8-9 March
My last day in Israel, assuming my Egypt visa comes through tomorrow morning. I have a cold, I'm tired of shared-room hostels, and as I've traveled south from Jerusalem over four days I've been largely alone. I'll be in just three hotels (Cairo, Luxor, Istanbul) for my last sixteen days so, as with Jerusalem, I'll meet other travelers.
Eilat is right beside Aqaba (Jordan) on the Gulf, a patch of Cancun and an intentional antithesis of Jerusalem.
Still, look away from the commercial trash and it is beautiful, Gulf, Mountains of Moab, part of what I think is called the African Rift.
One end of the Israel Trail, through the Eilat Mountains, which I did a few miles of.
This is where T.E. Lawrence found glory, at least in the movie (LZ can recite the next 45 minutes of dialog):
Sherif: You are mad. To come to Aqaba by land, you should have to cross the Nefud Desert.
Lawrence: That's right.
Sherif: The Nefud cannot be crossed.
Lawrence: I'll cross it if you will.
Sherif: You! It takes more than a compass Englishman. The Nefud is the worst place God created.
Lawrence: I can't answer for the place, only for myself. Fifty men?
Sherif: Fifty? Against Aqaba?
Lawrence: If fifty men came out of the Nefud, there would be fifty men other men might join. The Howeitat are there I hear.
Sherif: The Howeitat are brigands. They will sell themselves to anyone.
Lawrence: Good fighters, though.
Sherif: Good...yes. There are guns at Aqaba.
Lawrence: They face the sea, Sherif Ali, and cannot be turned round. From the landward side, there are no guns at Aqaba.
Sherif: With good reason. It cannot be approached from the landward side.
Lawrence: Certainly the Turks don't dream of it. (He points in the direction of Aqaba.) Aqaba is over there. It's only a matter of going.
Sherif: You are mad.
I am, of course, up early in the hostel, rewarded by a solemn desert dawn. The guy who works the night shift is a tall, mid-20s Israeli who washed out of the military due to alienation and who has contempt for his country and for Egypt: he's dubious about its revolution. Each morning he washes the common room floor and tables (moving 30 chairs) in a one-hand exercise accompanied by meditation music. This reminds me that 50 beds in the Nazareth hostel had been occupied by an Israeli Zen Meditation workshop. With all the tension probably a lot of this.
My last day in Israel, assuming my Egypt visa comes through tomorrow morning. I have a cold, I'm tired of shared-room hostels, and as I've traveled south from Jerusalem over four days I've been largely alone. I'll be in just three hotels (Cairo, Luxor, Istanbul) for my last sixteen days so, as with Jerusalem, I'll meet other travelers.
Eilat is right beside Aqaba (Jordan) on the Gulf, a patch of Cancun and an intentional antithesis of Jerusalem.
Still, look away from the commercial trash and it is beautiful, Gulf, Mountains of Moab, part of what I think is called the African Rift.
One end of the Israel Trail, through the Eilat Mountains, which I did a few miles of.
This is where T.E. Lawrence found glory, at least in the movie (LZ can recite the next 45 minutes of dialog):
Sherif: You are mad. To come to Aqaba by land, you should have to cross the Nefud Desert.
Lawrence: That's right.
Sherif: The Nefud cannot be crossed.
Lawrence: I'll cross it if you will.
Sherif: You! It takes more than a compass Englishman. The Nefud is the worst place God created.
Lawrence: I can't answer for the place, only for myself. Fifty men?
Sherif: Fifty? Against Aqaba?
Lawrence: If fifty men came out of the Nefud, there would be fifty men other men might join. The Howeitat are there I hear.
Sherif: The Howeitat are brigands. They will sell themselves to anyone.
Lawrence: Good fighters, though.
Sherif: Good...yes. There are guns at Aqaba.
Lawrence: They face the sea, Sherif Ali, and cannot be turned round. From the landward side, there are no guns at Aqaba.
Sherif: With good reason. It cannot be approached from the landward side.
Lawrence: Certainly the Turks don't dream of it. (He points in the direction of Aqaba.) Aqaba is over there. It's only a matter of going.
Sherif: You are mad.
I am, of course, up early in the hostel, rewarded by a solemn desert dawn. The guy who works the night shift is a tall, mid-20s Israeli who washed out of the military due to alienation and who has contempt for his country and for Egypt: he's dubious about its revolution. Each morning he washes the common room floor and tables (moving 30 chairs) in a one-hand exercise accompanied by meditation music. This reminds me that 50 beds in the Nazareth hostel had been occupied by an Israeli Zen Meditation workshop. With all the tension probably a lot of this.
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