The Promised Land

here are a handful of countries one would be well advised to avoid as an international mule – Israel and Jordan, surely, rank right up there.

I mule’d across both borders!

Walter Neser had left for Israel 2 years prior, on a 2 month trip – and never returned. He stayed voluntarily, it needs to be said, but his unexpected stay presented he and I with some logistical hurdles: he’d kindly taken my paragliding pod harness with him to alter at the APCO factory; I wanted a left-hand-pull adaption for my reserve and his work there allowed for that. Walter’s more permanent residence left him yearning for his home comforts.

Despite both our efforts, no mule to-from South Africa was to be found (gone are the days of shared security interests where operators travelled frequently), so I was lured into being a gear mule in March ’19. There is always a lure, I’m told, in the mule-ing game – mine was a hosted climb-&-fly trip to the Wadi Rum in Jordan to make a promo video of APCO’s new Hybrid paraglider and, as I spend a fair chunk of my time guiding others around the mountains, it was very enticing to be a passenger for a change! So, en route to Chamonix, I detoured via Pretoria to collect a care package destined for The Holy Land, from Walter’s long-term storage – his mother dearest.

Surprisingly it was not easy finding affordable flights from Western Europe to Tel Aviv – the best I could do was a round-about trip via Kiev! The nostalgia on arrival in Kiev (this was the the terminus of my first trip abroad, 18 years prior, after all) was erased in memory a few days later after realising that my card was skimmed in Kiev airport but, for a moment, I felt 23 again! Landing in Tel Aviv was un-eventful despite the excess gear and we were able to leave the city behind with a car crammed full of gear for a midnight rendezvous with a contact who’d been tasked with providing shelter in, of all places, a monument of sorts – you really couldn’t make this shit up.

First stop: The occupied territories!

A man of remarkably varying talents, Walter had previously co-founded a Vulture Rehab facility in South Africa – Vulpro – and in his spare time now volunteers his services to Israeli nature conservation. Nature has a tendency not to abide by man-made geo-political frontiers and, thus, our work for the morning took us to the cliffs of occupied Palestine working with Israeli employed Palestinians…putting gps trackers on a pair of endangered Bonelli Eagle chicks.

There are certainly less interesting ways to spend your first day in a new region, but, following a communal tea we departed for The Dead Sea, and then on to snorkel in The Red Sea. It was here, in Eliat, that we mule’d for the second time. Joined in our trip to Rum by an Israeli we took Alon’s climbing and flying equipment across the border, not because he happened to be an ex F16 fighter pilot, but because the Jordanian’s, in an attempt to limit the possibility of diplomatic tensions in the event an Israeli climber gets injured in Rum, simply ban Israeli nationals from crossing the border with adventure tourist equipment.
We figured climbing paraphernalia and a single-skin paraglider would, likely, be considered as such – so we mule’d it for him.

I must admit to having no preconceived idea of what to expect of Jordan, and Rum, but it’s an interesting mixing-pot of cultures, history and a palpable air of strained tolerance of our presence. The conundrum of an ex colony of the British Empire, mixed with religious loyalty in opposition to the majority of tourists home countries, in a region so deep down a war-ing rabbit-hole yet economically welcoming of foreign currency, meant that the mood changed from town to town, even street corner to street corner and, definitely, house to house. Not to dissimilar to parts of South Africa in that regard.

All things considered, it would have been nice to see other tourists showing a bit more respect to the culture – while Jordan is on the gentler side of interpreting The Koran, there is no reason to run around in shorts, bikini tops and no head attire. It’s just inconsiderate. But, alas, the selfishness of Western privilege and youth shone that torch brightly, on occasion, as they travelled to the desert and Petra in droves.

That said, I’m not sure what The Koran says about climbing Rum’s walls – and flying off of them so, perhaps, we were equally at fault – certainly equally privileged to visit a region beset with hardship, simply to climb and fly.

Rum, from a climbing point of view, is a true Gem. There are options to rent a room(s) in a number of guest houses, or wild camp in the creeks. Access is unrestricted, and remarkably easy/short (the descents, on the other hand, are long, and complex – benighting many a climber) to towering walls. There are few places with such ease of access to 300m+ walls yet still retain a high level of seriousness. The rock is soft (it is NOT choss), requiring a careful technique of downward pressure rather than outward pulling to which many climbers are accustomed, and the remoteness which lurks at the end of a botched descent is very serious indeed. There are miles of deep, waterless canyons interconnected in a massive labyrinth – and nobody is going to come look for you!

In the end we climbed three classic routes (flew off one), were stormed on for a day, and visited Petra in 5 and a half days in country – it’s that rewardingly accessible! On the subject of good beta, the sandstone is rough enough that I was very glad to have gotten the Dead Sea bathe out of the way while I still had skin on my extremities, you’ll do well to do the same! Poor weather chased us away a day early, which I used as an excuse to detour through Jerusalem – a City so steeped in history, it is absolutely enthralling – and that is just the energy of the place.

Twenty Four hours in Jerusalem was not enough time there, so another trip to Rum might be needed – next time, however, I’ll take a second passport for the Jordanian crossing…so that I don’t spend 3 hours being quizzed by Mossad on my way out of Tel Aviv!