Eilat, Israel

Posted November 12, 2010
Jordan
The man we hired to drive us to the Jordan border was a bit of a wild driver.  At one point a semi has to swerve to avoid us.  Then our driver said lots of angry arabic words and made some hand gestures at the semi driver.  yikes.  I said a prayer that we'd get to the Israli border safely.

Eilat, Israel
What a treat to be in a clean, westernized country!  I am amazed at the difference between Israel as compared to Jordan and Egypt and they are all right next to each other.  Eilat is situated between Egypt and Jordan, a 15 minute drive through Eilat separates them.

I am amazed to see women again.  Israeli women everywhere working, walking on the streets, etc.  Local women were rare to see in Egypt, and I don't think I saw one in Jordan.  Plus women in Israel dress just like Canadians - shorts, tank tops, it seems like so much skin after 15 days of women in burqas and head coverings - when there were women to be seen.    Even seeing a woman's hair feels strange.

At the grocery store in Eilat, we got chatting with the local guy ahead of us in line.  Unbelievably - he is moving to a small town in Saskatchewan to learn to make musical instruments!!  It is truly a small world.

Friday morning we went to the Coral World Underwater Observatory by public bus.  It was fantastic seeing more of the fish I'd snorkeled with and the bright colors of coral - which look like plants but are animals because they have a mouth and a stomach.  what a beautiful rainbow of life God created under the sea!  The washrooms at the Observatory were so clean and modern, I wanted to take a photo, the best I've seen since the trip began.

We took a public bus from Eilat to Jerusalem from 1-5:30pm.  We drove through a  part of the Negev desert, past an enormous magnesium plant and along the Dead sea.  There were 2 american girls behind us on the bus and their speech was very irritating.  One girl easily said "like" three times in every two sentences.  what the world must think of north american speech!

Jerusalem is a large city, and we arrived on Sabbath, so the taxi to Jaffa Gate was double the price.  Israel is expensive, period.  Hard to adjust to the prices, even food costs, after being in two inexpensive countries.

Today I am really missing Dale and my boys  :-(