So that’s the way the ride ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Against my better judgment I acceded to the wishes of some fellow riders and participated in a post-ride trip to Petra. Petra itself was fantastic—geologically and architecturally there is probably little to compare to the narrow canyons and ancient monumental carvings. Was it worth the ten-hour ordeal of getting there and back for a two-hour glimpse of one of the Seven Wonders of the World (assuming what one tourist said is true)?
Maybe.
For this I gave up an unhurried day on the beach at Eilat, and a much anticipated return engagement at one of the finest restaurant meals I have ever eaten—Margaret Tayar’s in Jaffa. Far from unhurried, it was a nail biter at reentry to Israel. Our tour coordinator finally pushed to the front of the passport control line those of us on the 8:55 flight from Eilat to Tel Aviv. We would rush into cabs rather than wait for the whole group to gain entry and take the bus to the hotel together. The cabs would allow us to pick up our bags and scurry to the airport with a little time to spare. The by-product of this frenzied strategy was a few hasty high fives instead of more leisurely farewells with the others.
We grabbed the cabs.
Dashed to the hotel.
Dashed to the airport.
Crawled through security—interrogated for a variety of suspicions, most notably for not having had continuous possession of our bags
Dashed across the street for a bowl of insipid stir-fried noodles that may have tipped the scales against the trip to Petra. The Beach at Eilat/Dinner at Margaret Tayar’s package would almost certainly have trumped the Petra/Noodle combo.
There were actually quite a few cyclists on the short hop to Tel Aviv. By the time the day ended I had watched 106 cyclists dwindle down to 43 bus riders, to a dozen plane passengers, to three men sharing a cab to downtown Tel Aviv. When the cab made it’s first stop and Shelly and Eric got out at their hotel, it was reduced to one—one man still contemplating the meaning of it all. Did something really happen here? Has my life or anyone else’s been changed in any profound, if indefinable, way?
For now, I’m going with, “Yes.”
As for this final day in Israel, it was great spending it with friends, even if much of it was dedicated to waiting in multiple lines at the Israel-Jordan border, schlepping on the bus two hours each way, listening to the unrelenting, irritating patter of our tour guide, and a variety of other delays and annoyances.
To a large degree, the day served as group therapy for the withdrawal symptoms we all had in the absence of our daily fix of cycling. More than that, we were suffering from a case of communitas interruptis. Our community of riders mirrored in a few important ways the community of students and alumni of the Arava Institute. Ours was an environment in which everyone was valued and felt valued for exactly who they were regardless of demographic circumstances. Neither religion, nor nationality, nor age, nor even physical prowess stood as a barrier among us. It was a seamless enterprise with palpable affection and support. From this I deduce that we not only need to support Arava, we need to learn from it and replicate its model in other venues including business and politics.
At the final banquet Monday night I was among five riders acknowledged for raising over eight thousand dollars. In urging all of us to continue our fundraising efforts, David Lehrer correctly pointed out that each of us has very different capacity in this regard. It would be wrong to expect the two youngest riders—aged fourteen years—to have the same donor network as well established adults.
For that reason regardless of how well our pre-ride campaign had gone we were all asked to continue our efforts after the ride. I hasten to add that after spending a week with the Arava students and alumni who supported the ride, and after visiting the campus at Kibbutz Ketora, meeting and talking with additional students, there was little David had to say to make it evident that this is a remarkable organization richly deserving of further support. The money we raise provides for scholarships especially for students coming from homes that would find it reprehensible to support this kind of intercultural study. In a sea of anger, despair, and pessimism, the dialogue at Arava, the collaborations, and love engendered between Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Christian, Moslem, and Jew alike are a beacon of hope.
Against my better judgment I acceded to the wishes of some fellow riders and participated in a post-ride trip to Petra. Petra itself was fantastic—geologically and architecturally there is probably little to compare to the narrow canyons and ancient monumental carvings. Was it worth the ten-hour ordeal of getting there and back for a two-hour glimpse of one of the Seven Wonders of the World (assuming what one tourist said is true)?
Maybe.
For this I gave up an unhurried day on the beach at Eilat, and a much anticipated return engagement at one of the finest restaurant meals I have ever eaten—Margaret Tayar’s in Jaffa. Far from unhurried, it was a nail biter at reentry to Israel. Our tour coordinator finally pushed to the front of the passport control line those of us on the 8:55 flight from Eilat to Tel Aviv. We would rush into cabs rather than wait for the whole group to gain entry and take the bus to the hotel together. The cabs would allow us to pick up our bags and scurry to the airport with a little time to spare. The by-product of this frenzied strategy was a few hasty high fives instead of more leisurely farewells with the others.
We grabbed the cabs.
Dashed to the hotel.
Dashed to the airport.
Crawled through security—interrogated for a variety of suspicions, most notably for not having had continuous possession of our bags
Dashed across the street for a bowl of insipid stir-fried noodles that may have tipped the scales against the trip to Petra. The Beach at Eilat/Dinner at Margaret Tayar’s package would almost certainly have trumped the Petra/Noodle combo.
There were actually quite a few cyclists on the short hop to Tel Aviv. By the time the day ended I had watched 106 cyclists dwindle down to 43 bus riders, to a dozen plane passengers, to three men sharing a cab to downtown Tel Aviv. When the cab made it’s first stop and Shelly and Eric got out at their hotel, it was reduced to one—one man still contemplating the meaning of it all. Did something really happen here? Has my life or anyone else’s been changed in any profound, if indefinable, way?
For now, I’m going with, “Yes.”
As for this final day in Israel, it was great spending it with friends, even if much of it was dedicated to waiting in multiple lines at the Israel-Jordan border, schlepping on the bus two hours each way, listening to the unrelenting, irritating patter of our tour guide, and a variety of other delays and annoyances.
To a large degree, the day served as group therapy for the withdrawal symptoms we all had in the absence of our daily fix of cycling. More than that, we were suffering from a case of communitas interruptis. Our community of riders mirrored in a few important ways the community of students and alumni of the Arava Institute. Ours was an environment in which everyone was valued and felt valued for exactly who they were regardless of demographic circumstances. Neither religion, nor nationality, nor age, nor even physical prowess stood as a barrier among us. It was a seamless enterprise with palpable affection and support. From this I deduce that we not only need to support Arava, we need to learn from it and replicate its model in other venues including business and politics.
At the final banquet Monday night I was among five riders acknowledged for raising over eight thousand dollars. In urging all of us to continue our fundraising efforts, David Lehrer correctly pointed out that each of us has very different capacity in this regard. It would be wrong to expect the two youngest riders—aged fourteen years—to have the same donor network as well established adults.
For that reason regardless of how well our pre-ride campaign had gone we were all asked to continue our efforts after the ride. I hasten to add that after spending a week with the Arava students and alumni who supported the ride, and after visiting the campus at Kibbutz Ketora, meeting and talking with additional students, there was little David had to say to make it evident that this is a remarkable organization richly deserving of further support. The money we raise provides for scholarships especially for students coming from homes that would find it reprehensible to support this kind of intercultural study. In a sea of anger, despair, and pessimism, the dialogue at Arava, the collaborations, and love engendered between Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Christian, Moslem, and Jew alike are a beacon of hope.
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