Tuesday May 13, 2008 -Eilat,Israel -TheSouthermost Tip

I left Jerusalem yesterday and decided to come to Southern Israel, Eilat, to be exact, the most southern city on the coast of the tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Eilat.

I took the bus through the Negev desert, it took about 4 hours to arrive.


And we passed the Dead Sea on the left, it's much bigger than I thought. On Thursday, I will officially get to swim in it and do the mud treatment, which is a real tourist thing to do. I will also climb to Masada on the same day.




And I arrived at the hostel that I am staying at. A really friendly place called The Shelter. A christian hostel that serves also as a ministry to the community. There's a really great group of young volunteers here that make it special.



So today I ventured out to the city and walked around the coastal area. It's very beachy and






all that entails. But very beautiful. It's small enough to walk from one side of the beaches to the other, which is what I did today, and took a swim and layed out in the sun for a while.

Eilat

Directly across the Gulf of Eilat is the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, also it is adjacent to the Egyptian village of Taba, to the south. They say that this city in Jordan is beautiful, but I'm not sure I will be able to make it there.













But I did find an American flag, next to a Canadian flag. Actually Eilat has sister cities, which basically means that they support it financially somewhow. The US is one of them. The street that my hostel is on is named Los Angeles.

Eilat is also mentioned several times in the Bible, first as one of the stations of the Children of Israel after The Exodus from Egypt. King David conquered Edom, and took over Eilat as well. In Kings 2 14:21-22: "And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the room of his father Amaziah. He built Elath (Eilat), and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept among his fathers." And again in Kings 2 16:6: "At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath (Eilat) to Aram, and drove the Jews from Elath; and the Edomites came to Elath, and dwelt there, unto this day".


But as you can see from these last two pics, it's become quite the beach town.