The Holy Land.

Jerusalem, Israel

After landing at Amman airport from Beirut, the aim of the game was to get to the Israeli border with the minimum of fuss, and with any luck the minimum of cash.

I failed on both accounts. So begins the battle of the cab drivers.

At this point I’m traveling with Caroline from the US of A. So after I pump myself full of coffee, and we collect our bags we stick out thumbs out for a cab.

The first guy who pulls up quotes us 60 Jordanian Dinars (US$84) to get us to the border. No way. Too much.

The next guy tells us he can get us there for 20 JDs , but he’s not an official “Airport Taxi” so he’ll pick us up from a hotel down the road.

So we jump in an official cab, and direct the driver to the hotel. Our man is no fool. He knows exactly what is going on, strait away; he is on the phone yelling in Arabic.

The only words I can pick out are “Transit” “Hotel” and “Border”. There is some trouble ahead, we have bent the rules.

As it turns out, there are two kinds of taxi ; Airport and Amman. The Airport guys take you from the airport to where ever you need to go. The Amman guys, on the other hand, can only take you from the city.

We end up at the hotel, five minutes from the Airport with the two cab drivers yelling at each other. A cop arrives tries to calm them down. Great.

Eventually we offer the official cab 30Jd to take us to the border. All is well, but we should have just taken the bloody bus.

After a 40-minute drive, we are there.

The border is unassuming. There is the occasional guard tower with a .50 cal machine gun, some barbed wire but otherwise it’s noting too special.

Our bags are x-rayed to within an inch of their life, passports are stamped, forms are filled out and that’s it.

Welcome to Israel.

You wouldn’t know it, but you drive through the West Bank on your way to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is great; once you get past the tourist kitsch of the old city there is heaps to see. After getting lost in the maze of old narrow streets and alleys I stumbled upon the Jew’s holiest site, the Western Wall.

It’s a great place to people watch. Filled with soldiers, Hassidic Jews and crawling with tourists; it’s quite a site.

The Jaffa Gate to the Old City.

A soldier with his family.

The wall of the Old City.

Tourists at the Western Wall.

There is a pile of kippahs for tourists who want to approach the wall.

Tourists.

The Jewish quarter of the Old City.

The Islamic Quarter. 

Young Israeli soldiers pose for a photo by the Western Wall.