Whereupon We are mistaken for Modern Orthodox

We're back in a fully Westernized country, with all of the pros and cons associated with such a place. After spending a few weeks in countries where meeting our day-to-day needs sometimes felt like a struggle, traveling in Israel is both refreshing and also kind of too easy. Yesterday, we had a few tasks we were hoping to take care of, and we were able to complete them all within a few hours while walking around Tel Aviv, and still have the entire afternoon to walk around new neighborhoods, see the sunset, go out for dinner, etc. Now, it almost feels as though we are just toodling about in an alternate USA; somehow the little things seem slightly less remarkable.

Amanda and I walked into Israel from Jordan across the Yitzhak Rabin crossing to Eilat, where we rented a car and started making our way up north to Tel Aviv. Along the way, we stopped at Timna Park, which has an array of fascinating geological formations, ancient art on desert walls, 6000 year old copper mines, and an artificial lake. It sort of reminded us of Wadi Rum had it been done American style.

Amanda climbs in the copper mines

From Timna we made our way to Mitzpe Ramon, a town in the middle of the Negev on the edge of the Maktesh Ramon. The maktesh is a giant crater that was formed by erosion; to us it seemed more of an abrupt ridgeline than crater but that certainly didn't take away from the cool desert hiking within. Upon arrival in Mitzpe Ramon, we found a surly, empty hostel offering us a room for well over $100, and a nice but also empty hotel for more than that. Hoping to not spend more than $100/night, we remembered reading something about being able to stay on an alpaca farm outside of town. With our trusty rental car Shittim, we found the alpaca farm and secured a more affordable place to stay. It ended up being pretty nice digs; they have small cabins for rent that are spitting distance from the alpacas.

Matt admires the white rocks in Maktesh Ramon

Amanda admires the residents of the alpaca farm

After the alpaca farm and a day of hiking in the crater, we headed down to Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea where we basically had no good options for accomodations and stayed at the overpriced Ein Gedi Kibbutz. At least this allowed us to easily see Masada and the Dead Sea the next day. On the way out of the kibbutz to Masada, a nice woman from Ukraine/Minnesota/Sweden asked us to give her a ride over to the hostel, and we chatted with her. We hadn't showered or changed our clothes in a little bit, so we were covering our hair. She mistook us for modern Orthodox Jews trying to decide to make aliyah. You can judge for yourself if you think we look like that.

Is this the face of Modern Orthodox?

We decided to spring for the Masada Museum, which was worthwhile but a bit strange. Those of you with further interest in museumology will get a fuller explanation when we return (in short, 3-D is not always the best medium for explanation).

On my Taglit trip to Masada, we were roused from an unrestful sleep at a Bedoiun camp to make the pre-dawn march up to the top without much background on what was really up there; even after seeing it once I had little appreciation for how developed the mountaintop was in its day. This time around, Amanda and I forewent the sunrise experience and instead hiked up mid-morning. We had a chance to explore most all of the ruins at the top, and I felt like I had a much more enjoyable and complete experience.

After taking in Masada, we hit a new low at the Dead Sea.

Trust us, this was the best picture of us at the Dead Sea

Post float, we drove to Tel Aviv during rush hour. Maybe it was a light traffic day, but I did not find the traffic to be overwhelming or the drivers to be really batshit insane. The one really annoying habit of the locals is that they will lay on the horn the second a light turns green. We've been able to wait thousands of years to return to the holy land, but you are sitting on a green light for 0.2 seconds longer than necessary...

More on Tel Aviv to come.