The Journey to Jerusalem

The Journey To Jerusalem

I'm not really sure how I'm even going to tell this story, but I'l do me best. I guess I'll just start from the beginning.

At 4:00am I waited with my backpack out in front of my hotel. I'd had nothing but a short nap (about 1 hour) for sleep that night. The car that was to pick me up was late, and I made a deal with myself, that if the car did not show up by half past, I would catch a taxi to the airpot, and fly to Jerusalem. However, at about 4:20, the car I was looking for pulled around the corner. The first thing that suprised me was that Wyheed had brought with him a friend sitting in the front seat. I thought it was going to be just Wyheed, but I guess it made sense that he was there to switch driving with Wyheed so he didn't have to drive the whole time. I got into the car and we were off. I had had a talk with my parents the night before about being careful, so when Wyheed told me I should sleep, I respectdfully declined, and so stayed up the whole time.

As we drove through the Sahara I got to see a beautiful Sahara sunrise over the sand dunes. On the way we drove by Mt. Sinai, so I'm very glad I got to see that, and It seemed funny to me that all this was just everyday monotony to them. About 5 and a half hours into the desert, smoke starts to permiate from the hood of the car. The two of them yell at eachother in Arabic and pulled the car to one side of the road. They opened the hood, and plumes of smoke made the situation look pretty grim. We were now stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert, and they had just used the last of our water to douse the flames from the burning engine. I really wasn't sure what to think. I had never in my life thought I would find myself stranded in the Sahara Desert with no water, its just not one of those things you really think about as a kid from Orange County. I had asked God for some turmoil in my life, and boy if he did'nt deliver. That's really what held me through this situation, and what was to come. I had asked God for all of it. So I tried to just close me eyes and enjoy it; take it all in. After some time, Wyheed's friend hitchhiked his way back to the last checkpoint and found an American that was willing to take me the rest of the way while they both waited for a toe truck. The American's name was George. He had lived in Egypt for ten years now with his family, which he said was the longest he'd ever stayed in one place since he was 18 and left his family and friends in Illinois to travel the world, and he just never came back. George had shaggy silver hair, and aviator fraimed glasses. His face wore an expression that said he had seen everything this world had to offer. He spoke with a kind of culture savy, that only comes from years of travel. I told him who I was and what I was doing here, and I thanked him for picking me up. I asked him what other places he's lived, and he said "Oh, just about everywhere" and began to list off a few: Libia, Sudan, Germany, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon... We discussed the differences between the U.S. And here in the middle east. He spoke harshly about the media and how it portrayed other countries of the world. He told me quite fervently, "No other country loves Americans as much as Iran." He seemed to think that America's policies were deeply rooted in the deception of the American people, and was adament about the idea that a person has to travel to a place to figure out what it's really like. We drove on through the beautiful Sahara Canyons to a town called Neweiba, where I was to catch my ferry to Jordan. George stayed with me until we were sure I'd found the ticket booth, and knew where the dock was, and then we said goodbye.

I got up to the ticket booth after having to withdrawl some more cash from a semi-near atm. No one seems to take credit cards in the middle east, and I have a weird lock on my atm card that only allows me to take out a couple hundred dollars a day, which has been very troublesome. My ticket across cost me 70 US dollars and he stamped my ticket. I asked when the next ferry left for Jordan, and he told me 5:00pm. Well it was now 12:00pm, and the ferry across the Red Sea takes about 2 hours. So at this point, getting to Petra and up to Israel is one day was out of the question. This news was very discouraging. I had really wanted to see petra, and now I'd have to sit in Neweiba for the next 5 hours.

Neweiba is a lot like Mexico in the fact that it's beautiful, with a gorgeous coast line, but absolutely filthy. I walked into the departure gate where I would have to wait for 5 hours and I immediately caught siphilus. The place was packed with a thousand people who had not even seen a shower in weeks, some sprawled out sleeping on the benches, others washing their feet in the bathroom sink. The flies were having a field day inside the enclosed, humid building, where the smell of sweat and body odor saturated the air. I found a spot on a wooden bench next to a man who looked like one you would see on an infomercial with Susan Surandan, and sat myself down to survey the situation. I decided I didn't really want to stay here, and dying of heat exhastion seemed to me a better idea than malaria, so I put on my extreamly heavy pack, and went out to explore the docks. The docks here were massive, it took forever to get to either side of them, but as I neared the edge where I might sit next to the water, a guard called to me in Arabic. "What you are doing? You go back, now!" He said to me in broken english. He was holding an automatic rifel, so I didn't argue with the man, I just made my way back to the departure terminal. I didn't want to go back inside, so I found a shady place outside and layed down, resting my head on my backpack to try to catch some sleep. Although, I couldn't get much because the flies were everywhere landing on my face, and waking me up again.

