The Holy Land

So I took a 4 day sidetrip to Israel (or did I?). Trying to avoid the Israeli stamp and clear my tracks of any evidence of visiting the holy land turned out to be quite the hassle. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the deal: Some muslim countries absolutely hate Israel (i.e. Iran wants to blow Israel off the map) and as a result, will not issue you a visa if your passport has any proof or suggestions that you visited the Holy Land (countries include: Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia). This meant not only did I need to avoid the Israel stamp, I needed to manage not getting stamped out of Jordan (as this is essentially the same as an Israeli stamp). I'd heard from many fellow travelers that you just simply asked the immigration officer to stamp a seperate sheet of paper. Well...it wasn't quite that simple. Turns out there is only one border crossing which will facilitate the people wishing to avoid the Israeli stamp stigma. At this and only this crossing which runs straight through the West Bank, Jordan doesn't technically stamp anyone out of their country (although you still pay the departure tax) but when you reach the Israeli border, you must be adamant against avoiding the stamp (I met one kid who was stamped into Israel before he could ask otherwise). This special request, of course, raises suspicion as to why you would want to avoid the stamp and leads to being 'detained' for hours with other suspicious characters (namely Palestenians wanting to return to their families) until the interrogation room and interrogator could hear your case. Israel won't just let anyone into their country, they are paranoid beyond belief (and rightfully so) and they suspect and assume that everyone wants to take them down. I met a jewish kid from New York who was detained because he said his middle name was Allen, but with a nasal clog, it may have sounded like he said 'Ali', a significant figure in Islamic history. Wow....I was detained for 2.5 hours and when my interrogation time came, they asked about my visit to Pakistan, Tajikistan, Syria and Lebanon. At first I thought it to be a little much but then again, I've heard that America's immigration officers ask you to check:

'Are you a terrorist?'

()Yes

()No

So I sucessfully avoided the stamp, and within 2 hours I had a pocked full of Shekels (the coolest name for a currency in the world) and I was feasting on turkey (a proper one), stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy cooked over a hot plate, macaroni and cheese (hot plate) and pasta salad. It was Thanksgiving afterall and the Americans abroad united in a hostel in Jerusalem to enjoy the event (the other foreigners were amazed at the amount of food we consumed).

Jerusalem is an amazing place. If not, simply due to the fact that it holds so much religious significance to so many different people. In one corner you have hisitic jews head banging like they're listening to rock music, with one hand on the temple's wall and the other holding open one of their many holy books (an amazing sight to behold!), in the other city corner you have masses of muslims who come to pray at the Noble Sanctuary (Dome of the Rock) which is one of the holiest sights in Islam (next to Mecca and Medina) which is the location of the prophet Mohammed's ascent into heaven (with the angel Gabriel). So it's not only one of the holiest of places for both Jews and Muslims, it's also, for Christians, the location of the Church of the Holy Wisdom where an inscription tells of Jesus's birth to Mary and the location where Abraham was told by God to sacrifice Isaac his oldest son in a test of faith. This place has a holy feel to it, and it's seperated into a Muslim area, Christian area and a Jewish area. On top of that, modern day Jerusalem is crawling with tourists and vendors of all sorts of gizmos and useless crap. This is probably the most American tourists I've seen in one place thus far.

Orthodox Jews worshipping at the Western Wall

Streets of Jerusalem at night

Jerusalem with Dome of the Rock

The next morning, still shaking off the Turkey hangover, I took a 45 minute ride to Tel Aviv, a very modern Israeli city on the Mediterranean Coast. By the way, you could probably circum-navigate Israel in about 5 hours (it's a really small country).

Tel Aviv

My four day Israel tour was up and after a quick visit to Jesus's manger in Bethlehem, I was back in Jordan with a pocket full of Dinars and a passport devoid of an Israeli visit.

Remeber how I mentioned I was hit by my first Jordanian rock on the first day I entered the country? Well....Jordan kids are the worst stone throwers I've ever seen! They come running to the road, waving and yelling 'welcome' (with one hand behind their backs). As soon as I turn my back, the stones come flying! I've gotten really good at avoiding the situation all together, never turning my back to the kids, changing to the opposite lane of traffic so there is another car inbetween me and the kids, or just simply ducking my head and cycling really fast (they hardly ever actually hit me). So I camped the other night in a small patch of flat land, depressed from the surrounding road just within a small village in southern Jordan. I didn't arrive at the village until about 10 pm, so I couldn't see extremely well. I awoke the next morning promptly at 7 am to the sound of smacks on my tent. Sure enough, my tent was being pelted with stones from kids on their way to school, like 50 of them and some of the stones were not small at all. Once the hail storm was over, I cautiously exited my tent (wishing I had a pellet gun) and found a large gash in my rainfly (rendering my rainfly basically worthless) and my bike had 2 badly bent spokes. And of course the spokes were on the cassette side, which required removal of the cassette (a timely process). That wasn't exactly the best foot to start the morning out on, and my mood turned pretty foul. Jordanian kids were now the enemy and I wanted them to feel my pain. To know how difficult it is to travel in a foreign land, not to mention having to worry about getting a concusion from little hellians. It wasn't until I reached Petra later that afternoon and explained the events to an elder Jordanian man smoking a shisha that I felt better. He put it to me like this....'I goto your country and someone says' [at this point he makes a gun with his fingers and points it at my face] 'give me your money. Here is no problem'. And he was exactly right, I probably woundn't last 5 days riding a bicycle through America before I was jumped. If all I have to worry about are kids throwing stones, I've got it pretty good.

So I spent the next day reliving scenes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in Petra with my new Italian friend, Aliche (Ali-chey).