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Dec. 26th, 1999 - Eri and I landed at Ovda Airport...

Ovda is about a 30-40 minute drive from Elat where we spent our first night at a noisy little dive of a guesthouse. But I didn't care... it wasn't LONDON!

Elat is like Miami or St Petersberg, Florida. There are high-rise pink hotels on the beachfront and all the little shops sell cheap trinkets made from seashells and sand. We weren't impressed and decided after spending a fortune on breakfast to hop on the bus to Egypt.

"Hey, let's go to Egypt today..."
"Ok!"

Basically, our whole trip was like this. We'd go somewhere until we got bored or annoyed and then we'd decide on a whim were to go. With only 2 weeks, we had a sketchy plan:

Week one: Egypt
Week two: Israel

Egypt

First we went to Basata, on the advice of this really cool woman we met at the border. It's really just a sort of self-sufficient organic resort where we stayed in an open wool bedouin tent on the beach. Cool place, but really a family type place. We stayed for a two day chill out.

Our next destination was Dahab. Here we spent New Years 2000 and I have to say, it was perfect. It's very much a backpacker place. There's tea-houses along the Red Sea where you can order your breakfast and go for a swim while you wait for your food.

New Years eve there was a "big" party and we were both very happy not to be in London, or Ottawa, or Fredericton... etc.

Finally, we grew tired of shopping and snorkelling all day and decided to move back to Israel.

Israel

After a long wait in Eilat and seeing Fight Club (my 3rd time) we finally boarded our night bus to my city of birth, Tel Aviv. Armed with a list of people to contact and places to see from my dad, I arrived in Tel Aviv sick as a dog (try vomiting in a peanut bag on a bus without drawing attention to yourself) What I saw of "my" city was the bus station, the youth hostel bed, and the toilet. I've never felt so bad in my life.

We left Tel Aviv as soon as I felt well enough. (the next day) and went to Jerusalem where we stayed in the Muslim quarter. What a cool city (the old bit, anyway)! We wandered around throught the various quarters and took a day trip to Masada & the Dead Sea. Ok trip but would only do that sort of tour when short on time. Can I just say that climbing Masada before sunrise is quite exhausting when you're ill!

A day before our flight back to London we headed to Eilat for the night. Nothing interesting happened there (quel surprise!) we did laundry.