From St. Catherine's Monastery we began a very curvy and wild ride DOWN to sea level. I wasn't sure my ears would ever pop or pressurize. We could all feel the extreme elevation change in our bodies and in the water bottles on the bus as we began our ride down toward Taba on the Red Sea. As we traveled, all the water bottles on the bus would creak and snap as the pressure became greater outside than inside, causing the plastic bottles to cave in slightly.
Map showing Eilat, Israel on the tip of the second finger of the Red Sea
If you look at the map of the Red Sea, you will notice it has two "fingers" - one of the fingers is known as the Gulf of Aqaba (That's what the Jordanians call it.) where we stopped for lunch at the Taba Hilton Resort Hotel. I didn't know it at the time but, on October 7, 2004, the Hilton Taba was hit by a bomb that killed 34 people (BBC), including Israeli vacationers. Glad that piece of info was not made available to me until I was safely home. :)
View of the lovely pool from our restaurant at the Taba Hilton, Egypt. Notice the Red Sea in the background, as well as the mountains of Jordan, beyond.
We weren't worried about bombs at the time, but were complaining about the overpriced buffet meal our tour guide had "arranged" for us and wishing there was a more economical option, especially since we were all tired and not at all hungry. We ate in a beautiful setting (see picture around the pool) with a lot of red (sunburned) Europeans in skimpy outfits enjoying their vacation along the ocean. (Mental Note: - Remember Sea of Aqaba for playing Hangman and Scrabble -a word with no "u" after the "q" might come in handy in a Trivia game someday).
This resort area along the Red Sea, sometimes called the Red Sea Riviera, is very popular among scuba divers and snorkelers and has beautiful coral reefs, incredible sea life, as well as the interesting arid desert mountains as a backdrop. From the remote village of Taba where we "enjoyed" lunch, we were only a short drive to the border crossing in Eilat - the southern most tip of Israel.
Across the beautiful Gulf of Aqaba, known as the Gulf of Eilat to the Israelis, you can clearly see the Mountains of Jordan, their port city Aqaba, and a little to the Southeast - Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is technically still at war with Israel - and seeing how very close they are to Israel gives you more sensitivity to Israel's unhappiness with the US supplying the Saudis with up-to-date arms.
We were finally on our way out of Egypt and into Israel through the Taba border crossing. After a very short jaunt through through Eilat, Israel, we crossed out of Israel and into Jordan via the Yitzhak Rabin border crossing.
Crossing two borders in one afternoon is always difficult, but our border crossings were even more exciting! After lunch, we said goodbye to our Egyptian guide - Emad, and our bus driver -and our "shadow". Have I mentioned that throughout Egypt, we has an armed "guard" supplied (and required) by the government of Egypt? He followed us everywhere we went and was our constant companion. We were adamantly instructed not to take pictures of him and not to talk to him. He worked for the government and could use anything we said to him against us. Not really sure what that meant - but we complied. Anyway.... I digress. We said goodbye and they unloaded all of our suitcases on the side of the road. We had to carry/pull all our belongings in the hot sun about two blocks toward the Israeli border.
There were armed Israelis everywhere - but unlike Egypt - these young men and women were in plain clothes. I remembered that all Israeli citizens serve in the military for a minimum of two years when they reach the age of 18 and so I figured that was why their border guards where so "hip" looking and attractive.
We were herded into a large covered building that housed a long zig zag line to the first step of crossing the border. It kind of reminded me of waiting for your favorite roller coaster ride at Six Flags - pressed up against hot sweaty people, waiting in line for the next adventure. We were encouraged by the guards to squeeze in and we were there with other international tourists waiting to get across.
View of the Taba Border Crossing From Egypt into Eilat, Israel
The first step was to show our passports and answer questions about our travel. The second step was to take our luggage through their X-ray machines, go though metal detectors ourselves, and have our belongings searched, the third stage was to again show our passport and to answer even more questions about our travel, if anyone had given us anything to bring to Israel, was everything in our suitcase ours, why were we here, where were we staying, etc. Then there was a 4th station for showing our passports again and answering still more questions.
Some of our group had already completed the first stage of interrogations and were sending their luggage through the xray machines when all of a sudden an alarm went off and from everywhere you could see armed Israeli guards running through the building, leaping over barricades, readying their weapons - M4s.
