leaving israel

I woke up early in the morning of my last day in Israel. Making my way to my computer, I worked out that I would have to catch a 10:00 bus from the Central Bus Station in order to have enough time to cross into Egypt and catch a 16:30 bus to Cairo. So thanking Micaela and Terez for their overwhelming hospitality, I said my goodbyes and was out the door by 9:00. Following my much-traversed path to the station for the last time, I moved along at a reasonable clip to ensure that I might have enough time to check Lost & Found one more time. When I finally arrived at the station, I took a familiar elevator to the third floor, and waited in line to buy a ticket to Eilat. "One ticket to Eilat please," I asked the lady at the ticket counter. "The ten o'clock bus to Eilat?" she asked, then seeing my head nod, continued "there are no more tickets for the ten o'clock bus." Which made my heart stop a little. I hadn't even considered that a midday bus in the middle of the week would be fully book, and so I scrambled over to the platform where the bus would be arriving in order to beg the driver to take me.

As the bus wasn't there yet, I killed five minutes by checking in with Lost & Found. I was such a familiar face there, that all I had to do was pop my head in, and the supervisor looked up and sadly shook his head. Returning to the platform, I saw a mass of passangers forming behind the line of ticket holders. As the driver struggled to take tickets, he held back requests for additional room by at least a dozen different people. I decided to bide my time. I knew he was aware of me, but I was hoping that because I was politely not harassing him while he was trying to do his job, he would be more apt to help me.

This ended up paying off, as soon as all the ticketed passangers were on board, the driver looked at me and said, "put your luggage under the bus, I will be sure to take you." Gleefully running to the side of the bus, I thurst my backpack and dufflebag into the luggage rack, then ran back to the driver. But I had run out of Israeli Shekels, and so he told me to run over to the ticket counter to pay with a credit card. Dashing through the station, clearing barriers like an Olymic hurdeler, I was allowed to cut the line and grab 70 Shekels worth of bus credit in lieu of waiting for a ticket to print out. Apologizing as I ran, I made it back to the bus, and was allowed to board. I spent the next 5 hours on the overcrowed bus, sitting in the asile with Israeli military personel, and praying that I wouldn't get car sick. It was not the most enjoyable ride of my life, but I cannot even begin to complain, because I was on the bus, and I would make my connection.

When we finally arrived in Eilat, I paid a cab driver 20 Shekels and $5US to take me to the Egyptian border, and there I cleared customs without incident. Once I was through the Egyptian reentry process, I decided to make the 10 - 15 minute walk into Taba, rather than hiring a cab. This phenomenon of a while person desiring to walk was confusing to the gaggle of taxi drivers gathered at the border. But after repeating my desire to walk after having been on a bus for 5 hours, I was able to shake them off, and make my way to the Taba bus station.

On the way, a small child tried to sell me some little trinkets. I thanked him for his offer, but decline to purchase, and so he crossed the street and began shadowing me, offering a cheerful "hello" every few seconds. It was then that I remembered my pens. I stopped, took off my backpack, and rooted around inside until I found the bag of pens. The boy had come over by this point to investigate my actions, and happily accepted the pen that I offered to him. He thanked me, and ran off up the road. I saw him again, a little farther down the road, showing off the pen to two other children, and so again I stopped and extracted two more pens from my stash. Thanking me, the children then took from their collection of trinkets a bracelet each, and placed in on my bag. Initially confused, when they communicated with their small hand gestures that these were gifts, I was deeply moved by their generosity.

The middle one carries a good luck symbol common to the Eastern Mediterranean, though I've taken to wearing all three.

Waving goodbye, I finished my walk to the bus station, where - because of the loss of an hour due to Ramadan time - I would have to wait an hour and a half for the bus. I didn't really mind this, it would give me an opportunity to have a relaxed lunch, but when I inquired about the bus cost, the man at the counter made an alternative offer. For what would, after a little negotiation, end up being only 25E£ more (100E£ rather than 75E£) I could charter a minibus that would leave immediately and go non-stop to Cairo. Agreeing on the condition that I would be allowed to sit shotgun where I could stretch my legs out, I boarded the minibus and we took off. I was very pleased with my decision, enjoying the panoramic desert views through open the passenger-side window.

The road cutting through canyons.

Driving through the unending desert passed uniform telephone poles until...

... the sun began to set some hours later, on the same stretch of road.

We drove through Sinai, under the Suez Canal, and within five hours we were pulling up to Cairo. I was dropped off outside the city, and took the surprisingly efficient metro system to my friend Brenden's apartment. Coming back to the apartment felt like a watered-down sensation of coming back home. Here was a place that I was familiar with, but that I had been away from for some three weeks. I confess that I have not done much since returning to Cairo, rather I'm taking the time to reorganize myself, and prepare for the next stops in my journey. Tomorrow, I fly out of Cairo to Dubai, and my sleep schedule promises to be rather erratic for the two days, three nights I spend there. Then I'll be off to Nepal, where I should be reunited with Devin in Kathmandu.