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Day 1
At six o’clock in the cold Saturday morning we showed up at the airport in Balice. Form there we bought out cheap tickets for a flight to Eilat, a city at the deep south of Israel, near the border with Egypt and Jordan. At the Balice airport, in addition to standard check-in we should passed special procedure – Israeli restrictive law forcing customs controllers to perform extra search of checked baggage. Therefore, we have been witness of analysing smells of our large backpack. The “old man” has already passed a lot with us, so we were not absolutely certain about his “fragrance of purity”.
Three and a half hours later, we landed in a warm, sunny Eilat. Enjoying the warmth and sun was disrupted by passport control (before entrance to the terminal) – more than a dozen passengers form our plane were caught by armed guards and customs officers for initial but detailed questioning about the purpose and details of arrival. We luckily passed through and got into the passport control window, where after providing some answers to standard questions, got out to the parking lot for buses. It is worth remembering that if you do not want to get Israeli stamp in passport which close you possibility to entry to several countries in conflict with Israel, before you check in you have to fill special form available at the border.
To Eilat for a few days “doing nothing” we back at the end of our trip, so soon after the arrival we wanted to move to Tel-Aviv as quickly as possible. We landed on the Sabbath, which is not the best time to fast traveling. But in Poland we found https://eilatshuttle.com/, which offers direct transfer form Ovda to the capital of Israel (35 euro/ person). After exchanging a few e-mails with that company we found out that we have to buy a ticket for Mania because she gets her own car seat and, understandably, will occupy additional space.
Behind the door of terminal we have found quite easily the man who led the tourists to several buses. And here it began the stairs. We would gest to Tel-Aviv, but with the five-hour stopover in Eilat and through Jerusalem. Of course, nobody heard abut seat for Mania and to our questions put directly to the boss of this company, we heard that all the information were in the booking confirmation – obviously there weren’t. Except this situation everything was all good. In Eilat was beautiful weather and of course beach and sea :-).
But this is not the end of out little adventure. In Tel Aviv we supposed to be before 7 pm. at our couchsurfer Ammon flat. Finally, after troubles with the transport, we got at him at 1:30 am. Problems started when my phone had bene completely dead, hence phone number to Ammon disappeared. We thought that nothing bad happened. We remember the address, and we’re getting close. We did not anticipate that intercom of our host had stopped working… In the middle of the night, standing at front of the building with backpacks and sleeping Mania, we began to lose hope that we’ll sleep tonight in bed. Luckily we did not know form where and how appeared on the horizon two men who
we asked for help with the intercom (it is all in Hebrew, so we could do something wrong), then asked about access to the Internet on mobile. Quickly we sought out a number in a couchsurfing system. Moments later we were in the apartment of Ammon. It was a really long day.
