The Best Laid Plans...

February 21-23
…are no plans at all. We decided to make the most of our last free weekend before intense nursing classes began. What better way than to go to a warm sunny beach on the Red Sea. We found a hotel for cheap in Eilat the night before, made our reservations, got on the bus after our Hebrew Finals and were on our way. Five hours later, at 11pm we arrived at our hotel, only to find that we “misunderstood” the price, and in fact they were going to charge us double the amount they quoted to us on the phone. Through a little struggle and a phone call to the manager they finally agreed to cancel the reservation without charging the credit card the full amount.

So, here we were, 8 girls, 1 boy, wandering Eilat at 11pm without a place to sleep. Pretty comical really, but it gets better. We decided to go back to the bus station, because we saw a couple hostels around. While walking through the station we ran into a group of boys from Spain who also needed a place to stay. The group of us was wandering up toward the hostels when we were approached by a woman saying “place to stay, very cheap.” We bargained with her for a little bit just for fun, but after she became pushy we realized it was just a bit too sketchy. The Spanish boys went with another man in a Jeep. We continued on our way...

While we split up to inquire about different hostels about open beds and pricing, the woman drove by and honked, then she stopped up by the other group and started bargaining again. She was going to give us 10 shekels less per person for two nights. We had to convince our friend that $2.50 was not worth risking our lives.

We ended up finding a beautiful hostel. The man who owned it has traveled all over the world, is an architect/designer, and designed his hostel. He even has the “nicest house in Israel” to rent out, and he was not exaggerating. Nestled into our room we had an intense 2 hour conversation (that prompted my previous post) and called it a night.

The first day was very relaxed. We wondered around the beach shopping at different stands. It was gorgeous. A sea with the bluest water I have ever seen, surrounded by looming mountains. We meandered up the jetty to see if there were any boat rides on the Red Sea that seemed appealing. We were invited onto a man’s boat to explore. To our surprise to was a beautiful pirate ship (okay, some might call it a sailing ship)! The cruise left the next morning, so we signed right up! For 125 Shekels (about $35) we got a 4 hour cruise to the border of Israel/Egypt and Jordan/Sinai, delicious Israeli BBQ lunch, time to jump off the ship into the Sea with a rope swing, and relax or dance while music played. It was truly a vacation and an adventure. And of course it turned out so much better than if it was planned.