june 7-9, 1999 cairo so i never make it further south to another bedouin camp in sinai. i'm too full and content with my own ras es-satan/head of the devil. i do hitch a ride to terabin for a few hours, where i buy some more local sinai souvenirs - a black and white checkered pair of billowing bedouin pants and two copper decorative plates, one engraved with a smiling sphinx, the other with a frowning pharaoh. on the way back, i stop off at big and little duna, and i am even more convinced that i've made the right decision. i'm just not the k
Alexandria, Egypt, 1999 Middle East Chapter 15, Looking for Larry 2,
june 10-11, 1999 alexandria so now i'm on the 11:30 a.m. express to "alex". alex--andria. pride of the conquering alexander the great in 333 b.c.. home of cleopatra. marc antony. julius caesar. seat of learning of the entire ancient world. western outpost in the islamic diaspora. home of muslims, christians, copts, jews. the sensual, worldly, convoluted, mysterious -- al-iskandariya. but none of these are what brings me here. no, i'm here for one thing - for one man - only. lawrence durrell. and his great literary masterpiece, "the alexandri
Middle East, 1999, chapter 16, alex to jerusalem, the history of the tower of david
june 12, 1999 alexandria, egypt it's 4:30 in the morning. the sky is pitch black. i'm at the main bus station in alexandria. i have twenty four hours to make it back to jerusalem for lihran morav's bar mitzvah. i don't consider taking a plane - it doesn't fit my budget - or my philosophy. but when i say "main bus station", it's a bit misleading. there are three or four bus lines tumbled together in front of this larger station. it looks like a marketplace, completely chaotic. i'm running back and forth from one tiny stand to another trying to find my bus. no one speaks english. i've t
Middle East, 1999, chapter 17, the kibbutz on the golan heights
june 15, 1999 upper galilee, kibbutz machanayim alright. now well-armed with millennia of bloody middle eastern history, i bus my way up north to the refreshingly green and fertile upper galilee, right on the southwest border of the also lovely but beleaguered golan heights. i've found another" servas" host, and i'm really looking forward to spending a couple of days on a real live kibbutz. i've heard about these idealistic, hard-working places for most of my life, having american friends spend summers working in the fields - planting trees, sh
Middle East, 1999, chapter 18, the sea of galilee
june 17, 1999 holy christian sights in the upper galilee well, with a good night's sleep in quiet machanayim, i take advantage of my two day car rental and start out the next morning, heading south along the west coast of the "kinneret" (hebrew for the sea of galilee). i'm once again following eran's and rivka's itinerary, tracing the steps of jesus as a young man building his faith and his flock. my first holy site is tabgha, a small seaside village with an immaculately restored church and courtyard where jesus is reputed to have performed sev
Middle East, 1999, chapter 19, “tzipperese” at the mitzpeh amuka
june 18-22, 1999 mitzpeh amuka the next day, back on my own two feet again without the rental car, i'm driven by eran up over the mountain - to the mitzpeh amuka to visit my "old friend" from svat, moshe tzipper. you remember him - tzipper - the zen beatnik from the painter, mike leaf's, who tried to create a telephone "shiddach" for me? well, i've taken him up on his offer to come "visit him in the forrest". so now, i'm on my way. eran, en route to svat to see his indigent mother, explains to me that a mitzpeh is a state designated piece of
Middle East, 1999, chapter 20, belly dancing in amman
june 23, 1999 amman, jordan i've lost track of time in the magical forests of mitzpeh amuka for almost a week. so, waking up in the cool morning air one eventful morning, i decide to re-immerse myself in harsh mideastern reality again and continue my trip - by finally taking off for jordan. i've been trying to convince tzipper to go with me for days. perhaps that's one of the reasons why i've been hanging around so long. he's been to jordan before. he has a car. he knows the ropes. i'm hoping my patience and rhetoric will be rewarded. but -- life isn'
Middle East, 1999, chapter 21, pissed on and off the kings’ highway
kings' highway, jordan june 24, 1999 i'm rolling along the kings highway - racing the sun south - from amman to petra, the fabled rose-colored, sandstone-carved city of the ancient nabateans. getting a rental car on friday, in closed-for-sabbath amman has eaten up most of the day, and there's a lot to see. first stop - madaba. to make up for some of my lost time, i decide to skip jerash, the supposedly classical roman jewel in the mountains of gilead. it's a painful but necessary decision. one of the most difficult of travel. which sites to see,
Middle East, 1999, chapter 22, petra, the cliff’s notes version
june 25, 1999 petra, jordan okay. i've driven the kings' highway from daybreak and finally arrived. without incident. petra. rose colored city of the nabateans. the one must see sight in all of jordan. by eight o'clock, i've changed some money with an ATM card at the local bank of jordan in wadi musa, eaten a quick continental breakfast (even though i'm on a different continent), and i've paid my twenty dollar admission to the once-lost, but now very-found, ancient city of petra. in fact, that's my first impression of this great triumph of t
Middle East, 1999, chapter 23, wadi rum
wadi rum june 25-26, 1999 well, i've made my decision to leave petra, and i'm back on the kings' highway, again racing the sun south, this time towards wadi rum, the magical and sprawling desert of lawrence of arabia. right near the saudi border. sure, petra was not to be missed, but a desert full of thirsty, binocular-ed, and water-bottled tourists feeding off the sales-hungry locals (or was it the other way around) have turned the spectacular rose-colored landscape, the win