Stop Here for Wonderment

The start was rather auspicious, or so it seemed. We hadn't even managed to leave the bus depot before our bus collided with another vehicle...another bus. We sat on the hot, pavement in the odorous, loud bus depot, listening to the drivers yell in an incomprehensible language. My best friend looked at me, “maybe we should have flown to Jordan,” she said.

Once we were underway a few hours later on a new bus, the driver blasted freezing cold air and techno hop hop, which I think was meant to keep him awake. It had the problem of keep the rest of us awake on our overnight bus trip from Haifa to Eilat. There was a movie playing as well, but, finally being so exhausted from a 6-week archaeological dig, I fell into a fitful sleep with odd dreams of being in an Antartic dance club. Seven hours later, I stumbled off the bus into the bright sunshine of Eilat, Israel at 6am. I had no idea where we were, but I knew we were tired and hungry and had some time to kill. My two travel companions were delirious from a totally sleepless night and we wandered around a garbage strewn downtown into a bar that had never apparently closed. The beer and smoke smell made me nauseated, but we sat down and ordered terrible bar coffee in an attempt to stay awake. There was a couple in the corner, unaware that a new day had dawned, and my companions were face down on the table, unconscious for the blissful hour while we waited for the border crossing into Jordan to open.

We took a cab to the border and, once across, found another to take us to Aquaba to our car rental. The rental place (a large worldwide chain) was closed, and looked like it had been and would continue to be closed, despite my online booking. Our cab driver insisted he knew a place he could take us, an honest place with a good owner. Having heard this all over the Middle East before I was skeptical, but we had no other option. We were stuck in his cab and had no knowledge of where to go.

He dropped us off in front of a Budget, although it was like no Budget I had ever seen. We went inside where we were promptly handed delicious coffee and luscious baked goods. We sat with the owner, chatted, and listened to him regale us with stories of his beloved king and the royal family. It took two hours to get the deed done, and he never seemed to notice that none of us were really “of age” to rent the car. We hopped into our bright green, unair-conditioned four-door car of some unknown make and model and we were off, our adventure had just begun.