All the other Israel bits, plus Jordan!

After a lovely couple of days in J-lem as described by Mike, we headed to Tel Aviv to meet up with my parents (yay!). We checked in, asked for a lunch recommendation which we could not find, then got lunch over by the fun artist market. We got back to the hotel to find that my parents were just by looking for us and were apparently at the place we neglected to find (which by the way was apparently delicious). Long story short, WE FOUND THEM! YAY! They invited us to come to their closing dinner with their group so we could meet all their new friends. Dinner was tres chic and it was great to meet all their peeps and get lots of feedback on their general adorability (sometimes you think it’s like babies, you always think your parents are the cutest, but now we know, they are objectively cute ;) After an evening of sitting on our beds catching up and showing off each of the treasures that we had picked up, we got ready for TUTTLE ADVENTURE 2010!


In the morning we got our rental car (my dad and I were the drivers, good times!) and headed south. We grabbed lunch in Be’er Sheva and introduced my parents to the joys of Yotvata chocolate milk (for the uninitiated it is the best chocolate milk in the world made by a kibbutz in the south). We stopped for a quick glance at the Maktesh Ramon (giant crater-y thing), gorgeous, then we drove through it (long, but pretty). Eventually making it to Eilat. Our first night we stayed at the Eilat YHA which as it turns out is gorgeous and cheap. We tossed down our stuff and went for a dip in the Red Sea (you know us, we try out as many bodies of water as possible). Although the water was a little trashy (booo) it was refreshing. The next morning we were picked up early for our trip to Jordan! None of us knew what to expect, but we hoped for the best… The border crossing took a while, but that was to be expected (while we waited my father bought a kefiyah  he looked so legit). Then we hopped on a bus where we heard about Petra & Jordan as we drove. The majority of the group was on the one day tour (in my opinion hardly worth it… so much travel for so little time at Petra). It was then that our NEW camera decided it didn’t want to be used anymore and developed a ‘sensor’ issue. All of a sudden there was a dark smudge over a piece of our lens…. Which apparently happens really rarely with point and shoots (we are just soooo lucky) it’s covered by the warranty, but not until we get home to mail it in… so my generous mother lent us her camera for the remainder. Anywho, on to Petra!

Petra is gorgeous. It is an amazing combination because the natural setting is pretty phenomenal, the stone is a million colors and textures. Then, the Nabbateans carved these incredible tombs into them, blending human creation with incredible natural beauty. In other words, it rocked. You enter through this 1.2 km canyon break (let me tell you, really the only bad thing, you descend almost 2 km into Petra, which means when you are done it’s 2 km UP to get out. Mean Nabbateans.) When you get to the end of the Siq all of a sudden you turn a corner and there it is…. The Treasury. Otherwise known as the cool-ass place at the beginning of the last Indiana Jones movie… It Is spectacular. The funniest part? These enormous and gorgeous carvings… have nothing inside. They are tombs, so like the Treasury is 3 or 4 stories tall, they excavated more than 250 tons of rock to carve it, and there is like a little room with 7 graves inside. It was all about the façade. We hiked around with our crazy-ass guide for a couple of hours (who never could give us a good explanation of when lunch was…) He eventually left us at lunch, and took the rest of the group back to drive back to Israel. We hiked on (well, my parents hung out, Mike and I hiked) another 800 stairs (poor call us) up to the Monastery. It is the largest building in Petra, and it was magnificent, but phew. Quite a hike. We were dog tired by the time we left, but determined to come back for Petra by Night. We had an amazing driver (Yusef) who told us funny stories (what’s the best kind of car… a DONKEY, fuel is cheap and it can go anywhere) dropped us off at our Bedouin tent and picked us up later for PbyN. The Bedouin tent was awesome, more like a Bedouin hotel (my dad couldn’t stop talking it up) and it had the best bathroom I’ve seen in Jordan. It was lovely and peaceful and the guys who run it were very nice. My dad got a great kefiah tying lesson from one of the old guys the next day.

We did Petra by Night, which was cool. It would have been cooler with about 400 less people, and a number fewer idiots. It’s a candle-light walk down the Siq ending with tea and Bedouin music by the treasury. They ask people to walk without flashlights and without taking photos so people can walk in peace by night vision, which is lovely (granted, it could use a little more light, but Jordan is just working out their tourist industry) but dumbasses couldn’t stop taking pictures, even when people were performing. I yelled at one guy, who’s wife explained that they weren’t coming during the day (terrible call, you really can’t see it at night). And I think my dad was close to bludgeoning a few people. But it was pretty and peaceful all the same.

The following morning I realized I had the craziest blisters ever (to be fair, we probably walked about 7 miles in crazy heat) including one I called the alien because it was about the size of the toe it was on… Anywho, it was a low walking day for me. We took a Jeep tour (really the back of a truck) through Wadi Rum, which is gorgeous. We had an amazing driver named Mohammed (who’s dad is mostly retired but has a bunch of camels that roam free in Wadi Rum, apparently he is quite the camel tracker) and it was a super fun day. We ended back in Eilat at the pool.

The next morning we drove up to the dead sea where everyone got to float (even my mom who says she sinks in the ocean). After picture taking it was up to the mud pools! We covered ourselves head to toe (I’m not going to lie, I put some in my hair because they said it was good, and not only were there rocks in my hair for days, it was like straw!), took more pictures, then headed to our Masada HI Hostel. Note to anyone heading that way, that hostel is gorgeous, and the pool is lovely!

That morning, Masada for sunrise. My feet had healed enough, but boy were we unprepared for the heat! It was probably 90 degrees at 4:30 when we started, and no breeze. At one point we almost lost my mom (I think she was just way overheated, and she’s in the best shape of any of us), but after some first aid from my dad in the form of a wet handkerchief and my explanation that on the Amazing Race Family Edition no one finishes unless everyone crosses the finish line, we all made it to the top with about 5 minutes to spare! It was a spectacular sunrise, and my mom and I had a fun time taking the cable car down :)

You’ve already heard our Jerusalem adventures, and that was the end of our time in Israel and with my parents. Thanks guys for the super funnest week ever. (Yup mommy, that grammar is for you!)