Sleepless in a strange city. Midnight rambling

Twelve o'clock midnight, restless and sleepless in a strange hotel by the incongruous name of The Astral, situated on the edge of the Airport runway. Planes carrying passengers from Egypt and from Tel Aviv come in to land, gliding deafeningly right past the balcony where I sit, smoking cigarettes and drinking instant coffee with powdered milk from a white hotel tea cup in this noisy desert Babylon.

I drove all day heading south from the green hills of Galilee, through the valley of Jordan, past the parched and decimated wasteland of the dead sea with its sulphur fumes, chemical factories and sink holes. All the water has been drained. All of the salt plundered and sold. Huge diggers dredge up the remaining mud to be sold the world over for beauty products and anti ageing creams. The product's name - Ahava - meaning Love.

We pass through checkpoints as we glide down the desert highway - rocky mountains close to the right, where Jesus himself was said to have hidden in caves, talking to his God and his disciples. Planning his getaway. Listening to Paul Simon Graceland on the tape player. I've reason to believe we all will be received... Listening to Muddy Waters.. screaming and crying.. where's my people gone.. slide guitar wailing as the highway stretches and snakes ahead into the endless horizon...

Trucks are moving slow, carrying rocks, carrying earth, carrying salt. We overtake them dangerously, praying that no one will be coming the other way on blind turns. The sky behind is black, the remnants of a storm that lasted a week. The sky ahead is blue, where we're going it doesn't rain more than a few days a year. The mountains to our left are closing in, turning red in the setting sun. Jordan will turn into Saudi Arabia. Israel will turn into Egypt. Electric fences mark the edges of these artificial boundaries. The land is billions of years old. Once all of this was under the sea. Some day it will be again. The children are eating tangerines in the back seat. We pass a sign that says Plant Quarantine Zone - Do not throw away fruit or vegetables.

What the hell is going on round here? What is this place? Where am I taking us? Soon we will get to the Red Sea. Tomorrow I'll take the kids to the underwater observatory to see the colourful fish, while there's still some left.