Travel Blog

Two friends and I contacted some settlers in Gush Qatif in Gaza to visit for the weekend. We had spoken to them many times on the phone and arranged everything so it would run as smoothly as possible. At 12:45pm we left on the bus from Beer Sheva to Ashqelon and to catch the last bus, 036, leaving at 2:00pm too Gush Qatif. On the way I asked the driver when our bus was supposed to arrive to Ashqelon and he told us 2:10, 10 minutes after our bus to Gush Qatif was supposed to leave. So thinking quick we got off the bus in Sederot and caught a cab to Ashqelon (though we could of caught a bus there to Gush we only found out later). In the cab we told him our situation and he speed us to the bus station just making it in time before the bus left.

The bus was of the typical bulletproof bus kind old as crap with really dirty windows and ugly orange sets from the 80s. The bus was full with soldiers and settlers, and religious folk all pretty nice people, at least the ones I spoke to. Half way to our destination at one of the more ghettoish settlements with a bunch of caravans we saw a large group of left wing protesters, one holding up a Palestinian flag, I wanted to take a photo but my friend wouldn’t open the muddy window for me for a clear shot. After stopping at a few settlements passing tanks and stuff you don’t always see in Beer Sheva we got to our stop with the help of some fellow travelers on the bus.

At the stop someone directed us to our families house in a very nice settlement much like Allon Shevut in Gush Etzyon where we meet the father for the first time. We introduced ourselves and he invited us in introducing us to his wife. The house was very nice, nicer then my friends homes in Rosh Hain and my girlfriends house in Rishon. They showed us to a room to put our stuff and offered to take us to the beach. We eagerly accepted originally wanting to go to the beach in the first place.

Our host took a nap while we played around running sprints taking photos etc. The beach was sandy with lots of shells and large rocky formations about 10 feet into the water and there was a mechiza (a separation wall) separating the men from the woman’s side of the beach. Then as we where playing by the wall an older woman (60ish) ran to our side of the fence and started yelling frantically to some older (60ish) man standing next to us in Hebrew. My taller friend, who has better Hebrew then myself and my shorter friend said he thinks someone was drowning.

So we all ran over to the woman’s side and I jumped in with my tall friend behind me. I heard the girl scream and I was scared. I didn’t know how strong the current was and I remember the life guard who had left about 10 minutes ago yelling at our shorter friend not to go to far into the ocean. I was scared but I remember hearing a story of one of my friends being stuck in the water while everyone watched and no one helped until some guy who was driving by got out to see what everyone was looking at then jumped in and saved her. So I swam, there where three guys already in front of me an my friend was behind. Two of the guys where holding her on either side trying to swim while the third guy was struggling to stay afloat.

Eventually the two boys let go of the girl obviously tired and I grabbed her with one arm and tried to swim to shore with everyone but the current was strong, the shore wasn’t getting any closer, and I was getting tired. For a second I started to panic and figured we might all drown here. So I let go, I let the girl go and I started swimming hard with the waves using them to propel me against the current and I started to gain speed until I kicked sand. I felt guilty but I knew if I didn’t let go of her neither of us would of made it back, luckily the sand was only a few meters from where I let go.

I turned around and started yelling to the girl and everyone else that it was only a few more meters before sand when I noticed the one guy almost looked dead and my friend was far behind everyone else. The girl finally made it to safety and everyone passed me exhausted except my friend who was struggling too by this time. I yelled to him to stay calm and that the ground was not to far from him but I couldn’t go back. It was a scary feeling, I wanted to help but I couldn’t I knew that if I went any further I wouldn’t make it back so I prayed, I prayed to keep my friend safe. A moment later a teen aged boy, one of the same ones who was helping the girl came by me with a rope from the shore and he yelled for me to help him pull it.