Wow! Mark saw one of the International travelers tackled to the ground. The Israelis were closing the border due to a security breech, (apparently) and we were being yelled at and told to evacuate the building immediately. We weren't sure whether to leave our luggage or drag it with us. The instructed us to leave our luggage where it was (normally a tabu) and to move away quickly. There was a mass exodus from our building and the building beyond - and quite a panic. Over the melee' we could also hear some of the border guards encouraging us to remain calm and not to worry. Ha!
We waited outside near the Red Sea for things to settle. Apparently, as best we could tell, they discovered an unattended suitcase that looked suspect. Of course, they have to be cautious about these kinds of things. We could repeatedly hear over the intercom that they were going to blow up a suitcase and that we would hear the explosion and should not be alarmed!
They eventually allowed us back into the building and we continued snaking through the zig zag line to the next interrogation station across the border. Unfortunately, the guards didn't like my new ebag (You know I look just like a terrorist!) - and she asked me to open every pocket as she searched it carefully. She took all of my books (Bible, journal, Voddie Baucham) and thumbed through every page as if looking for something. She ran my suitcase through the machine several times - maybe my cans of chicken were suspect!
Anyway - they finally let us all go - after waiting for several hours- and we exited the building on the Israeli side - and found our next bus - an Israeli bus. We had a new driver, and a new guide. This new guide gave us a quick tour of Eilat as we passed through on our way to the next border crossing - the Israeli Jordanian border.
Important Port and Lush Resort of Eilat, Israel
Originally, we were scheduled to actually "visit" Eliat and spend some time there, but due to the recent terrorist threat on the Sinai Peninsula (kidnapping Israelis), we had to just cruise on through this southern most port and resort of Israel seeing it only briefly through the windows of our bus. Whew. After the bomb scare - I was okay with not stopping.
Again we were dropped off on the side of the road, our suitcases unloaded for us to carry across the next border. The border to Jordan was not as sophisticated as Israel. Their X-ray machines were broken and so they had to search all our luggage by hand. There was a very long no-man's land that we had to cross one by one as they released our luggage to us- seems like it was at least 100 yards wide. I felt a little like I was on the set of MASH as I walked across a bridge with rolls of barbed wire and walls topped with spikes.
I was really feeling weary - still recovering from my all-night trek up Sinai and now our long jaunt across the borders toting heavy duffle bags and strapped down with a bulky backpack. It was rather surreal - In Jordan, they actually took all our passports away and had us wait in a shelter (where they sold cokes and souvenirs as they checked and stamped our passports). Finally our passports were returned to us and we were allowed to walk - yet again, about a block to the awaiting Jordanian bus. A third bus, a third bus driver, and a third tour guide for our third country of the day - and this time a Jordanian armed "shadow" to accompany us!
View of the Yitzhak Rabin Border crossing between Israel and Jordan - Not our group in picture!
As our group was boarding the bus, I noticed a commotion outside our bus. Evan was having a severe nose bleed. He was perched uncomfortably on a cement pillar and he was trying to stop the blood flow. He was surrounded by Jordanian border guards, police, our tour guide, our shadow - all trying their home remedies to stop nose bleeds. Poor guy - they were pouring ice cold water on his nose, over his head - massaging his neck, rubbing his head, and giving him all kinds of suggestions- all kinds of crazy ideas. They even wanted to take him to the hospital. It bled pretty badly for about 20 minutes - and then stopped enough for him to get on the bus and continue to our hotel. Poor guy - poor Mom!
We are pretty sure that Evan's sinuses were revolting from all the dry, dusty, arid air, the pollution of Cairo - not to mention the pulverized camel excrement that we had been breathing all night on Sinai - and of course the extreme changes in elevation only exacerbated his problem. It's funny how our bodies tend to cleanse and take care of themselves, isn't it?
I don't remember much of the rest of our drive through Jordan. I was so tired I couldn't hold my eyes open - no matter how hard I tried. Our new Jordanian guide - Fadi, told us all about his country's history and about the land through which we were traveling. When we arrived at the Petra Panorama Hotel; it was dark and they were waiting dinner on us - due to our little emergencies at the border crossings.
We had a nice dinner and headed to bed. As we prepared to turn in for the night, Evan and Graham came knocking on our door. They were laughing as they escorted us to see their room. For some reason, they had been given this HUGE room with a living room and separate bedroom. It looked like a presidential palace - or at least a honeymoon suite. It had a HUGE bed with lattice work and curtains and red velvet blankets and pillows. Quite swanky. I was hoping Evan's nose held up through the night - especially on those crisp white linens. We were simply too tired to trade bedrooms - so the boys got the dream suite - for the night! I think after all this - they deserved it!
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