I took a taxi to the border of Egypt and Israel from Dahab.  Upon arriving, I sent my bags through a big X-ray machine and I had to empty my pockets to go through the metal detector….which was comforting considering that every metal detector I went through in Egypt was accompanied by an Egyptian dude, smoking a ciggarette, waving people with huge bags through , as the metal detector just went ballistic with every person who passed under it…no one was ever stopped.  I made my way to the bank to exchange my Egyptian pounds into Israeli Shekels.  The guy at the bank only had change, so my little red bag turned into a gigantic change purse, holding about 300 shekels in all 1 and 2 shekel coins.  When I finished at the bank, a line had formed at the passport check with about a hundred person tour group.  They, however, were at a disadvantage for they had not learned the Middle Eastern methods of, well, not waiting in line.  I walked to the front of the line that extended from the metal detectors to the passport check and just slipped right in front of everyone….maybe these Egyptians didn’t have such a bad idea after all. 

After passport check I had to walk across the border and then go through the Israeli border.  I have never experienced security as intense as I was screened crossing the Israeli border.  From the airport in Miami, I had some pretty tough screening (describing Moses’ relationship to Aaron because Aaron is my middle name), but this was even more intense.  I had to give them every detail of my month and a half travels in Jordan and Egypt…almost day by day.  Why I was picked out probably had something to do with my beard and the fact that I was the only white person with a backpack going through security at that time.  We all know that I love to talk about my travels so it wasn’t that bad.  A few times they had to make me skip some stuff because I was throwing in details such as, “I wanted to stay at the youth hostel in Aswan for 3 pounds a night, but they were booked so I ended up staying at Marwa hotel, which was right across the street, for only seven pounds, and given that its like $1.50, its a steal.  That night I hired a sailboat to watch the sunset, which was awesome, do you want to see pictures?”  By the end of the 45 minutes of questioning, the two girls who were questioning me had changed from interrogating me to just asking curious questions ”so is it easy to get to the pyramids from Cairo….did you feel safe?”  I ended by giving them the ‘ol “zachmorris.com” shout out, “for more detail and great pictures, be sure to visit…”.   One of the girls walked me to the front of the passport line so I didn’t have to wait behind the tour group who was now in front of me.  The lady at the passport check started with, “why did she bring you to the front of line?  Why was she questioning you?  What did she ask you?”…I was thinking to myself, what happened to the “Welcome home!” that I was greeted with when I arrived in the Tel Aviv airport…Telling this girl that I was Jewish did not help my situation, but smiling and cracking a few jokes had me on my way in no time.

 So, now I’m back in Israel, where the undeserved reason for a sense of security is the 18 year old girls and boys with M16’s everywhere you turn.  The girls have their M16’s strapped around their shoulders as though it were an extra makeup handbag, and the mojority of the guys, who look as though they would never dream of picking up a handweight that equaled that of an M16, wear their guns as though it were a semi-automatic extension of their member. (Below picture taken from Google images)

 After crossing the border, I took a taxi to Eilat, and then a bus to Tel Aviv.  About 12 hours after leaving Dahab, I finally arrived at a hostel in Tel Aviv.