Touring Israel & Jordan - ep.1: Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem

Wonder why we haven't been posting anything in a while? What we were doing? Where the hell did we hide all that time? Well, here we were...!  The idea of our 10 days trip through Israel and Jordan came up after Ryan dislocated and broke his shoulder as the result of an infamous goose attack, and had to cancel a 5 weeks climbing trip to Nepal subsequently.We decided we would travel together instead. I've wanted to visit Israel for a while and Ryan has always had Petra on his bucket list. We had put together the trip a little before getting serious about our sailing project, and were so absorbed by our new found dream that we had almost forgotten that our visit in the Middle-East was coming.As Stockholm started to show some early signs of Autumn, we welcomed this opportunity to escape the cold, packed our bags and gladly left rainy Sweden for a well deserved holiday in the sun.We had hoped for an adventure, but did not expected that much. So a little off the sailing topic, here come some tales of our fantastic trip to Israel and Jordan! Day 1-2, from Stockholm to Tel-Aviv

Sandstorm and machine guns

 We woke up at 3am to catch an early flight from Stockholm-Arlanda, and arrived exhausted in Tel-Aviv in the beginning of the afternoon. A pretty bad sandstorm had hit the town a few days before our arrival and we could feel the dust in our throat as our plane taxied to the gate.The unusually high temperatures (39C!!!), the moist, the dust in the air blocking the view and the massive amount militaries heading home for Sabbath, invading streets, trains and buses with their huge bags and machine guns, did not make for the most welcoming impression of the city. After checking in at the hotel we had booked (which turned out to be pretty mediocre), we decided to head out for some exploration of the beach. We walked all the 2,5km along the waterfront down to Jaffa, a neighborhood out of Tel-Aviv, where we went through the flea market, the old city and the port before getting some food at the Café Puua.We never really had time to experience Tel-Aviv, which I regret. The places we checked out made it look promising, and I had heard it was a fun city for outings. But the sandstorm combined with the heat turned us off a little, and we packed as early as we could to catch a bus to Jerusalem the next day. Day 2-3-4: Jerusalem

Heat and riots. 

We took the public transportation to Jerusalem and arrived even more exhausted by the heat, that had now gone over 40C. The city was getting closed down in preparation for Sabbath as we arrived, and finding food turned out to be a little more challenging than we thought. The streets of Jerusalem were crowded by an interesting blend of militaries, random dudes wearing machine guns, Heradi and Hasidic Jews (the ones dressed in black, wearing long hats and locks), and young american Jews touring Israel as part of their "birth right".We were tired, the food we had at the only open restaurant we found was so-so, and a bird pooped on Ryan's head. We figured we would wait until after the sun had set and the temperatures gotten decent to continue our exploration of the city. We got back to the hotel (a nice one that time!) and crashed the bed until it was night.  All the shops, stalls, cafes and restaurants were closed and it was quite dark as we ventured alone through the narrow and mazy streets of Jerusalem's old city for the first time. We almost got lost trying to find a way to the roofs, where we shortly admired the night view on the Temple mount, before heading back to Damascus gate and satisfy our hungry stomachs with some greasy falafels we found in one of the very few places opened that night.     We did some more exploring of the old city the next day, and observed groups of tourists from all over the world going their own way through the holy place. As we entered the Western Wall area, I got offered to borrow some kind of long piece of fabric to cover my legs, cause the shorts I was wearing apparently did not meet the dress code requirements. I looked dashing.Back to the streets of the old city, I tried to do some shopping and learnt the hard way that one should always sharpen its negotiation skills before undertaking any purchase act in Middle-Eastern bazaars...  Since we had missed the hours the Temple Mount is open to the public, we woke up early the next day to visit it before leaving the city for our next destination.If you've seen this Instagram post, you know what happened next.We could tell something was off that morning as soon as we stepped in the old city and passed a group of people guarded by the police on our way to the Temple Mount. We did not really pay attention and continued walking to the Western Wall, where the entrance to the was said to be.Once in the queue to the mandatory security check , we started hearing gunshots echoing through the city. The air got thick. At that point, it was hard to tell if this ultra guarded place was safe for us to be or not.A woman in a veil holding an Australian passport got kicked out of the queue in front of our eyes, and some loud discussions took place between a group of locals and the police officer that watched over the crowd.  The other tourists remained silent and no one commented on what was going on.A 100m long wooden and narrow footbridge connects the security check to the entrance of the Temple mount. While  walking through it, we almost had to step over the police machine guns as we walked between two lines of fully armored cops.The air got thicker as we entered the Temple Mount. There were more police officers and militaries there than tourists, and they did not look friendly.  We wanted to walk to go straight, but a police officer loudly directed us to the left, following another group of tourists escorted by a handful of cops. We thought they wanted us to follow them, but we got kick out of the group and a we realize at a closer look that it was in fact a group of Jews.Apart from a few tourist and that escorted group, the Temple Mount was pretty empty and the atmosphere got more tensed, as the sound of guns continued to echo through the city, breaking the silence reigning over the holy place.Another tourist came and talked to us, explaining that he heard the Mosque inside the Temple Mount had been the objects of quarrels between a group of Palestinian and the Israeli police just an hour before we arrived. We tried to check out the above named Mosque, but the police prevented us to do so.After several times of being discouraged by locals to go where we wanted to go, we started to feel uncomfortable and figure we'd better withdraw. We found a spot to exit and walked out. The situation turned from uncomfortable to alarming when the group of Jews we had previously followed exited the Temple Mount right behind us and started to chant in a way we judged quite provocative considered the situation.We decided to walk faster to escape potential escalation of the tension, but quickly stumbled upon a group of Palestinians blocked by cops right in front of us. As the chanting group of Jews got closer behind us, the two groups started yelling and whistling at each others.So here we were, standing right in the middle of these two groups of Israeli and Palestinians, separated by only 50 meters and two dozens off cops who now wore helmets, filmed by cameramen running around to capture the moment.Bad place, bad time, we thought to ourselves.A woman in a veil got wheeled by four running men right in front of us, taking the situation from alarming to actually scary.We remained calm, found a street to escape the situation without having to go through the riots, and got ourselves back at the Western Wall, where people were praying as if nothing was happening. We got dissuaded to exit the place through the gate we had used to get in, and after some intense reflection how we would get ourselves out of that mess, eventually found a way out on the other side, which turned out to take us out of the old city.We got in a cab as soon as we could and headed straight back to the hotel, in a bit of a choc.We knew where we were going when we booked our trip, and were aware we could potentially end up being exposed to the Isreali-Palestinian conflict in ways we could probably not imagine. It however took us a while to realize what we had just experienced.Ryan had his freak-out once back in the room. I had mine a little later in the car we had rented, as Ryan was driving us out of the city.Later, the incident was all over the news. And we were chocked at discrepancies we found between what we had witnessed earlier that day and what was being reported.We left Jerusalem with new eyes on the conflict, and quite happy our next destination would allow us to rest a little. To be continued!