Heidi says she is getting tired of reading about food. Are you? I could write easily write another few pages on the food, flavors and falafel that we eat here, but I won’t …
Last weekend brought us down to Eilat – the very southern tip of Israel on the Red Sea. We weren’t planning on going, but the forecast called for rain everywhere north of Be’er Sheva so I thought we should head into desert country. The people at work told me that they called Eilat the city of eternal sunshine – it only rains 3 days a year. Guess what? We hit one of the three days. 🙂 That’s OK.
We left Thursday after work (around 6) and it was already dark. It took a little over an hour to hit Be’er Sheva – the gateway to the Negev desert. I was told to be very careful driving through the desert because there were camels and crazy twisty roads through the mountains. It was the most eerie feeling (ask the white-knuckled Heidi beside me) to be riding through shadowed mountain peaks and not know what the landscape was like. There were sections where you really couldn’t drive faster than 20-30 km/hr with the twisty switchbacks through … somewhere. I very much wanted to see it in the day.
Arriving at Eilat (Elath) seemed … almost wrong. It was like driving into Las Vegas after coming through the Nevada desert. I guess they weren’t kidding when they say that Eilat is the vacation ground of Europe. The hotels are massive and it certainly doesn’t feel … historical. I guess even the Israelites didn’t stay there too long …
"And when we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath, and from Eziongaber, we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab." Deut 2:8
Friday turned out to be filled with sunshine and after realizing that the the legal requirements to dive here in Israel are about 10 times those in the US, let alone Brazil or the Caribbean. You need a "proven" minimum of 20 dives (electronic dive logs don’t count), valid dive insurance, proof of diving in the last 6 months, etc. etc. – no exceptions. It’s crazy. After sorting all that out, I was able to dive three times – two day and one night dive. The fish are plentiful and colorful, but the coral is a bit disappointing. I’m told that it is much better down in Sinai. I had the excitement(?) of my first out-of-air experience (how many of those do you have) on my first dive, a penetration of a WWII missile boat. I won’t bore you with details, but all is well. 🙂
Saturday brought rain, but we all had fun going through an underwater observatory and seeing the coral from an underwater lab and then taking a glass bottom boat around the reef. Jake loved the glub-glubs and going on the doat-doat.
Driving back through the Negev was amazing! The scenery was INCREDIBLE. I have to say that from a purely natural perspective, it was my favorite area of Israel. Hundreds of miles of the most rugged terrain you have ever seen. I would say that it was uninhabited, but the tank tracks, tank brigades, helicopters and military operations we passed obviously gave witness to the fact that it is used heavily. Wow! The pictures I’ve taken don’t do it justice to it’s beauty.