Petra and Airport Security part 2

So, more on Petra.  I'll try to give the timeline best as I remember so you can get a sense for how long of a day it was for all of us.

Saturday

6.30am - Rolled out of bed to skype with Esther, it was 10.30pm on Friday night for her.

7.05am - Finished packing and went down to breakfast.  Ate quickly.

7.25am - Went downstairs to load up onto the mini-bus that came to our hotel to pick us up for the tour.  Met our Israeli guide who would be with us until we crossed the border.

7.55am - After picking up some more people (for a total of 14, including the 5 of us from Highrock), we got to the border crossing and were waiting behind a very large (~30+ people?) tour group.  Our guide informed us that he would help us through the border crossing (which opened at 8am) and then we would walk to the Jordanian side on our own, after which our Jordanian guide would pick us up and help us through that crossing, identifying us by the stickers our guide gave us.

8.05am - We walk to the passport control lines and our guide directs us to get in line directly.  This part might be a little hard to explain without a diagram.  There are about 4 or so lines open with ~3-4 people from the large tour group in each line.  The rest of the tour group is sort of off to the side with their guide.  Our guide ushers us around the large tour group and into the lines directly, basically skipping ahead of the large group.  This kicks off a heated discussion in Hebrew between our guide and the guide of the other tour group with lots of motioning of the arms.  Our guide ends the discussion and goes off to pay for a couple more border crossing taxes.  While he's doing that, the guide of the large tour group says very loudly in English to his group: "ok people, spread out in the lines.  Don't blame these other nice people for cutting you in line, they were just following their guide's instruction.  I'm sure they are nice people and will let you go ahead of them."  And then to us: "friends, we are all polite people here.  You don't go cutting other people in line.  I'm sure you will be nice people and let the others in front of you."  But really to no avail, as it doesn't seem like people in the big tour group are going to ask us to get in front of us and it certainly doesn't seem like any of our tour group are just going to let everyone go ahead of us.  As most of us finish up and are waiting for a few others, the other guide starts another heated discussion with our guide, which I assume revolves around the other tour people not being really in a line but standing off to the side, plus the fact that they are all going to have to wait a long time anyway, so we should just go through since there are fewer of us.  A few other guides whose groups are either through already or are waiting stop by and say hi to our guide; some of them join in the argument with the other guide, seemingly on the side of our guide.  In the end, when we are all through anyway, the other guide gives up his arguments and goes back to talking normally with our guide and others.  Our guide leads us to the border line and tells us to walk through the gate and to the Jordanian gate.

~8.30am - We walk the quarter mile or so of desolate pavement with fences and barbed wire on both sides of us to the Jordanian side, put our bags through the xray machines and give our passports to the Jordanian guide so he can take it to passport control.  He tells us to wait about 20min at the tiny convenience store next door while he gets our passports stamped.

~9.15am - Our Jordanian guide (I will just refer to him as "the guide" or "our guide" from now on) gives us all a free bottle of water from the convenience store and we drive off in another mini-bus.  He talks to us about our day over a loudspeaker and informs us it will be about 2 hours until we reach Petra.

~10.30am - We make a pit stop at a convenience store / souvenir shop for bathroom breaks.  After we leave again, our guide starts telling us a little bit of the history of Petra.

~12.00pm - We finally arrive at Petra and go through the metal detectors at the entrance with our tickets and the tour starts.  Our guide explains more about the history of Petra as we start the walk down the entranceway.  Along the way through the gates and the narrow gorge that leads to Petra we see some reenactments of soldiers marching and some cool aqueducts that supplied the ancient city with water carved into the side of the gorge.

~12.30pm - We get to the most recognizable site, the Treasury, and take some photos for about 10 minutes and then are herded along by our guide.

1.15pm - The tour ends as we finish walking through the necropolis.  We've seen different tombs (seems like that's what the big things of Petra mostly were), an amphitheater, and some cave dwellings where the Bedouin tribe had lived.  The guide tells us we have to be back at the bus at 2.45pm and it takes about an hour walking slowly to get back up to the top.  So we have about 30 minutes to explore on our own.  Some of us choose to climb up to this other smaller tomb carved into the mountainside.

1.45pm - We start heading back and stop at this shop that makes sand designs inside these bottles.  One of us questions the guy as to whether they are handmade and he proceeds to make one right in front of us in about a minute or two.  After that we start hiking back up to the top through the gorge.

2.45pm - We get to the bus at the appointed time after stopping for a restroom/water break at the entrance to Petra.  Two of our friends took the horseback ride back up the end portion, the rest of us walked.

3.00pm - The last two stragglers of our group of 14 showed up and we finally leave for the buffet "lunch" that's included in our tour.  They take us to a pretty nice restaurant that I really enjoyed (the lamb was quite delicious!).  And since it was buffet, I enjoyed a lot of the hummus and pita and lamb.  And some dessert (a kind of bread pudding that the sign said was called "Mm.. Ali" or something like that).

4.00pm - We leave the buffet place.  Some of us our concerned because we're not sure exactly when our domestic flight to Tel Aviv takes off and whether we can get there in time to check-in and everything.  Our guide tells us not to worry and that it only takes an hour and a half to get back to the border (we don't stop along the way).

5.30pm - We get to the border and breeze through the Jordanian side and walk the quarter mile between the borders with our luggage and into the Israeli side.  We were asked a couple questions by the Israeli security and then we put our bags through the xray machines and a couple of us got tagged for further investigation, i.e. full body scan and/or searching through the luggage.  I went through fine and on to passport control.  I got stuck in a really slow line where the guy seemed to be having a bad day or something because he took forever staring at our passports and asking us some questions in a quiet voice so I had to keep leaning into the window and saying "what did you say?"

