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Monday, 01 September 2008 00:50 |
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"My mates carried on through, didn't stop in Eilat. I stayed because of the Jazz Festival," said the tourist from Philadelphia. [read more]
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Jerod looked like someone who should be on the stage at a jazz festival, not in the audience. In fact, he had even brought his saxophone to Israel - but he didn't bring it to Eilat because he'd been spending several days in Sinai and was travelling light. "My mates carried on through, didn't stop in Eilat. I stayed because of the Jazz Festival," said the American tourist from Philadelphia. "I timed it specially this time so I could come to the festival on the way back. Otherwise I wouldn't have stopped either."
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Jerod has visited Israel several times, accompanying Birthright groups for weeks at a time. He's also been in Eilat before, but finds the hotels expensive and usually looks for hostels or even sleeps on the beach. "It's worth it for a place you want to see," he says. Fortunately Eilat's climate is such that sleeping rough is even feasible.
"What about Aqaba?”, we asked him. “Petra, yeah, I’d like to see that,” he answered. “But with mates. I don’t really see myself travelling alone in Jordan. In Israel, yes, I’m used to it. But I went with friends to Sinai. Sinai is known, it’s a place to hang out. I don’t know about Aqaba, just Petra.”
We found it interesting that for him Aqaba is only a way-station to Petra. Yet for his mates, Eilat is only a way-station for Sinai. The thing that made it more than that for him was the existence of a festival in his field of interest. He said, and we at Eilat Today agree, that Eilat needs to have more festivals and events that would draw tourism, provide content and not just rely on the gifts of nature.
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