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on January 03, 1992

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Pruned melon plants, picked peppers, and got cold and a little wet. Nothing interesting happened.

ein yahav israel

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Eilat, Israel (£1=4.14 shekels)

Checked out of the Moon Valley camp today. About to walk to Dahab City to get the bus to Taba, when one of the many Bedouin taxi-drivers homed in on us, after getting wind of our departure. Our first reaction was to shun him, as we had to do several times each day to his colleagues in the trade. However, it turned out that he was asking only E£10 each for the trip, which is 110km! We used to pay that to travel from Gateway to the Polytechnic Precinct in Sunderland. The 1½-hour taxi journey seemed a lot shorter, due to a very entertaining guy from New York. In the States he had earned $1,000 a week as a plumber in Brooklyn, but was an alcoholic and a drug addict. He told us interesting stories about his hobby, which is diving, as well as what it is like to be mugged repeatedly in New York by "fuckin' niggers". Even though he has now bought a 9mm revolver, it is only protection against a knife, he explained. We got through the Israelis' stringent customs and into Eilat

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