When it was finally time to board, I walked back down to the docks, and waited for an hour for everyone to get off the ferry before we could get on. I got to the front of the line and the guard took my ticket and passport and he looked through it, and then brought his buddy over, so I knew something was wrong. "You have no stamp here." He told me. I said yes I did, it was here on my ticket! He pointed to may passport and said "No stamp! You have to have a stamp from the departure gate, go back!" So I ran back to the departure gate as fast as I could, and finally found the place I needed to get my stamp from. The stamping guy took his time getting it just right as I was standing there about to explode. Finally he finished and I ran out of the gate. I noticed that there were some busses taking people to the dock, so I hoped on one of those. I use the term "bus" very loosely. What it really was was a tube of sheet metal with wheels and an engine. Inside they cramed in 100 people and only the very front had seats, and the rest was standing only. So I stood there thinking it wouldn't be long, it'd be faster than walking, and less tiresome. I was wrong again. I don't even know what went on because everyone was screaming in Arabic, but the bus was not moving for several minutes now, and there was no breathable air left. I felt myself wanting to faint. I hadn't eaten anything since lunch the day before, and I'd had very little water, and carried that backpack on my shoulders for the last 4 or 5 hours. My arms went numb, so I tried to move my shoulder straps around to keep the circulation going, to little avail. I couldn't let myself pass out here, I just couldn't afford it. I kept my mind concentrated, and breathed deeply and slowely. After about 20 more minutes the bus began to move. I got to the ferry to Aqaba, Jordan, and leaped onboard just in time, and got situated in my seat.

During the ferry ride over I dosed off everyonce in a while for a few minutes, giving me as least some strength back. I couldn't understand the voices over the loudspeaker, or anyone around me, so I just watched everyone's body language. At the point I figured we were landing, I got up and walked to the back of the boat. A man in a black leather jacket was there checking passports. He checked mine, and held it up to me. "You have no stamp!" "You've got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed, and I showed him the place the man in the terminal had stamped. "No" he said, "you had to go to the front of the boat when you got on and get a passport stamp to Jordan. You have not stamp to Jordan, I cannot let you off the boat." Just then a nice older lady from one of the American tours jumped in and talked to the man in Arabic, after a bit she told me that what he's going to do is call some people and see if they can get a stamp here, so that way I don't have to go back to Egypt. I thanked her, and him, and the man took my passport and put it in his pocket. But I had a very uncomfortable feeling that if this guy walked away with my passport, I would never see it again. So I tried to pursuade him to give me back my passport or at least let me follow him as he figured this out, but he wouldn't do it. I was so agitated, I must have been quite a specticle to the other passenger, but he walked off to god knows where with my passport in his pocket.

The ferry landed, and people started unloading. I asked the guards where that man in the leather jacket went, and they pointed me down below. So I went down to the lower deck and got my backpack and fiddle, but he was still nowhere to be found. In a tired panic, I tried to communicate with the guards about where the man in the leather jacket went with my passport, but I some didn't know what I was talking about, and I couldn't understand anything they were telling me. Finally I got the words "Get on bus" and "Immigration office" out of them. So I went out to where the busses were and I saw one with the company logo on it, and I asked the driver if it goes to the immigration office, and he said yes. I took the bus to the immigration office, and wandered around until I found the man in the leather jacket. He told me where to go, and I stood in the immigration office for another hour, while they yelled at eachother in Arabic. Arabic people yell a whole lot. After a while it gets really old. Another man there took me to another room to finally have my passport stamped with the Jordan stamp, and I moved through customes, and tried to figure out now how to get to Jerusalem.

