Amman to the Viv

Our first day on our own and we've already gotten ourselves into quite the adventure...

Adrian and I spent a leisurely morning in Amman, Jordan, taking in the city and picking up some sweet antiquities and asking around for directions to the crossing into Israel. Our greatest hurdle between us and the next three weeks was the Israeli border. We packed up and headed out of Amman by taxi in the early afternoon and after ninety minutes or so we had reached the Sheikh Hussein border crossing. The taxi driver was young, spoke little English, but we managed to have some basic gesture conversations and he even bought us arabic coffee for the trip! The view of the Jordan River Valley from the steep, winding road out of the Jordan mountains swept by us as we hurried towards the border, trying to get through and situated in Israel early enough to avoid Shabbat complications.

Our border crossing quickly went from the sublime to the ridiculous . I had run out of Dinar, and it cost us 28 each to get out of the country and into a bus which ferried us across the border. By the time we had straightened out the exit visa, we just missed the hourly bus to the Israeli side. Feeling frustrated, but still excited to be traveling again, we ate knock-off pringles, and Peanut M&M's to pass the time.

Crossing the Jordan River brought us to our biggest hurdle of the day, Israeli customs. This is where our trip could get seriously derailed if we misstep in any way. A young Israrli girl in RayBan glasses grilled us for a few minutes on the reason for our trip into Israel, where we were planning on staying, and what we studied. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life, to which I replied “farmer”. It didn't quite connect with her why a farmer would need to be college educated, but she soon relented and then it was our bags turn to run the gauntlet.

I had not packed correctly to travel through the border, and my blood ran cold as another young Israeli (this one with very little English) began searching my smaller backpack. I had managed to pack all the items that would raise red flags into this pack. Fear induced adrenaline made my breath catch in my throat as she pulled out item after item of suspicious nature. She flipped through my notebooks, perused the PLO negotiations primer, asked a few questions about the arabic dictionary, and mentioned “kuffiyeh” to one of her coworkers. I stood silently, mortified that I had ruined this trip before it had even started. To my amazement, I was let through! We breathed a sigh of relief and hurried through the rest of the border crossing with no further drama. We stepped outside, elated to yet again be on Israeli soil.  

An Arabic dictionary, PLO negotiations primer, Nonviolence literature, and a Kuffiyeh.   Any of these on their own can lead to a Denied Entry stamp.  

All of our mental energy and planning had been focused on getting to and through the border crossing so when we reached the other side, we realized that we hadn't come up with a plan. Shabbat was fast approaching and we figured there was perhaps an hour left until sundown so we started hiking toward the nearby town of Bet She-an, hoping to hitchhike and perhaps find a bus all the way to Tel Aviv. The first car to pass us stopped to pick us up. Issac, a young Israeli from Bet She-an gladly took us to the far side of his town promising that Afula, the next town over would have public transport to Tel Aviv. He also offered to come pick us up to spend Shabbat with him and his five dogs if we weren't able to hitch into Afula within the hour. We thanked him profusely, and walked West into the sunset, still unsure of our accommodations for the night, but ecstatic about our good fortune so far, and trusting that we were where we needed to be.

We hadn't walked 400 meters before another vehicle, an Isuzu pickup with a father and two children, stopped and offered us a ride to the Afula Bus Station. The father Rotem was not confident that we could find a bus after the start of Shabbat, but he was happy to help us navigate the bus station to explore the possibilities. We learned soon that the last bus to Tel Aviv had gone over two hours earlier and though we were amenable to continuing our hitchhiking experience, Rotem and his family insisted that we come join them for the night on their Kibbutz just out of town. We happily took the offer and piled back into the truck for the quick ride to Kibbutz Yizre'el.

Rotem's family took us in, opened up a communal guest room on the Kibbutz for our use. We had dinner and good conversation at Rotem's mother's house and afterwards Adrian and I played some basketball with the kids, horsing around and feeling genuinely blessed by our incredible fortune.

The Agmon family, Rotem, Smadar, Tamar, and Ya'el.

 It had been a very long day of travel so we turned in early, eager to continue the experience the next day. We woke to a call from Rotem, inviting us to breakfast. After breakfast we took a short hike off the Kibbutz to a small spring in the Valley where many secular Israeli families were spending Shabbat lounging in the shade of the nearby eucalyptus. Rotem prepared tea on a small camp stove as we asked questions about the area, his family, his work, political beliefs, travel experiences, and all manner of other subjects. 

We returned to his house for a delicious lunch, with fresh orange juice, coffee, veggies, chicken and some delicious sweet potato ravioli. Rotem then took us, this time by car, up the nearby Mt. Gilboa to see the Gilboa Irises which were in bloom. We toured and hiked around, getting an incredible view of the Jordan River Valley to the East, and the top edge of the West Bank to our South. We spent most of the afternoon touring around and seeing various hot springs and aqueducts in the valley which had been in existence since before roman times. We returned close to sunset which meant the end of Shabbat and the renewed possibility of public transport.

After saying our goodbyes and packing our bags, we grabbed a bus to Tel Aviv, exhausted but elated by the past two day's extraordinary events. Upon our arrival, Tel Aviv Central Bus Station presented a new challenge. The maze-like nature of the building disoriented us briefly, but we gout our bearings soon and headed for the coast. We walked down Allenby to the beach and spent the night in Hakaryon 48, a hostel a block from the Mediterranean.

There is no way to succinctly express our fortune from these first two days of travel. We felt almost as if we were constantly celebrating, because each step of our travels had fit so excellently together, and from all these disparate pieces, we had created a beautiful travel tapestry.

Tune in soon for the next chapter entitled, “The Big Wind Blows”