Eilat and Petra

To continue our whirlwind trip through Israel, we headed south to Eilat with our friend Scott Perlo, who has been studying here for the past year and has been a tremendous tour guide, translator and all around fun guy. The five of us made an odd group and no one could quite figure out the relationship. It was a little depressing when people assumed he was our kid—since he is 28—but I just went with it. The truth is, I would be proud to call him my son—even if he would have had to be an illegitimate child born to an unwed 15 year old girl. We all loved having Scott around—particularly Adam who appreciated a little male companionship after four and half months of being surrounded by pure estrogen. They even made a half hearted attempt to go out to a bar one night—but ended up home, and asleep, in less than an hour. The city of Eilat itself is pretty tacky and completely lacking in charm, with dozens of huge ugly hotels and loud Israeli families on vacation. Sort of a Jewish Daytona Beach. However, the beaches and coral reefs of Eilat are absolutely beautiful and we had a blast lazing on the beach and snorkeling through the crystal blue water and observing the spectacularly colorful fish and coral.

One reason we chose to go to Eilat was its proximity to an easy border crossing to Jordan, not far from Petra, an extraordinary archeological site. We crossed the border on foot—which was an experience in itself—Adam said it seemed eerily reminiscent of the dangerous and risky prisoner exchanges of the Cold War. I thought it was just odd to cross a border on foot. In any event, we grabbed a cab to Petra. The cab took us to a sketchy looking hotel that seemed miles from the center of town. We followed our instincts and left, only to hear later that it is a common scheme for taxi drivers to take unsuspecting tourists to that hotel where “terrible things happen to women.” Bullet dodged.

I had heard that Petra was incredible, but knew very little about it. Once again, the town itself was nothing special. At the very least we expected fantastic Arabic food—but in fact had the worst humus of the trip, and fairly mediocre pita. Nonetheless, the actual site of Petra more than lived up to its reputation and made up for the unspectacular town. This “hidden city” carved out of rose-red rock was always known by the locals, but was open to westerners after a Swiss explorer, disguised in Arab garb, came across it in 1812 and realized it was the “lost” city of Petra. It since gained considerable fame after being used as the location for one of the Indiana Jones movies. Indeed, we heard that several hotels show the movie every night—either to entertain visitors or pay homage to the Hollywood vehicle that turned this relatively dusty town into a major tourist destination.

You enter the ancient city through a narrow valley of red rock—which is quite magnificent in itself. Many people take donkeys or camels up through the canyons, but as has been our habit for this trip, we forced the kids to walk. The elaborate palaces, temples and tombs seem Roman, but, in fact, were carved by the by the Nabateans, a relatively cosmopolitan trading people who apparently had a taste, and talent, for Greek and Roman architecture and style. In addition to the elaborate and intricate carvings, the Nabateans also developed fairly sophisticated systems of water conservation and irrigation smack in the middle of the desert which apparently was able to support a far larger population than inhabits the area today and has been studied by modern agronomists. While my knowledge of architecture and engineering is reasonably limited, there is not doubt that they accomplished amazing feats with this city, especially given the remote and relatively inhospitable location. The remarkably beautiful structures are hundreds of feet high with incredibly elaborate and precise carvings that looked to us as though they were made by a 1000s of men with sophisticated power tools. The rose-red color of the rock further adds to the beauty and majesty of the site and the color changes as the sun moves overhead. Perhaps the most dramatic site appears quite unexpectedly. The ruins in the canyon are stunning and are impressive, but not anything to write home about. However, as you walk through a particularly narrow part of the valley, you see, as if through a key hole, this elaborate façade, for the Nabatean treasury, carved right into the face of the mountain. Michelangelo, it is said, once described sculpting as releasing the statue from the marble. This is what the treasury seemed like—as if the Nabatean workers simply released the structure from the mountain side. Just breathtaking.




In the evening, while the girls and I were passed-out in the hotel room, Scott and Adam took an evening walk though the canyon which was lit by hundreds of candles, giving the rocks and structures and entirely different look. In our travels, we have had the opportunity to see many breathtaking ruins. It was particularly interesting for us to compare Petra, which was built sometime around the first century AD, to the ruins of Angkor Wat and the other temples in Cambodia which were built in the 9th, 10, 11th and 12th Centuries. The entire system and style of building is completely different—but both astounding accomplishments. The precise lines and rose color of the Petra ruins, which takes on different hues at different times of the day, was, perhaps, more visually captivating. But the magnitude of the Cambodian temples and the intricate and huge carvings of Angkor Wat, in particular, were astonishing.

The next day the girls did the obligatory camel ride.


We then started the journey back.The border crossing back into Israel was surprisingly exacting. In all of our months of travel, no one has actually opened any of our bags. Here, the Jordanians searched in every nook and cranny—including taking apart my flashlights. We found it particularly amusing when a very stern looking Jordanian official was intently looking through Maya’s polka dotted backpack. When we expressed surprise that the Jordanian security was so tight going into Israel, our Jordanian cab driver explained that this is a particularly peaceful border and the Jordanians and committed to keeping it that way. The Israel side was not exactly a cake walk either. I think we all expected to sail right through-we’re Jewish, we’re in Israel, what’s the question? In fact, they seemed impervious to Scott’s charm and fluent Hebrew and asked us a series of pretty tough questions, particularly focused on what we were doing in Jordan. The most amusing aspect of the border crossing was the group of burly tattoo-covered, cross wearing, American men with southern accents, who we encountered as we were crossing through the Jordanian part of the border. We also noticed that they carried official passports. We assumed they were in the military, but when we asked, they gave us some vague answer about a temporary assignment in the Jordanian embassy and politely dodged the rest of our probing questions. It was hard to imagine that they were, for instance, the cleaning crew of the embassy. We concluded that they were part of some secret elite squad of Navy Seals and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to guess what or who they were here to blow up. Overall, the tight security was a bit surprising, but made us all feel very safe. It was a terrific trip, the Jordanian people could not have been nicer and more welcoming and the sites were spectacular. Nonetheless, we all breathed a sigh of relief when we walked back across the border and were safely inside Israel-even if it was the tacky part.