After arriving in Istanbul late at night, I was prepared to set up camp and curl up on an airport bench until the next morning. I figured I'd be able to ditch my bag for a few hours in a locker and then have all afternoon to tour the city until my connection left from Istanbul to Dakar (including a brief and sketchy stopover in Tunisia of course). Though the idea of a 20 hour layover may seem absurd and inconvenient to a lot of people, I thought it was just a bonus of my ticket and an opportunity to see some of a city that I'd heard such wonderful rumors of.
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Sinai
Dahab has totally changed my perspective on Egypt. I guess you can never really qualify an entire country based on one city, but the Sinai was such a different experience than the one I had in Cairo.
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Deheishe Knows What It Is To Be Free
Traveling between Israel and Palestine might be one of the most difficult processes ever! It is deceptive at first, since it is no problem to walk into the New Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, and buy a ticket for a bus to Jerusalem for 20NIS (about $6), that run about every 20 mins. I assumed that traveling the hour from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be longest part of my transit to Bethlehem which lies a few minutes drive outside the gates of the Old City. This assumption is false.
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Hipsters Occupying Tel Aviv
I felt awakened as I passed through the rolling hills, greenery, and desert sand of Israel leaving behind Jerusalem as a small speck in my mind. I sometimes find it hard to appreciate things in Israel after seeing places like Deheishe, however, the whole point of enrolling in Tel Aviv University was to challenge my thoughts and awaken myself to both perspectives. The further the bus drove from Jerusalem, the further we got from the conflict. It was easier to open my mind to the other side, which eventually made me realize why it was so easy for the other side to close their minds to what is going on outside of big cities like Haifa and Tel Aviv.
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... And That's how I Ended Up In Jerusalem
in israel, jerusalem, middle east, ramallah
Alejandro and I coincidentally had similar schedules that lead us both back from Petra to Amman at the same time. The next morning he was supposed to head to Israel, while I was scheduled to fly back to Cairo. I was a bit nervous about heading back to Egypt, especially since every local in Petra was warning against it. The news was still portraying a violent and chaotic image of Tahrir square. Though I'm sure it was more contained than how it appeared, I didn't want to take the risk of getting caught up in any political unrest, especially traveling by myself. Fine. I will actually admit it. It was difficult to be a foreign woman in Cairo. I hate recognizing that my gender can, in some ways, impede my ability to travel.
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