Sure enough, 3 days in the city and I was hell bent on getting out of there quick as, Adrian had however found some friends that engoyed indulging in bottles of Vodka with him every night and was more than happy to keep that up for a while longer, so this was a great opportunity for me to get up early one day, ditch everything including Adrian and my beloved bike, pack a little bag of essentials and get the hell out of there.
After a little peek into the bank account, calculating days of the month, where we were, and where I wanted to be in the next coming months I made the decision to call it quits. Purchased myself a ticket back to Switzerland followed by a ticket back to NZ and totally went against all my beliefs, jumped on a bus and headed down to the Red sea to relax on the beach for a while, alone!! Sure enough 2mins into my bus journey I remembered why I hated travelling like everybody as I was squashed beside a military dude that smelled like he had been walking through the desert for the past month aswell as having his machine gun nestled between us, he proceded to snore all the way and had the barrel of the gun nearly shoved up my nostrels every time we went over a bump, oh to be back on the bike!
Eliat was great, nice temperatures, saw Egypt in the distance, but gave it a miss this time around, save it for next time. 2 days on the beach and sure enough I was restless again so headed up to the Dead sea and national parks in the desert, and this is where I found out that not all great adventures happen while on the bike!! Was hiking up to an ancient city on the top of a hill and met 2 crazy Austrians, after about 10 mins of chatting I had joined them on an apparent 1st accent climb of some 8 pitch wall in the area, sounded better than following fat americans around all day! Stephan ran back to the car and grabbed his extra harness and off we went in search of the wall. I havent been anywhere near a decent slab of rock since Thailand so I was a little nervous and made it pretty clear that I wasnt leading any of it! So there we were, looking up at the dusty orange face, a small breeze in the air, only the sound of nature, was feeling great, inspired to be with two great climbers exploring the wilderness of the israeli desert "oh I forgot to tell you, this is illegal, you still in?" yeah sure every seccond person walks around with a machine gun slung over their shoulder, might aswell add to the excitment of the climb that apart from falling we could also get shot! yippie! A two hour walk in I didnt feel like backing out.
Amazing climb, admit to nearly pooing my pants a few times but made it to the top with clean undies and quite a bit later than we were planning. as you do on any summit you reach and after a round of hugs, you fall into your own world, taking in the surroundings, peace and beauty of the 360deg view around you, just like riding a bike over the alps, you dont get out and hug each other when you cross a pass in a car, people dont even stop to look at the view! there is no better feeling in the world than getting to the top of anything by your own power. And for about an hour we were all in the trance of that feeling. And sure enough it got dark, oops! What happens to 3 blondes on top of a mountain? we get stuck and have to stay the night! a little misjudged decent, bad time management and a good kiwi attitude of she'l be right. So there we were feeling a little silly, but actually had a great night, shared out our 3 oranges and 12 dates between us and with the ability to be able to lie down and fall asleep anywhere I had quite a restfull night, wolves, lizards, snakes, scorpians, and all sorts of other nasties stayed away all night which I was quite grateful for.
Next day, said goodbye to the hairy Austrians and feeling invinsible jumped on the road and stuck out my thumb, about 10 secconds later a car skidded and screeched to a stop beside me as I started to have seccond toughts that maybe I should have taken the bus with all the americans, oh well they looked harmless enough. Couldnt speak any english but they spoke german which they said was learnt from german porno!, Swim in the dead sea, or should I say float in the slaty healing waters for a day and than headed to the holy city of total maddness, Jeruselem.
Jeruselem, is a mad mad place, politically, religiously and some people there are just plain bonkers! It is sadly quite a dangerous place, was ther for 5 days and saw two fights involving knives, there was a murder two weeks earlier of a Jew in the Arab quater, and people believe it is all the work of this so called God! The old city of Jeruselem is beautiful, its divided into 4 parts, the jewish quarter, the christian quarter, the arab quater and the armenian quarter. All living in harmony, yeah right! not a chance, there are 600 000 people in Jeruselem 100 000 people living within the walls of the old city and about 30 000 soldiers walking around yip thats right, with machine guns. The western wall is like entering another country, bomb squad, metal detectors, questioning etc but understandable, it is probably the most important real estate in the world, and the number 1 target to blow up.
After a few days of being preached by jewish, Catholic, Mueslim, even someone who claimed to have been told by God that the moon was about to blow up. And also sick of hearing constantly from all the Israelies about the Palestinieins, me and a few others decided to go where they said not to and entered the west bank and palestine, what I didnt fully realise was that the "wall" really is the middle east's remake of the Berlin Wall! While I was there checked out Bethlehem, and other sights worth looking at while on the other side, drank tea with a very poor family sitting on cardboard while mama boiled the water over a fire in the garden, we had people run up to us on the streets crying telling us to tell the western world that they love us, that they are not what we think they are, please free us from this wall, Sons that have been killed, houses knocked down to make room for the wall etc etc!!! wow! took us by surprise thats for sure, was a very sad emotional place to be. We all left there a little different and quiet on the journey home. Maybe all the people in Jeruselem that I thought were bonkers are actually telling the truth, Armegeddon is coming soon and its going to happen right there! i dont agree with Israel but I also understand their need to keep out the bombs that often get through. What I have learnt from being here is that there will never be peace, I thought it was possible, but you can think anything is possible when you are on the other side of the world, people constanly have tears in their eyes and the anger and hatred that is here will never leave.
Back to my own little safe fairyland world tomorrow, will be in Switzerland so soon its scary! Thanks for all the emails, messages, texts and psychic messages along the way, Realised that overland travel is no longer possible like im sure it was at one point. Think Im about 20 years too late. Middle East probably wasnt the best place to try and pass without problems, still love the biking as a way of transport. Totally failed on my mission to get home without flying as I find myself jetting all over the place pumping CO2 into the dying atmosphere. Realise that unless you have unlimited cash funds and unlimited time it isnt possible.
Until my next adventure!!! in the planning already,
Peace
Asti astronader@hotmail.com
