Hanukkah - Part 2: Aquariums and Canyon Hikes

The next day in Eilat dawned bright, but had a chill in the air....I feel foolhearted saying that since I'm a born and bred Vermonter, who's survived many a bitter winter. But keep in mind, that I've been in the country for almost four months now, in a place that sits along the same fault line as the Great Rift Valley and gets some of its weather from Jordan and Syria. So in the past couple of months my blood has thinned and my cold resistance tolerance has plummeted. [This will be an important detail to keep in mind for later in this tale!]

The weather had a bit of a brisker quality about it, but we were still on the beaches of the Red Sea where the coral reefs are legendary and dolphins leap playful to the cheers of tourists and their children...all for the right price, of course.  Let's not forget, it's Eilat - a paradisaical dream with illusions of Vegas grandeur and Atlantic City prosperity, only to be tempered by a proclivity towards conservatism, not suited for gambling, fast women and binge drinking, so it abates itself with duty free shops. 

Little Dory fish swimming through her reef-y world

First stop for Jessica, Joe and I was to the Underwater Observatory Marine Park, a park and aquarium which features shark feedings, a glass tunnel completely made of glass for 360 degrees of exotic fish viewing and the ability to take selfies with stingrays as well as an underwater observing station so one can see the colors of the Red Sea coral reefs from 42 meters (137.8 ft) under the waves. 

Aforementioned selfie with stingray

Photo op from the top of the observatory, with Jordan mountains in the background

Afterwards, the three of us made a quick stop at a grocery store - after the previous night's disastrous subsistence (primarily for everyone but Joe) we were trying to take precautions of being savvy on our wallets as well as our bellies. So we swung by a grocery store and grabbed what I would call a college kid's worst nightmare of pittance - my haul included yogurts, a can of chickpeas and what I imagined must be a frozen meal of vegetables and couscous since that's what the delicious looking picture on the box depicted! (Foreshadowing). 

We stopped by the Airbnb villa, ate our pitiful lunch, from which I can report that eating a can of chickpeas is just as pathetic as it sounds, and headed back out, this time driving away from Eilat and along the Egypt border.  We were so close to the Egyptian border that the road took us right along the heavily fortified fence,so we could see views of the desolate Sinai Desert.

Jessica at the wheel, with the Egyptian border on the left.

A must have fashion accessory: the fanny pack

Our destination was a hike called Red Canyon, which I had found out about from some stunning picture from National Geographic, as well as the reputable source of Trip Adviser. The latest review of the hike said that the hike was posted as closed due to water damage, but to ignore that warning and hike on - it wasn't that damaged & the hike was negatable. On the way down some dirt and rock roads not meant to be traverse by Nissan Micra, we passed other tourists being turned around and a sort of park ranger who told us the trail was closed. But I held onto the words of Trip Adviser to ignore all of this and press on - not easy to convince my group of, but they did it! When we reached the lower parking lot and got out to take a look around, we saw people coming up the trail! Lots of people, actually - everyone from a stoner teenage kid to a mom originally from Canada with her three kids! I insisted that if they could do it, so could we, so I coerced my intrepid group to press on for views that would be worth it! 

Well, big thank you to the dauntless reviewers at Trip Adviser - they were not wrong. We maneuvered across some challenging descents by rung across some rock faces, but the reward was completely worth it! 

The closest thing the scalloped red rock faces of the canyon brought to mind was scenes of Tatooine from Star Wars [which still have yet to see!].

We wrapped up the hike and headed back over the mountains, the sun was slipping beneath the horizon casting showed lines across the ancient mountains.Their faces exposed colorful rock layers of black and red that had bore witness to thousands of years of history, different empires, religions and leaders.  It was a moment of profound awareness of how small of an entity I was, but also the kismet of being able to tread this are at this place and time.  

Naturally, we were all really hungry after the hike, so when we returned to the villa,Joe, Jessica and I got busy making our supermarket bought meals. Joe had a pizza of questionable taste (Israel is not a nation known for it's pizza making prowess) and Jess and I had the alleged frozen couscous meal, which I imagined was like the Annie's meals I knew and loved back home!  

Unfortunately, high expectations are never a good thing to have in Israel - the meal turned out to be just 2+ pounds of frozen couscous in a Tupperware and that was our one meal option.  So night two in Eilat ended with us dining on a meal of couscous flavored with dry soup mix made up by the culinary mastery of Jessica.  It was one of the most hilarious concoctions I've ever eaten, but hey it worked!

New lows of gourmet were reached that night.

We went to beds tucked into our little bunk beds, woke up the next morning and grabbed our bags to catch the van that would take us to the Jordanian border crossing.  

Hanukkah - Part 1: A Road Trip of Biblical Proportions

If your idea of a holiday doesn't involve driving a car through disputed territory, along the lowest, most uninhabitable place on earth, then hiking through deserts, crossing through heavily militarized borders, viewing world wonders and spending a frigid night beneath a sky full of stars -- well, you're not really living!

This odyssey began, as any does, with an idea: the lost city of Petra had peered out at me from the pages of national geographic, textbooks, and of course, Indiana Jones. 

