"Today we drive along the coast to the ruins of Caesarea. Everyone has the hat?" Sol revs the air-conditioner, guns the van from the hotel parking lot, and comers into a street of high walls covered with bougainvillea. "Since there is only five of you, I show you more than if your tour adds to fifty."
Only five of us. Megan and Rory, young lovers from London and Dublin, a married Welsh couple-Elizabeth and James-along with me, an American from the southwest.
"Is this group small because tourists are afraid to come to Israel?" Megan asks.
"Tourist seasons come and go." Sol shrugs. "August is not the good time for tourists."
It's actually the hottest August in fifty years. A real sharav, the Jerusalem Post says, with temperatures reaching 45° centigrade. I'm not sure what 45° equals in Fahrenheit, but I'll accept that it's hot.
Sol accelerates past elegant stone residences on the Jerusalem hills, most of which have swimming pools. "Ahead is Tel Aviv, the largest city in Israel. The low buildings is Jaffa. It is old and Arab dirty, but it is the seaport since the Phoenician times."
Bathers stroll along the sand at high tide and they seem to be walking on water.
The beach, white stone skyscrapers, that somehow resemble those in Miami, and palms flicker by.
Sol says, "There is nothing in the towns to see, but in the Jaffa harbor is the stone where Jonah sails and when he is out to sea he gets swallowed by the whale. It is also the rock where Andromedea is chained to be the sacrifice to the sea monster before the time of Moses. She is saved by Perseus."
"Oh, great. Just what we need, another dual function stone," Rory whispers.
His Irish lilt echoes what I'm thinking, and I tum and smile at him.
"See there is the marina for the yachts. Mine is there," Sol says. "But nothing interesting is in Tel Aviv. People make money, watch TV and play the video games."
He glances at me in the rearview mirror. "Just like in your American cities."
