Kumako

It's getting a bit ridiculous, the last seven hotels we've stayed at have all been owned by someone named Mohammed. And to be honest, they have all been good. So from now on the owners name will be the only criteria we use when choosing a hotel. Price, location, amenities: all irrelavant.
We are now at Petra in Jordan. Petra, being one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is a place that you go to with some pretty high expectations. Yet like the Taj Mahal or the Great Wall of China, it still manages to blow you away. We hiked about 10 miles each of the last two days through canyons, into ruins, and away from anyone selling camel rides. Petra featured prominently in the last Indiana Jones movie, so our hotel plays it every night on video. Mohammed says he can't stand it, having seen or heard parts of it thousands of times, but everyday the new guests want to see it. Today I had that stupid Indiana Jones theme song stuck in my head all day.
After a long day of hiking through ruins or navigating through the mazes of ancient Middle Eastern cities, nothing sounds better at the end of the day than a cold beer. However in Jordan, like Syria, outside of five star hotels it is extremely difficult to track down a beer. We usually start looking soon after arriving in a new town because we know its not going to be easy and we look at it sort of as a quest. And its not like we get alot of help. Shopowners seem insulted that we would even mention the word "beer" in their shop. They avoid eye contact when they respond in a whispered voice, "not here" and use body language to indicate that they would like us to leave their store. They make us feel like drug addicts looking to score some coke. But that just makes us want to find it even more and when we do(and we usually do), you can't imagine how good that first sip tastes sitting on our balcony watching the sun set.
-Shawn

(The Dead Sea is a salt lake between the West Bank and Israel to the west, and Jordan to the east. At 420 metres (1,378 ft) below sea level,its shores are the lowest point on Earth that are on dry land. At 330 m deep (1,083 feet), the Dead Sea is the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also the world's second saltiest body of water, after Lake Asal in Djibouti. With 30 percent salinity, it is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean. Israeli experts say it is nine times saltier than the Mediterranean Sea (31.5% salt versus 3.5% for the Mediterranean). The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres (42 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide at its widest point.)

i got water splash in my eye, it burned my eye as hell. and if you have cuts, it really sting too, but in the dead sea, adults act like children(including us), because it's impossible to sink!!! i can't swim so iv'e never floated on the water before. it was super fun stuff.

-Yo

Man, you gotta really, really want to come to Israel, because it ain't easy getting here. The border with Lebanon is closed. So is the one with Syria. The only way to enter overland is from Jordan or Egypt. So from Beirut it was back to Syria(one day traveling), then on to Jordan(another day). From there our plan was to get from Amman, the capital of Jordan, to Tel Aviv-a distance of about 100 miles. However there are no longer any direct buses, so we were going to have to improvise. And it was Friday, so we had to arrive before sunset, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, when all public transportation stops. We left from Amman at 8am and after 4 buses, 2 taxis, and 10 hours we arrived in Tel Aviv just as the sun was dipping into the Mediterranean. Logistically it was the hardest day we've had on this trip.
The funny thing with Israel is that with an Israeli stamp in your passport you will not be allowed to enter many Muslim countries. In fact, you cannot even have any evidence of ever having been in Israel. So an exit stamp from a town in Jordan that borders Israel is a dead giveaway. So no exit stamp from Jordan, no entry stamp from Israel, no exit stamp when you leave Israel, and no entry stamp when you reenter Jordan. The problem is that immigration officials are usually not too happy about pretending that you are not entering or not leaving their country. It usually takes a bit of convincing, and waiting. At the Israeli border we waited 4 hours. It wasn't just that we didn't want an entry stamp, it was also that we had recently been to both Lebanon and Syria, countries that Israel had almost as recently just bombed. At first we spent 30 minutes answering mostly ridiculous question("What is your maternal grandfather's first name?") and then they told us to have a seat while they did a security check. One hour passed...then another...they went to lunch...they came back...still we waited. Hundreds of people passed through while we sat there. The only other person they stopped was a French photographer who had spent most of the past few years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally when it was time for them to go home they let us through. When I asked the immigration official why it had taken so long, she replied with a smile, "Because, this is Israel." We smiled too, happy it was finally over.
Was it worth it? Most definitely. Tel Aviv is great-a mix a Europe, the Middle East, and America. I was surprised to see such beautiful beaches in a city of one million plus. Our hotel was just two blocks from the beach, so after our tough travel day we spent a few days indulging in a bit of beach therapy.
Shawn

shawn and yo were so upset at me today because they had to come pick me up at israeli army base in jersalem. an old man tried to pet me on a busy street today. i bit his finger really lightly as a joke, i thought that's funny, you know us bears always bite each other for fun, so i thought he'd get it, but instead of biting me back, he screamed very loud. he then called the army and these cute female soldiers came with machine guns to capture me. i tried to bite them too, but they didn't think that's funny either, so i held my hands up...i'm sorry, please don't send me home by air mail, shawn and yo. It won't happen again, I swear.

kumako