The driver takes three of us to the Palestinian border to cross through and meet "Adel" for a tour of Bethlehem; Adel will then drive us to the Holocaust Museum to rejoin our guide and our luggage. Our guide drops us off at the checkpoint.
I never meet Adel. Since we avoided having our passports stamped on entering Israel at the airport, we are informed by the young female soldier that we may enter Palestine, but may not be allowed to re-enter Israel. Major bad feeling. We bail out. We are now stranded. We can't contact Adel, we can't contact our guide. Outside the checkpoint we are surrounded by theoretical taxi drivers like gulls to french fries. Most of the "Taxis" don't even look like taxis. Eventually we enter a taxi with a young Arabic driver, black curtains on the windows, and driven back to Jerusalem. We are not robbed or kidnapped.
However, this kid has no clue where the Holocaust Museum is. He drives past a number of museum gates, asking, "Is this it?" which we tell him, how should we know, we haven't been there. After multiple calls to his buddies he eventually finds this museum, pay the driver his thirty shekels, tumble out and find the tour van in the parking lot. I was planning to hang by the van, but we go inside for the restrooms [not necessary to pay a fee at this point], go downstairs and enter a cafeteria, where we see our guide.
He is like the father of a teenage girl: hug us, or kill us?
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