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| Driving through the Arava Desert on the way from the Dead Sea to Eilat |
Eilat has been called the "Cancun of Israel" because of its string of resort hotels, its crowded beaches and its party atmosphere (including a bar carved out of ice, which all cities in a hot desert climate should strive to attain!). But I have to admit we really wouldn't know, since we didn't experience that side of Eilat. We stayed in a small, modest hostel away from the beach and the crowds, and the first thing we did was to head out of town to Timna, about 25 kilometers to the north.
Timna is a vast geological playground in the Arava desert featuring awesome mountain scenery and funky erosional rock formations with fun names like "The Mushroom," "Solomon's Pillars," and "Spiral Hill." It's also the site of the some of the world's oldest copper mines, dating back to 6,000 years ago. Mining activities at Timna reached a peak during the reign of the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom in the 14th-12th centuries BCE, when Egyptian mining expeditions turned the area into a large-scale industrial operation. You can still see a number of ancient mining features (such as tubular mining shafts and footholds used by miners) carved into the rock. The ancient civilizations that mined copper at Timna are also evidenced by numerous cave drawings and archeological remains, including ancient mining pits, smelting furnaces, and even a temple devoted to the Egyptian goddess of mining. We spent more than five hours at Timna and easily could have done a lot more. The kids loved climbing on the rocks and there was even an engaging workshop for young wanna-be archeologists looking for ancient bits of copper, charcoal, mining tools, cooking vessels, and mining slag. We concluded our visit with a fun educational exercise, as the kids gathered stones to spell their names on the desert floor.
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| View from the highway, on the way from Eilat to Timna |
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| Desert mountain scenery at Timna |
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| Jeremy strikes a dramatic pose on one of Timna's many rock formations |
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| The Mushroom |
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| Solomon's Pillars |
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| Spiral Hill |
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| Can you spot Jeremy in this picture? |
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| More desert scenery at Timna (and some more below too) |
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| Ancient cave drawing |
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| Jeremy the archeologist |
We also visited the Red Canyon, another fun geological phenomenon north of Eilat. The landscape here has been eroded to form a narrow, twisting canyon that in places is more than 100 feet high and only a few feet wide. The swirling patterns created by the pinkish canyon walls are extremely photogenic, and Jeremy and Talia had a blast climbing and sliding along the rocks. It's a short, family-friendly hike in the midst of a large desert expanse. The depths of the canyon also provided refuge from the frigid, raging winds at the top. (After four months of ridiculously hot weather, we finally had to break out the winter gear.)
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| She made it up alone! |
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| They both went up and down this thing several times |
In Eilat itself, we visited the marine park, which features a very nice aquarium (with an excellent rare fish exhibit) and an underwater observatory built right into the Red Sea. We also snorkeled at the Coral Beach Nature Reserve, which is far off the city's central stretch of beach resorts and offers great views across the Red Sea to Aqaba, Jordan and the mountains of Saudi Arabia to the south. In addition to these very worthwhile attractions, there's some gorgeous scenery from the road on the drive to Eilat from the Dead Sea. (See the picture at the very top and two of the pictures below.)
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| View of Aqaba, Jordan from the front yard of our hostel |
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| Getting ready to go snorkeling |
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| View of Aqaba, Jordan from the Coral Beach Nature Reserve (note the black windsurf sail partly encircling the Jordanian flag) |
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| Mountains somewhere near the Jordanian-Saudi Arabian border |
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| View from the road, on the way from the Dead Sea to Eilat |
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| View from the road, on the way from the Dead Sea to Eilat |
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| Underwater observatory (more shots below) |
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| The rare fish exhibit (more shots below) |
After enjoying the sights, we left Eilat - and Israel - to go through the Yitzhak Rabin border crossing into Jordan to spend several days in Petra. Stay tuned...
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