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The next morning, Thursday morning, I slept in again and stayed at Gil's until about noon, chatting and listening to music. But again I wanted to get away and travel a bit more. My plan was to go to Jerusalem, do the whole touristy thing there, stay the night, maybe catch a bus down to the dead sea for a swim, then back to Tel Aviv, ready for my flight home on Saturday morning. To do this I needed to catch a bus.
But I couldn't find the bus stop. It might not seem to bad, picturing me walking arround a city in a Hot Place™ with a huge bag on my back looking for the place.There is a reason it shouldn't take anyone over an hour to find this bus stop only half a mile away. Tel Aviv has the largest bus station in the world! It is 7 stories high and takes up about 8 city blocks. It has 2 sub-basements for parking, 3 levels of shopping centre and the terminals are on the top 4 floors. Yes, the busses drive up to the top floor, that is how massive the whole thing is. When I finally saw it in the distance for the first time I had no sense of scale, it is like a city in itself. I caught a bus to Jerusalem (Terminal F, Bay 78). It was cheap and fast and on time and air conditioned. The Eg Ed bus company is easily the best I've travelled with. Probably due to the fact it is owned by it's drivers, or something like that. Anyway the jouney was very pleasant but unfortunately the destination wasn't up to much. I had snoop around the city for a few minutes but decided against staying there for any length of time. Jerusalem might be the pilgim destination for 3 major religions but for me it didn't grab me as much of a vibrant city. Instead I went right back to the bus station and got myself a ticket to the En Gedi Kibbutz. En Gedi is an oasis halfway down the length of the Dead Sea and was the only tourist destination open at the time. It had been highly recomended by lots of Israeli juglers and I'm glad it was. I fell in love with the place right away.  It is a guesthouse and kibbutz surrounded by a botanical garden, tucked in underneath towering stone mountains, right in the desert with a stunning view of the Dead Sea and also about 120 metres below sea level. It even has a zoo, though that wasn't open at the time. It is one of the most beautiful places I've been to and I hope to go back again, deffinately for longer.  I booked into the guesthouse and opted for a luxury room with free access to the En Gedi spa. I ate and then spent much of the evening at the bar, drinking myself stupid, trying to swing poi and juggle with the other guests who happened to have poi and juggling stuff, which seemed to more than normal. One of the other guests I spoke to was a fellow television sound man on easily the nicest gig in the history of television. He was part of a crew filming kids with skin conditions as they spent time in therapy. The thearpy was the higher preasure warm air at the hotel and the local spa. So that was it, he was loving his 6 weeks at the guesthouse.  I can't remember what time I went to bed but I know it wasn't that late. The last thing I remember was watching CNN news and pointing out where I was on the map of the Israel West Bank troubles being reported at the time.
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