6.40pm - Everyone finally finishes with the passport control and is ready to leave.  We have a different minibus and Israeli guide this time, but he just waited for everyone to finish and then tells the bus driver where to go.

7.00pm - We finally arrive at the small Eilat airport and I enter into what I see at first as complete chaos.  There are people everywhere and a line before you even get to the check-in counter.  I am a little concerned because we haven't even checked in yet and I'm not sure when our plane is supposed to leave, although I am comforted by the fact that it seems like there are planes every hour (at least) to Tel Aviv.

The chaos that I initially saw actually turns out to be completely normal and somewhat organized.  There is the main line that you enter when you first go in the airport, with one airport security guy at the front directing people where to go.  Then, all around the main area (this is before you get to the ticketing counters), seemingly in haphazard places and all packed tightly together, there are about 10-15 security personnel questioning passengers, Israeli or otherwise.  They also have bags opened for searching or scanning in a couple scanners.  There also seems to be a few managers watching over all the security personnel and conferencing with them at various times.  When one member of our group gets to one of the security personnel and informs them that we're together, they take all our passports, ask us a few questions, and then confer with the manager person.  Then they come back to ask us who booked the tour to Petra and started asking her questions.  They also took me out of the group and told the rest of the group to wait - apparently I was to be questioned separately, which I was glad to do because it gave me a really interesting experience.

First he started asking me the easy questions - name, where are you from, what are you doing here in Israel (tourism), what do you do back home (engineer), where do you work (Cavium Networks), what is that (I give him a business card, he seems unimpressed), senior engineer (yes).  Then he asked me about each member of our group - how long have you known this person, how do you know them, what do they do, etc.  When it came out that one of our group didn't go to our church and I had just met her on this trip, he asked me some more questions about her and I thought, uh oh, she's probably going to get questioned even more (she's a college friend of one of our other members).  Then he asked me about our Petra trip.  He asked how long we were there (day tour), who booked the plane tickets (I did), who paid for the plane tickets (I did), who paid for the lodging in Eilat (the tour), how did I get to Eilat (bus from Jerusalem), did I have a receipt (no, but I have my bus ticket; give it to him, he seems to approve), did anyone in Jordan ask about our flights (no), did anyone give me something to take (no), was my luggage with me the whole time (left it in the bus when we went down to Petra), was my luggage locked the whole time (yes), did I pack it myself (yes), was it ever outside my control other than in the bus (no).  He wanted me to show him some proof that I was actually in Petra and so I pulled out my camera and turned it on and showed him a picture and so he started flipping through all the pictures to see.  Then he would stop on some and ask me who each person was some of the pictures (tour guide, friend, some random Jordanian who looked suspicious to him?).  He explained how he was asking all of these questions for my safety and that they had had problems with people taking some souvenirs that seemed harmless but weren't or people having had things put in their bags without their knowledge.  Then the questioning continued.

He asked me where we went in Israel.  First I started with a timeline (we flew in to Tel Aviv, went to Jerusalem, stayed there 3 or 4 nights, then went ...) but he said no he just wanted to know what locations, so I listed a bunch (a bunch of Tels in the Shephela, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem in the West Bank, Nazereth, Tiberius, Capernaum, Golan Heights, Dead Sea, Masada, Tel Dan).  Then he zoomed in on a few of the locations, like Jerusalem.  Where did I go in Jerusalem (New City, Old City, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Western Wall), where did I stay in Jerusalem (Ecce Homo), can you show me that you were there (I give him the Ecce Homo card from my wallet), what is this place (a convent), do you pay for a room there (yes, it's like a hostel), who paid for that (our pastor), where is he (they went home before we went to Petra), do you have a receipt (no), where did you eat in the New City (Cafe Hillel), do you have a receipt (no).  He also seemed particularly interested in the occupied territories: where did you go in the Golan Heights (to an old bunker and a winery), where did you stay (just a day trip), do you have receipts from there (no), do you have pictures (yes, but it might take a while to scroll to them), (as he scrolls through the pictures) who is this (friend), who is this (friend).  He explains again that he has to question me for my own safety and for Israel's safety.  Then he says that someone will go through my bag with me to make sure everything is mine and thanks me for my patience and gives me my passport back.  The lady who went through my bag with me would just search through a bit and ask me if each item was mine and then when I confirmed continue to go through my bag some more until she came to other things and then ask me if each thing was mine.  Once that was finished she tagged my bag and gave it back to me and pointed me toward the ticket counters.

As I went to the ticket counters I saw that the guy who had questioned me was now talking to all 3 of the others from our group together and asking them as a group some of the same questions he had asked me.  I found out later that it took them a while because they were contradicting each other about the timeline and where they went and things, but the security guy was patient with them and seemed amused because they couldn't remember all the details.  They got through with less questions and not too much trouble after that.  The ticket counter was fast and efficient and I got my boarding pass and was sent to the normal security line, which was also fast and efficient and different (can I take water through here?  Of course you can ...).  There were only a few gates at this airport, but everything seemed to run pretty fast.

7.50pm - All of us are finally at the gate ready to go and chattering about the security and the questions and everything.

8.00pm - We start boarding for our 8.20pm flight.

8.20pm - We take off right on schedule.

~9.20pm - We land in Tel Aviv and disembark.

~9.50pm - We check into our hotel.

~10.30pm - We're all set with rooms and go to this club lounge (thanks to joyosity) where we can check in and print our boarding passes for our flight back to the US.

11.00pm - The lounge closes and 3 of us set off into Tel Aviv for a last night of fun and food and staying awake until we leave the hotel at 4.30am (we hope).  More on that later.