Getting Lost in Israel

Driving in the right direction (at last) in Golan Heights

"Separation barrier" and other issues

Gratefully returning the rental car in Tel Aviv

As promised, I am now writing about getting lost in Israel, something we did nearly every day.  Why did we get lost so much?  I place the blame on a) transliterations and b) rental car GPS programming.  Any remaining blame goes to a poor sense of direction.  Be forewarned traveler- an Israeli city or town can be spelled several different ways.  For example, the holy city of Safed is also spelled Tfazet.  Only the vowels are similar.  Also, when you get a GPS device from a rental car company in Israel (at least in our experience), any route in a disputed territory is not displayed.  So, you may be routed to Masada via Tel Aviv.  (For those of you not familiar with the geography of Israel, I'll just tell  you that this is the wrong way to go.)  The upside of getting lost is seeing stuff the average tourist might not.  This includes seeing signs that warn you are entering a Palestinian controlled area, and cautioning Israelis not to enter.  We decided not to enter as well.  A contiguous concrete fence separates many sections of the West Bank from Israel.  This is generally called the "separation barrier" (though the Palestinians have less complimentary terms) and you can see the fence in the middle photo.

In the bottom photo you can see the tail end of our Mazda 6.  Steven was never so grateful to return a rental car in his life, after braving the narrow crowded streets of Tel Aviv and very aggressive drivers.  He had to dig deep to his days of driving the L.A. freeways to make it through.