Charles called on Friday night. He said they were in Jerusalem for 2 days, and asked if I wanted to come meet them on Saturday in Tel-Aviv. I agreed happily, and the next day I drove off. I met them at Charles's cousin's house- a really nice renovated apartment in a very popular area in TLV. It's very rare to find a good apartment there, so I asked for details and was told that her parents bought it for her. Lucky girl! Immanuel, Charles's cousin is a really nice and interesting person. She came to Israel alone, from France, at the early age of 17.5, studied here in uni later on, and now works for the french edition of The Jerusalem Post. Impressing.
It was so great to see Ana and Charles in Israel! Well, just seeing them was great... We all went to the beach, and cramped up on the TLV beach like the rest of the Tel-Avivian species. I really don't like Tel-Aviv, the only nice thing it has is shopping... We made plans for the next few days, and so it happened that on Sunday they took the train to Haifa, we toured around the city for a couple of hours, and in the evening we took the car to the Kineret (The Galilee sea). We put up 2 tents (one for me and one for the happy couple) and played cards (lost a "7"- the good finder will be rewarded - coz these are really nice cards), drank some beers and generally had lots of fun together. I really missed Rob on that situation, but they were such nice company that it made these feelings became a bit more subtle. On Monday morning we woke up and went straight to the lake- to swim. That day we travelled all over the Gollan heights with the car, and in the evening we went to the Kineret again to camp for the night. The next day we stopped in a winery in Kibbutz Amiad to Charles and Ana's request, and were really surprised to find out that they only make liqueurs from all kinds of fruit and other ingredients. They let us taste some and I ended up buying a really good dark chocolate liqueur... Yami!!!
After that we went to eat Humus in Akko, and wonder the old city and market, and then we went to Rosh Hanikra, to see the grotts, made by the sea. The view there is always really amazing... After that we went to my moms, for a shower and dinner before the bus to Eilat at 23:30. It took us 5.5 hours on that bus (was really fast!) and we arrived to the little oasis that sits on the red sea. We took a taxi to the Taba terminal border cross with Sinai. We arrived a bit too early for our ride on the other side- so we watched the sun rise over the red mountains of Jordan. We crossed the border and Charles and Ana saw the difference between Israel and Egypt: new and advanced vs. old and conservative, Efficiency vs. laziness and taxi drivers brotherhood. Our ride got there and we drove to the beach. It was (and still is) hard for me to accept the tranquility and silence while knowing that this society is such a men's society. There's hardly any women around (they're all home with the kids) and they are all business men with lots of kindness and serious faces (I know, it sounds ironic- but it's true). Sinai is so empty these days that Charles and Ana who fell in love with it, got really upset. The Bedouins there just told them that that's the way it is, and when tourism is so slow they just look for other business opportunities, and that as long as they have their health they feel rich. My European friends had a hard time accepting that, but in the end I think they almost did.
I left Sinai this morning, after 2 days, knowing that I really should go back soon- it's just so beautiful there... And so relaxed and quiet. Ana said something that really made me think: on a normal day anywhere else (and especially in China- where we all came from lately) you see hundreds or even more ppl a day. In Sinai you tend to see about 5 ppl a day... It's amazing what it does to you. After the first day- when you get used to it- and all your thoughts have settled and stopped bothering your brain- you hear the silence. And it's great. And so peaceful...
Pictures soon...
Oh! and the title is what it is coz it's all animals we saw when traveling (well we saw much more)
No comments:
Post a Comment