PART ONE (Eilat)

EILAT!

OKAY- for anyone who was worried (or happened to call the Egyptian Consolate), Ben and I are fine. In fact, there was never anything wrong. We are safe and the trip was amazing.

Now from the beginning...

Last Friday (March 6) the group of volunteers and I left for the southern tip of Israel, we were planning to stay in a beautiful coastal town called Eilat. It's very famous in Israel for it's beauty and the fact that it's right on the RED sea (not Dead Sea, the one Moses parted)...instead of driving straight from Geva (in the north) to Eilat (in the south) we split up the trip into mini trips.

From Geva we stopped for breakfast at a Bedouin village, if you'd like to know more about bedoiun culture...umm google it I guess. It was fun, but I knew all about it from Birthright and really just wanted to get to the water.



After breakfast we hiked EN AVEDAT, this really cool canyon in the Negev (south Israel) ...







After the hike we ate lunch in a park and got on the bus again...by the time we got to Eilast it was just in time for sunset and we were able to watch the sun go down from a point where one could see Jordon, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It was breathtaking. I feel so lukcy to be here and to have these experiences.



Once we arrived at our beautiful hostel we had a dinner Geva style and then walked the boardwalk. The town was very tourist-y and VERY western. I bought a hat for the next day when we went...

SNORKELING!

The next morning (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!) we went to the Israeli Sea World (sorta). Much smaller and much more hebrew! We went to this shake'em'up ride about whales and visited the underwater viewing tank..thing. Needless to say it was a beautiiful day and the fish were swimming and I couldn't wait to jump in the water!




After the aquarium we settled down on the beach and had a BBQ, I don't think I had a very good reaction to the chicken (the volunteers cooked), actually I KNOW I didn't have a good reaction (I won't go into detail).

The beach was beautful and snorkeling at the Red Sea was amazing. I didn't get too close to the fish but I was close enough to almost touch a fin! And I found Nemo!

That night I still wasn't feeling too hot but managed to walk to the shopping mall with everyone else anyway, I didn't buy anything but the mall felt like anytown USA, one really wouldn;t know they were in Israel unless they went to the food court (ALL SCHWARMA ALL THE TIME!)

Instead of going out to the bars and pubs with everyone else I stayed back with some people and played Kings (thanks Josh!) but didn't drink. I headed to bed early feeling sick :(

On the morning of March 8th everyone got in the Baccara bus and went off to climb Massada and swim in the dead sea, Ben and I however, had other plans...

TO BE CONTINUED...