What could be more bizarre than cruising along the shore of the Dead Sea listening to ABBA?
Yet here we are, 1:45 into a four hour trip, just past Mt. Sodom. We waved at Lot's wife as we head to Eilat listening to Dancing Queen.
The Dead Sea. Lowest point on earth.
We cruised past Masada, En Gedi, the Dead Sea resorts, famous places all. The resorts don't look like a place I'd like to go, very hot and isolated, and the Dead Sea looks, well, rather dead.
By its size it is more of a dead lake.
We are on bus 444 from Jerusalem to Eilat. We left at 7;00 sharp on the four hour ride. I bought the tickets a couple days ago, the lady gave me “the best seats” up front, one and two.
But a lady, friend of the driver, had seat one, her bags had seat two.
“You take 27-28” she said.
But I am learning to push back, as I have been pushed this trip and in Morocco.
“No. You go!” And I brushed my tickets at her, like swatting a fly.
And she did.
We stopped halfway at Sapir where there was a gas station, mini mart and of all things a McDonald’s.
When the bus stopped everyone made a run for the bathrooms. I watched and was surprised to see how well armed our little bus is. No worries here.
A jet practiced loops and stalls and spins over the desert giving us a free show.
Back on the bus, we are listening to contemporary Israeli music. Our driver sings along. Some tunes are catchy.
There are palm tree oasis in places, some really huge covering acres, some smaller like a city block. Otherwise it is brown, rocky, barren; flat where we are, cliffs to the Egypt side, and across the valley a mountain range rises high in Jordan.
At a military checkpoint just before our stop we were boarded by two soldiers. They seemed to know just who they were looking for, and took two men off the bus.
We got out at Eilot Kibbuz on the road junction direct to the border station.
The normal way to cross the border is take the bus all the way to Eilat, then get a taxi back up to the border crossing for about 30-40 shekels.
But we decided to get off the bus early and just walk it.
This was not my idea, I read about it in a comment somewhere else on another blog or travel site. It looked doable, so I figured why not?
Though I did have a little reservation about it because there was only the one reference, and Google satellite view is pretty sketchy here. It’s the desert after all. But just thinking it through I didn’t figure it would be that hard.
Still...
So, here is the true information along with photos.
We walked 1.2 km (¾ mile) across flat desert on a paved, slight downhill road. It was 95° hot. It took us 13 minutes with my pack and Gail pulling her suitcase. We are close to 60 years old.
We had water and I wore a hat. There is cold water available at the border crossing, along with bathrooms.
We could see the border crossing the entire time, and there are signs leading to it.
It was a great tip. I figure it saved us a half hour and about 30-40 shekel.
We paid our exit fee from Israel (106 each) and with one shekel in my pocket we went to the passport window. When we entered Israel they did not stamp our passport. We received a little entry card that we had to keep with us now we got our little exit card.
Then we walked out of Israel, through a no mans land about 100 yards wide, with a really high barbed wire fence hung solid with coiled razor wire.
We entered the Jordan border station where we got to go to window (room) 10 to receive our visa because I had a Jordan pass. He stamped and hand wrote our visa input passports, then we went to get them stamped at the passport window, and we were out.
The Jordan pass is a great deal. I had read about it online, and if you are going to Jordan it is a "must have." It is worth the money because it gets you a VISA (pays the fees and they just write it up for you ate the border, but NOT at the Allensby Bridge between Jerusalem and Amman) hassle free, it gets you into Petra and other sites, you skip the ticketing lines, and the cost of the pass is less than the cost of a VISA and Petra alone.
Get it here. You won't regret it.
It turns out we can’t take the mini bus from Aqaba to Petra because it is Friday and Eid Al-fitr. So it turns out we would taxi direct after all, which I had anticipated.
There is a signboard listing official taxi fares set by the government. 53 JOD ($75) to go direct. I took a photo of the sign. There is a younger thin guy who seems to be the taxi director, running the show. I saw our driver pay him off.
He tried to talk the price up, I said no, he said yes and I showed him the photo of the board.
I won.
Jerk.
We were in an older but reliable yellow Toyota taxi. Our driver knew a little English. We rolled the windows down and headed back up the way we came, but in Jordan this time, not Israel.
Photos Showing The Border Walk And Crossing
Lots of old cars on the road.
The houses sit low and squat in the desert, all brown and grey. No cheerful colors. There are burros and camels, herds of sheep here and there.
The mountains and sands are red, yellow, brown, orange, and white under a dusty blue clear sky. We passed Wadi Rum and could see a sandstorm in the distance.
The driver tried to up-sell us on tours, a side trip into Wadi Rum, perhaps he could return and drive us to Amman. We said no thanks and he didn't ask again.
When we got to Wadi Musa, he found an ATM so I could pay him, then dropped us off at our hotel, The Petra Guest House.