I asked a gaurd on the other side of customs how I could get to Jerusalem from here, and explained that I'm just passing through Jordan to get to Israel. He told me I'd have to first take a taxi to Amman, and then another to Jerusalem because it's too far for one taxi ride. He told me to follow him, and he got me a taxi to Amman for 50 denari which I could only pay the guy in Egyptian pounds and trust that he told me the right conversion rate. The driver was a kid about my age, we haggled furiously over the price, and the conversion rate of the Egyptian pounds, and then he took me to the taxi station for some reason. I asked him what we were doing here, and he said "you are going to Amman." So he loaded my stuff into a black car and talked a bit with the driver, an older man who didn't seem too happy about the whole arrangement, but eventually agreed. There were also 3 other kids about my age in the car, and it seemed to me like all these people new eachother and my taxi driver had just convinced them to do him a favor by driving me to Amman. "I'm not paying anymore money, I told him. To which he replied "No no, No money" and the old man seemed unhappy about that as well. So once again somehow I ended up in the back of some car with 4 other strange Arabs. I felt a little more at ease with this one though, because they were all just kids my age, joking to eachother, and playing car games. The one sitting on my right began talking to me, asking me what I was doing here, where I was going, where I was from and all that. We talked for a bit, and I learned his name was Monsuir. He spoke very good english, better than most of the people I had met here in the middle east, and he served as kind of my unofficial translator for the car ride. He said he was a student here, but he wanted to go to school for financing in the U.S. He asked me if I'd known any good financing schools in the states to look into, and I didn't really but I tried to list off some good schools in the U.S. that might have financing. We talked about school and work and movies and music, and then he asked where I was staying in Amman, and I told him I wasn't I just need to catch a taxi from there to Jerusalem. He said there's no way I'll be able to catch a taxi to Jerusalem tonight, because the trip to Amman is about 4 hours, and then from there to Jerusalem is another 3 and the taxis don't run all night. So I said it looks like I'll have to find a cheap hotel in Amman for the night, and go early in the morning to Jerusalem. He spoke to the driver, and then said he might be able to hook me up with a friend of theirs who owns a hotel in Amman. So I said that'd be great, and I talked to the guy on the phone, and he said he'd even arrange to drive me accross the bridge into Israel in the morning.

So when we arrived to Amman it was just after midnight, and we actually stopped just outside the city next to a man waiting there with his car. I asked what was going on, and Monsuir told me this was the guy I talked to, and he's going to take me from here to where I'm staying. So they loaded up the car and drove off. I shook this new man's hand, not really knowing what to do. He said his name is Turkey, and he'll be taking me to him place, by which I thought he meant his hotel but in more conversation he told me the hotel was full tonight, so he thought I could stay in his home for the night, and it'd be free and I'll have breakfast in the morning before we go. I was just happy to have a bed for the night, so I thanked him, and he drove me to his farmhouse outside the city. There was only one bedroom in his house. It was allined with little cot-like mats on the floor all around the lining of the wall. To use the bathroom you had to walk outside and go into a little shed where there was a little hole in the ground and no light. The whole family slept on the floor on these mats in one room of the house, and me with them. I was so tired though, I didn't care where I slept, I could sleep anywhere. I had no trouble getting to sleep.

In the morning, the children served us breakfast and I washed my hands and face by way of one of the daughter's pouring water into a bowl while I washed. The breakfast was served right there on the ground, and it was quite good. We had fresh boiled eggs from his own chickens, pita bread dipped in olive oil, and some kind of potato thing. Afterwards we dropped the kids off at school, and drove to the bridge to Israel.

Turkey dropped me off, and I payed him for the drive and his hospitality, and then bought a bus ticket accross the border. When I reached customs on the other side, I did my best to find where I was going and did pretty well, just a lot of long lines. As I got my Israel passport stamp, there was an alarm and all the guards rushed the people into one section of the room, and sealed off all the exits. Apparently there was a terrorist scare, but I really wasn't that worried, because by the looks of it, it seemed like they do this a lot, none of the guards looked worried or tense. After about 30-45 minutes the scare was over, and we were allowed back into the rest of the building. I past through customs, exchaged my money for Israeli sheckles, and caught a bus to Jerusalem.

The first thing I did when I got off the bus was walk into the nearest hotel and ask where I was on the map I brought with me for this trip. The clerk told me where we were, and I knew this hotel was too expensive, so I asked about anything cheaper nearby. Iearned of some hostels in Old City, so I walked to there and before long had found one in the christian quarter of Old City Jerusalem. It was amazingly expensive, and the front desk clerk said it was because of this weekend, and this is the tourist season in Israel. So I payed for one night, got situated and went off to explore the city.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T