The journey is drawing to a close, at least the adventurous part of it — after all, today we are entering civilized Israel. I don't know if my stories have been thrilling enough, but the trip itself definitely was. On the morning of the tenth, and last meaningful day, we took a stroll through the bazaar in a futile attempt to buy an authentic souvenir, but globalization nipped our plans in the bud: nowadays, everything you can buy in any country in the world is made by the Chinese, and with a bit of desire and know-how, you can score the exact same stuff on the internet.
We checked out the blankets: the exact same things are sold in any supermarket or bazaar in Daugavpils. Spices: the Jordanian ones are the same story, while the Indian ones, which are more interesting, are quite pricey: 5 to 10 times more expensive than in India.
However, right next to the hotel, there turned out to be a cafeteria that I'd been plotting to visit since yesterday. It took us some time to figure out how it worked and what we could buy, but eventually, we got the hang of it: first, you pay the cashier, he gives you a little ticket, which you take further down the line. I got falafel — 20 pieces for 1 dinar, fresh, tasty, and a shitload of it, pardon my French. Rybakov simply made do with a falafel hotdog, for like 60 piastres. Now this kind of catering is right up my alley — let the old Europeans savor seafood in their swanky restaurants, I'm a simple guy, a cafeteria suits me just fine, as long as everything is more or less fresh and cheap. I have my proper and healthy eating sorted out at home, but here I can afford to scarf down some palm oil a couple of times a year.
Around 12 o'clock we headed for the border, getting there without any adventures. To our immense relief, the border crossing was open on Saturday, which we could have easily known had we picked up the information leaflet last time. On the Israeli side, a beta version of our airport departure awaited us: we were forced to shove our bicycles into the scanner along with our stuff, asked to open Sasha's miserable pot, which was always ruining his life without bringing any use, and got asked a few questions about our trip and ourselves, but all this took about forty minutes only because we weren't alone in line. Crossing the border with us was an American-Indian family: a husband, a wife, and a kid in a stroller. Must not be lazy, I thought to myself, since you can't cross the border by car, and you need a helper or a taxi on both sides.
Oddly enough, they didn't charge us the country exit fee: maybe it was due to sheer carelessness, or maybe they just don't charge it at this crossing, since the visa to Aqaba, as you might remember, is also free. In the end, we were left holding on to a couple dozen dinars, not counting the coins we grabbed to take home for our collector buddies.
We headed toward Eilat, getting seriously jittery about those notorious cardboard boxes. Fortunately, we knew the coordinates of a bike shop: it was located nearby, right on the highway between the city and the border crossing. Trying doesn't hurt: one of the most valuable ideas you can pick up in life. Although in reality, trying is sometimes exactly what hurts, but it's always worth trying, because success comes first and foremost to the persistent, and not at all to the lucky. To think otherwise means giving in to sampling bias (and others).
Fortune smiled upon us, as it always did on this trip, but when I say that, it just means that our planning, persistence, and hard work bore fruit. We knew where the big bike shop was, and even though we overlooked the fact that we'd be returning on a Saturday, we rode up to it anyway. Probably many readers of this blog, though not all, already know how this ended: next to the shop, there was a humongous dumpster, just jam-packed with bike boxes of all formats and sizes. It felt like we'd died and gone to heaven, or found a cornucopia (horn of plenty). Sure, in the grand scheme of things it's a trifle, but think about this: your feeling of joy isn't directly linked to the value of the thing you possess, it's linked to the momentary experiences or pleasant memories that it brings you. In that sense, the boxes blew a tasty lunch out of the water, and were roughly equal to the feelings of a collector who just scored a new coin.
Despite the abundance, we had a hard time finding boxes that fit our sizes: it was easier for Sasha, harder for me. One was absolutely huge, but there was no guarantee they'd let it on the plane, so I had to take one that was wide but not long. They say women like that kind.
We didn't have to lug the boxes for too long, just a couple of kilometers. Fortunately, the wind was moderate, otherwise, in Cyprus I wore myself out to death with a behemoth of a box.
We found the hotel with some difficulty, even though it was supposed to be right next to the bus station. Right next to it, but not exactly. Good thing the track was mapped out meticulously, meaning all the way to the final point, but for some reason, following it on Sasha's GPS worked out better this time. As you may recall, this already happened at the start of the trip in Amman — which is exactly why it's better to operate as a team, and have multiple devices, and different ones at that.
The hotel turned out to be a motel, but a "Boutique" one again, and this time a really cool one. It's all drowning in greenery, with a very cozy inner courtyard inside, part of which is under a roof, with little sofas and armchairs. The dude who met us was slightly gloomy for some reason, and looked at our bikes and boxes somewhat disapprovingly, as if to say, what makes you think I have to accommodate these somewhere in here (though he didn't say it out loud). That was unpleasant, but at least he compensated for his discontent by giving us a large room with separate beds, even though he didn't have to — we had booked a double, because I didn't want to overpay for a multi-bed room, and there are no twin rooms in this motel.
Curiously enough, in the evening some mountain bikers showed up to his place on super expensive Specialized full-suspension bikes and started drinking wine with him, and he noticeably mellowed out.
On the other hand, the black girl who helped us with checking in, whose name was Buzhun, was very sweet and positive. Rybakov kept suggesting I take some wife away from Jordan, but nobody appealed to me, yet here I saw a slender Ethiopian Jewish girl and instantly melted. That's just how these things work. By the way, if anyone doesn't know, there are actually quite a few black Jews, and this is one of the unpleasant issues in the State of Israel: the white-skinned ones, even if they aren't racists, often don't consider the black ones to be real Jews, but see them as outsiders who just flooded in, which makes the tension in society grow even more, though there's already enough of it with this whole Palestinian conflict.
What with the heat, fatigue, and the sickness that kept coming and going throughout our trip, as you may remember (but flared up to the max once I got home), I felt completely unwell, and I just collapsed on the bed in our room, lying there in a semi-conscious daze. Is there any prospect of me getting up, coming back to life, and actually seeing Eilat, considering that Sasha drank a bottle of beer, and between the heat and lack of habit, got wrecked just as badly as I did?
You'll find out about that in the next episode.