockets of political conversation, but we advoided these if possible wherever we were in the middle east! We went down to the Wailing wall (Western wall) over at the temple mount to watch to Friday sabbath take place, this was a rather impressive site with all these mostly orthodox jews praying, men on one side, woman on the other. You could hear this long and and disjointed moan and chanting going on, which added to the overall surrealness of it. basically an open synagoue.

The next day we took a walking tour of the old city and parts of the new city as well. going up to the various christian shrines and jesus's tomb, which is now next to the loud and noisey palestinen bus station! It was strange to hear so many New York jewish accents in the the city, many of them who are quite nationalistic about Israel's right to govern jeruselem as its capital and undivided city, this was very current concern with everybody.

Got up at 2:30 am to go on the Masada/Dead Sea tour where we watched the sunrise after after a very long and sweaty climb up to the top. The views were spectacular as the sun rose over the predawn heat of the desert. the sky slowly changed from purple to orange and then into light cyan and finally white pastel, as we just stared in silence. Defiently one of the best sunrise experiences we've ever had! We climbed down after an hour and headed over to Ein Gedi at the Dead Sea to experience the floating on the surface, there is just so much salt in the water that there's no way you could sink! Getting tired at this point we traveled over to see the St. Georges Monastary, built into a gorge and the the distant Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. Had lunch in a hot little arab restuarant near Jericho, and then over to the Mount of Olives where Jesus was cruxcified.

TIBERIUS

We had heard that this was a pretty, small resort town on the sea of galilee, which is fed by the Jordan river. It was about 105F with a strong wind blowing the heat at you. We rented bikes and I was ablbe to get up to the northern end of the sea but Davi turned back as the heat could get to be too much, I ducked into a museum that had on display a old roman-era fishing boat (peter's boat?) that also offered relief from the heat as the AC was cranked! On the way back I took a dip in the Sea at sunset and got lost getting back on the road through this family resort. We had dinner a a falafel stand, where you could a loaded up falafel sandwich for only about 5 schekels (S1.25) probably about the best part of Israel for us! The night waterfront action was kind of tacky, with lots of loud and bad euro techno pop and loud groups of guys and girls preened with their high-heels carrying their M-16's!

TEL AVIV

We only spent a couple of nights here,staying in a shabby "chicken-coop" hostel full of foreign long-termers and lots of guys just sitting around watching TV. The next day we picked up some supplies like film, books and video tapes, all very easy since it was so familier to us. Felt like Miami here but with that middle eastern bustle. I was able to find a tele-photo lens for my Canon and we checked out the Yemeni market, which wasn't really a relaxing experience by a long shot. Spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach, which had this very fine sand and very warm water. We watched the sunset and then went over to catch the late 1am bus to Eilat down on the Gulf of Aqaba. We got into a last political discussion with a "dwarf" who was very critical of the the US and saw us as all about making money....not the conversation we wanted to have at 1am, but we just let it roll over since this was a view we've heard many times before. The bus was very crowded with young high-schoolers headed down for the weekend, We decided not to stay in Eilat and headed over to Aqaba, our entrance into lower Jordan, Petra and the deserts of Wadi Rum.