אילת | Eilat

On the weekend of November 6-8, Oranim took us on a trip waaaay down south to Eilat and the Arava Valley.

Eilat is a resort city at the very Southern tip of the country, on the coast of the Red Sea. We started out from Yechiam on Friday morning at the lovely hour of 4:15 in the morning for a 3-hour drive to Dimona, where we met the other three buses with the groups from Tel Aviv, Ramla, Nes Tziona, and Ashdod. From there, we had the option of two hikes: the "experienced" hike, in Nahal Tsafit, or the "easy" hike, at Machtesh Katan. I opted to go on the experienced hike, which in truth wasn't very difficult. Nahal Tsafit is a dry stream bed in a canyon most of the year, as it was when we were there, but once or twice a year, it floods with a 30-foot wall of water (which actually happened earlier this week, on January 19), further eroding the canyon and altering the path of the trail. I've posted pictures from the Arava hike here. My camera batteries died toward the end of the hike, and I was too lazy to buy new batteries, so I don't have any pictures from Eilat itself.

After the hike, it was another two-hour drive further south to Eilat, with a short stop for lunch at Kibbutz Yotvata, which has a dairy farm that is one of the main suppliers of milk to the whole country of Israel. Once we got to Eilat, we checked into our hotel (the C Hotel) and had free time before a brief Kabbalat Shabbat service and dinner. For all of Shabbat (Friday night and Saturday) we had nothing planned, and we were free to explore the city at our own leisure (with the one rule: "Don't go to Egypt or Jordan!" - both of which have border crossings in or near Eilat). On Saturday night, we took over a club for a party for all the 12 Oranim groups, including the "Eilat Hotel Experience" group. They were very proud of having all the 250 Americans (et al) in one place, which they really shouldn't have been because it was just an opportunity for the different groups to share stories of their disappointment with the way Oranim handles things in their respective cities.

On Sunday morning, we headed out for the long drive home, literally across the entire country. In the morning, we had a short hike up Mt. Tzafachot, from the top of which (on a clear day, which it wasn't) you can see four countries: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Eilat Bay.

From there, it was a 90-minute drive to Mitzpe Ramon, at the top of the Ramon Crater. The Ramon Crater isn't actually a crater. It is a machtesh, which doesn't have a good English translation, but is sometimes called an "erosion cirque." Basically, as I understand it, a machtesh is a large cavern that was hollowed out by the receding waters of the sea that used to cover the Negev (a very very long time ago) and then collapsed, creating a crater, of sorts, with steep walls and magnificent views. From Mitzpe Ramon, it was a long drive back north, and we got home at around 6:30pm.