Monday, April 8, 2013

A long desert road

Yesterday my fellow EA Olli from Finland and I took a spectacular four-hour bus ride from Jerusalem to Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat for three days off. The scenery reminded me very much of Arizona.





Along the way we passed two attractions that my wife and I had visited five years ago--the Ein Gedi beach on the Dead Sea, and the Masada fortress that was the scene of the Jews' heroic resistance against the Romans in the first century. Unfortunately the Dead Sea has shrunk considerably because of the declining water level.

Receding Dead Sea shoreline
Masada
In truth, it was not all desert on the road to Eilat. Thanks to irrigation, we passed some palm plantations and hothouses, even a resort town with landscaped hotels.

Palm plantation
Resort hotel
From the Eilat bus station we got our first glimpse of the Red Sea, with a couple of cargo ships at anchor in the harbor. The tent at the left of the picture is a movie theater.

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