I pulled until he reached my friend and we all pulled back until my friend reached the sand when I grabbed him and helped him walk to shore. By that time there where already dozens of army medics, doctors and a few ambulances. Most people where crowed around the girl until my other friend yelled for them to help our exhausted friend. Everyone crowed around him and they held his feet up trying to get any water out that he might of had in his lungs. I looked around a bit and saw the guy who had been out there from the beginning probably the first one to try and rescue this girl. He was in bad shape but everyone was crowded around my friend and no one was paying attention to him. A doctor came by and put him on his side, he started to throw up and we covered him with a blanket, they eventually put him on a stretcher and took him to a hospital in Sederot, just out side of Gaza.

They tried to take our friend but he said he was alright, just exhausted. Then our host came running and was asking us what happened, joking with us that we where crazy for jumping in. It was pretty emotional, I thought I almost lost my friend while I was watching in the water and there was nothing I could do about it, if that boy didn’t come with the rope he certainly would of drowned. The greatest thing was to see how so many people pulled together to help, no one person could of saved that girl alone… though there is that saying “to many cooks spoil the meal” or something of the sort and though I felt guilty for not swimming back out for my friend in hind sight I am so glad I didn’t. We might of both needed rescuing, there would of been no one to help pull the rope and my friend was on his last breath.

All in all it was a pretty adventurous way to start off our trip in Gaza, thank G-d everyone is alright. That night I put in ear plugs and slept like a log while my friends say their was gun fire all night, any one of those soldiers probably has more interesting stories then mine. With all the obvious ways to die in Gaza it would of been a pretty ironic to go drowning but that’s life, when its your time to go its your time to go, and when G-d wants to give you a wake up call, or a warning, test you in a situation, or teach you something about currents, he’ll do it.

The rest of the weekend was great, we ate a lot. We spent a lot of time in Synagogue and in bed like ahh normal religious Shabbat. With Sharon’s plan to evacuate the settlements who knows how much longer non Palestinians will be able to visit Gaza safly. Like the photo’s I took at the top of the Trade center in November 2000 I’m glad I saw it.

We walked in silence towards the border. We were in Israel. Taba, Egypt, lay just a few hundred yards in front of us. The Red Sea, dotted with tankers and a menacing, gun-filled coast guard boat, stretched out to our left. Israeli soldiers stood at guard in front of the squat customs buildings before us; they wore crisp green uniforms and their M-16s glittered in the heat. Although we did not know it at the time, in exactly one month this spot would erupt in violence. In one month, the soldiers that I was approaching would shoot their machine guns into the air in warning; in one month, the Hilton Hotel behind them would be a fountain of fire, a mass of twisted concrete. In one month, bloodied Israelis would be pleading with Egyptian soldiers to let them cross back into Israel, while their passports remained in the burning hotel.

But as we walked towards the crossing on that August day, violence was far from our minds. Instead, the three of us had the same, simple goal: find a remote and dirt-cheap beach on the Sinai where we could stay for a couple days, bask in the sun, and hang out with beautiful women—and, if we were lucky, actually talk to some of them.

Inside passport control the deep brown eyes of an Israeli soldier greeted me. Her face was darkly tanned, and she wore her machine gun casually over her shoulder. She was quietly beautiful and looked very bored. I gave her a big smile and her face lit up with a smile of her own. She asked me for my passport. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget about getting to Abu-Simbel for a while. The road is closed between Aswan and Abu-Simbel for the moment and no-one seems to know for sure when it will open. The only way to get there is by airplane for which I was quoted US$100 for the day trip. I tried to get a reduced rate but no go, as the Cairo – Abu-Simbel flights are full. For the budget traveller forget it, anyway, the sight isn’t going anywhere.

The Luxor bus station has moved. Buses to Hurghada leave from the garage on Sharia television. There is also a small station near the service taxi station.

You can still get ferry tickets from Hurghada to Sharm-el-Sheikh for E£100 (Price for Egyptians). Don’t go to travel agencies because they do charge you double if you’re a foreigner. Instead, when you get a hotel, ask the manager if they can buy the tickets for you.

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