Middle East 08

I have resolved to be better about writing these.. I spent this past week on the Sinai Peninsula. For those of you who don’t know, the Sinai Peninsula used to be part of Israel, but was overtaken.  In 1979,  Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in which Israel agreed to transfer all control over Sinai to Egypt, despite the fact that they had recently found oil reserves in Sinai.  Subsequently Israel pulled out of Sinai in several stages, ending in 1982.

Because of a series of bombings in Sinai over the past few years, Israel for the most part no longer visit. It’s unfortunate, because it’s absolutely gorgeous, incredibly relaxing, and unheard of inexpensive. Ironically, the day that I left, a warning was issued for the entire Peninsula, mainly the East coast (where I was), because of some recent kidnappings.

Here is the alert:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1002388.html

So Sinai – there isn’t a ton to do, except relax. That is, after finally crossing the border. Both sides (Israel and Egypt) are weary of anyone crossing, and it’s double-frustrating because there is now only one pass through open (the other is in Gaza). Once I arrived on in Egypt territory, my backpack was searched extensively. The guy checking my bag found an “In Touch” magazine that a friend brought me from the US last week. He looked through the entire magazine, then called over 2 other guards to look specifically at one picture. I wanted them to just confiscate the mag, but eventually they gave it back. I took note of the page they were so concerned with and looked after I was deemed safe. It was a picture for an allergy medication of a dog walking with an 8 pound bag on his back. Go figure.

So, last Thursday, I took an 8am express bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat. It took about 4 and half hours to get down to Eilat, then another bus from the station to the Taba border, then an hour and a half to cross the border, then finally, haggled a cab from there to Dahab (another 2 hours), and finally got to our destination. Upon arrival, it’s very confusing.. there is a main road, and then one “street” over is the water. Dahab is located on the Gulf of Aqaba – the part of the Red Sea that separates Egypt from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was shockingly close. Anyway, the “boardwalk” next to the water is filled with Bedoin Cafes. There are tables, which no one chooses to sit at, and tons of Bedoin style seating – rugs on the floor with huge pillows to lean on. Across from every café is a guest house of sorts and a dive center. Each offering the same up front prices, but after haggling everything is drastically different from one place to the> next.

Anyway, the first night settled on a place called the Diver’s House, for about 5 bucks a piece. A pretty nice room – considering. The food is pretty much the same at every place, and is pretty good. Every day I got the “Egyptian Breakfast”, which was around 13LE (Egyptian pounds, which were 5.3 to the dollar). It was a very cheap week I spent in Dahab. Time escapes there, I was supposed to go to Sharm El Sheik, but was enjoying my time so much in Dahab that I couldn’t be bothered to leave. I’m now trying to return after the India – Jordan leg of my trip. So, the majority of my time was spent relaxing – no Foreign workers, no Israeli babies, no Israeli’s period.

It was a vacation I didn’t think I deserved, but really did enjoy.

> My two big things were snorkeling and hiking. One day we took a jeep ride to an area called the Blue Hole, stopping in Asilah on the way, which I thought I wanted to stay at, but am glad that I didn’t. The Blue Hole is fantastic snorkeling, and we had a guide who didn’t think we saw enough, so took us on foot another mile past the Blue Hole to an area where there was NO ONE but us, the camels, and the fish. It was incredible and beautiful (and about 3 bucks).

My absolute favorite thing that I did was Monday night. We got picked up at 11:30pm and drove an hour and a half with a bunch of Egyptian kids in Med School to Mount Sinai. There, we got a bedoin guide and started to hike Mount Sinai. Here’s the thing about taking these trips – people conveniently leave out important information such as “bring a flashlight, it’s dangerous, it’s 6 kilometers, it’s freezing at the top, hiking shoes are a must”. So anyway, it was crazy. After about 2 and a half miles (up, at a steep incline, and no path – remember this is IN THE PITCH BLACK), one of the Egyptian Med students admits to speaking English and tells us that we still had halfway to go plus 700 stairs. It was unbelievable. We finally got to the top in time for sunrise. Words can’t describe how absolutely incredible it was. After hiking for 5 and a half hours in the dark, to see what we hiked through, and the sheer beauty of it is indescribable. So I won’t try.

Here is a history lesson: According to Bedouin tradition, this is the mountain where God gave laws to the Israelites (the Ten Commandments). It’s 2285 meters tall, and, in classical rabbinical literature, Mount Sinai became synonymous with holiness.

So after hiking the 2 and a half hours down, we went to tour Saint
Catherine’s Monastery and to see the burning bush. It’s no longer burning.

> Okay, one more thing about these Bedoin cafes. There are CONSTANTLY little Egyptian girls coming to the table, sitting down, and throwing handmade bracelets at you (both males and females). Their sales pitch is “buy one”. They are amazing.. They have a rebuttal for EVERY excuse (I’m currently wearing 3 bracelets). They’re cute, playful, and fun to haggle with, and to be honest, they kick those chiclet wielding kid’s butts.

A few days before I left, I took a group of 26 Filipinos and their children to Ramat Gan to a zoo safari. We had a bus that my organization paid for, and had a picnic dinner after. The safari was really cool – the first part of it is in the car. I’d heard about these places where you go in your car and the animals come up to the car. They didn’t so much come up to the car, but it was cool to see the animals running freely and to be relatively close. After that portion is a regular zoo. Very fun, and the kids enjoyed it very much. I will have a link to those pictures in the next highly anticipated Jamie update (I’m not on my computer)

> If anyone is interested, here is the link to some of my the pictures from
> Sinai.

> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135164&l=28a2a&id=882065248

> Something I forgot to mention in my last update was a trip I took to the West Bank. The West Bank is a landlocked territory on the west bank of the Jordan River in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south the West Bank shares borders with mainland Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the country of Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coast line along the western bank of the Dead Sea. Since 1967 most of the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation.

Prior to the First World War, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the province of Syria. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War saw the establishment of Israel in parts of the former Mandate, while the West Bank was captured and annexed by Jordan, who destroyed any existing Jewish villages. The West Bank was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War. With the exception of EastJerusalem, the West Bank was not annexed by Israel. Most of the residents are Arabs, although a large number of Israeli settlements have been built in the region since 1967.

> We went to a couple of different neighborhoods “inside the green line”. We learned about life there, how some streets Israeli’s drive on they are constantly pelted with rocks, but choose to live there because it’s still a nice life. Also, we went to a Haredineighborhood, the largest in Israel, called Beit Ilit. This is for the ultra ultra orthodox, as no one else would feel comfortable. The average family has something like 13 kids. It was a different experience to say the least. The point of the trip was really to see how many different groups of people are currently living in the West Bank, and to see how beautiful it is. It’s beautiful, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there.

TODAY, Israel traded Hezbollah members for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, 2 Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah years ago. Here is the article so I don’t mess it up… as of now, they are still confirming that the bodies they received are in fact these two individuals.

> http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_1sNh-s2y5awFnfghf9Hpbo-uRA.

Okay, I checked again before sending and it was confirmed. this is a better article:

> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/16/2305933.htm

> Luckily I was babysitting and got to watch it on the news..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.