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and his father ( Sean Connery, since who else could be Indiana's dad!?) are archaeologists who preserve the moral balance of history, by following treasure maps where X marks the spot, knocking over thousand year old, undiscovered tombs and breaking a lot of stuff - all to the battle cry of "It belongs in an museum!!!" 

[Seriously, they don't make movies like that any more, unless Star Wars delivers.] 

Much to the chagrin of the Nazis, the Joneses are getting pretty close to locating the Holy Grail, reputed to grant eternal life, and if there's one thing that really gets the Nazis panties in a bunch, it's life granting wine glasses; it's very aligned with Hitler's plans of world domination. 

Naturally, the only place you could hide the Holy Grail would be a lost city, so the whole gang: Nazis, Jones and all, come to the lost city of Petra. The city of Petra actually once was  actually "lost".  It slipped from memory and history books and was only known by Bedouin shepherds who transverse the rocky mountainsides with their goats and camels. Then in 1812, a Swiss explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt tricked and coerced his way with the Bedouins, into revealing Petra's location and the Western World became aware of its existence again. 

The mysterious nature of the ancient red rock structures of Petra would entrance the imaginations of many, including me as I watched Indiana race across the screen to "choose wisely" through his knowledge of archaeology and quick wits! 

Most likely, you are not reading this for a synopsis of the movie and historical background, you actually want to hear about my adventures. So how do three Americans on Hanukkah break get themselves to the famed rose colored walls of Petra? They rent a car, of course!

My roommate Jessica is one of those people who has the road in her blood, so she was naturally at the wheel to handle the enterprising idiocry with which Israelis approach driving. I was up front, next to her in the passenger seat to navigate and Joe rounded us out in the back seat of our little Nissan Micra.  On the stereo, heavy metal guitar pounded out a beat as we rounded the twists and turns of highway 90 towards the West Bank. Jessica and Joe love their metal, so my soft indie music suggestions were outnumbered. There's something about the timeless, forlorn, jagged edges of the desert that really vibes well with metal; so as soundtracks go, this felt apropos. 

It only takes a few minutes to reach the border of the West Bank after you leave Beit She'an (we are closer to Jordan and the West Bank than any major Israeli cities). From what you read in the news about the West Bank, you would imagine it's very well fortified and maintained, so that passing through it is an ordeal...well, we didn't even come to a full stop.  We were waved right through. 

The drive continued down 90 which wove itself between mountains and the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth's surface. Its surface and shores are 429 meters below sea level. All three of us have visited before on Birthright and subsequent MASA trips, so we didn't need to find a spa and take a dip in the salty waters, but we couldn't pass up the chance to take advantage of the photo op to kick off the road trip.

Road trip crew assembled!!!

Another notable site that we drove by was the alleged location of Sodom, a city mentioned in the Book of Genesis for its evil residents, who were smitted (Smitten? Smote? Please give me feedback on what's grammatically correct in the comments) by god in a rain of fire and brimstone - since god has never been one for half-assed measures. The only one spared was Lot, his wife and his daughters, who were warned of the eminent destruction of the city by angels sent from god. They packed their things and sped away, but not before Lot's wife dared a peek back over her shoulder at the destruction of their home. And poof! She turned into a pillar of salt! This being the area of the Dead Sea and all, she was in good company. 

If you want to read more about this, check out The Harlot by the Side of the Road by Jonathan Kirsch for a really daring, racy read. It's not every day that one drives through the location of the lewdest biblical tales, so we stopped for another photo. 

Yep, that's Mt. Sodom.  Not much to look at!

Now, nothing but miles of road stood between us and the southern tip of Israel, Eilat. This stretch of drive took us through the Negev desert. If you've ever wondered what it might be like to drive on the surface of the moon, to the best of my knowledge this would be the way to experience it. The desert is just endless stretched of barren nothingness as far as the eye can see. Rock structures rounded and twisted from the wind into strange foreign shapes pass by you. As the sun sets, the mountains on either side of you begin to turn a hazy purple,adding to the unearthly quality of this landscape.

It was just as the sun set below the horizon that we pulled into Eilat.  Eilat sits at the very bottom tip of Israel jutting into the Red Sea. It's bordered on one side by Jordan and on the other by Egypt and the Sinai desert. To best picture the city itself, imagine a shrunk down Vegas strip, wrap it in a shawarma to give it a middle eastern vibe and then throw in duty free shopping since everything there is tax free. 

For lodging, I had obtained a room in a villa for the three of us on Airbnb. Our host, Dan, greeted us and showed us around the house, which was neat, clean and functioned as a club house of sorts for Dan and his buddy's diving school! Pretty cool.

Since it was getting late and we hadn't eaten all day, we all grabbed jackets (since when you've adjusted to 75 degree temperatures daily, you chill easy) and headed down to the strip on the boardwalk. Over the next few hours, beneath the bright lights of Eilat that advertised duty free, American products, we learned that Eilat is not a city known for affordable or delectable food. Jessica and I, both vegetarians found some weird soy by-product to eat, while Joe adventurously filled up on fried tonsil or sweetbreads at one of those tourist trap restaurants.  

However, we had made it from Beit She'an to Eilat, down the length of the Dead Sea to the Red Sea in one piece.  We all went to bed in our bunk beds that night very excited for the next parts of our adventure over the coming days!