On to Eilat, and a step into Africa

After a two-hour drive through the Negev desert, we ran into bustling Eilat, Israel's port and vacation spot on the Red Sea. We had reservations at the Dan Panorama and just headed toward the big hotels until we spotted ours. There was a one-way street leading in, and not wanting to turn around, I backed up a quarter mile until we could park and register. It was a little 'New York' style driving but drew no unusual attention. The Dan was really nice and it had secure underground parking. The first thing I did was book a day tour to Petra, and then I figured 'why not go stand in Africa!'

We took a cab to the Taba border crossing, which was just a few miles away along the Red Sea. We had to go through the exit stamp process and then walk a short distance to Egypt where a chaotic scene of differently-uniformed officers finally directed us to a guy at a desk on the phone who stamped us in. The Israelis were a little curious as to what we were doing, and we were delayed a short time until a supervisor came over. We had to pay 74 NIS to leave. The officer said I didn't have to pay if I was just going for an hour or so. I thought we might find a place to have dinner on the Red Sea in Africa so I declined the offer and paid.

I could have saved my money. There was nothing to do or see in Taba (see pictures, above and below). There was a casino, but I couldn't figure out how to actually walk there. We walked up and down the avenue for a while, and noticed a couple of new, very nicely built hotels -- which were virtually empty. It was eerily quiet, like a ghost town with a wide main street. So we turned around and went back to Israel. First we had to get an exit stamp and then spend our Egyptian pounds at the the duty free store (Lily bought Toblerone chocolates). Israel ran us through 15 minutes of question-and-answer and then stamped up back in. We caught a cab and found a nice Thai restaurant near the hotel.