A day of desert and water (Israel, Day 6)

[rhu]

[Written Tuesday night in the hotel room, but not posted until later.]

So, this morning we got an early start. The kids loved the Israeli breakfast buffet that the hotel provided --- well, to be honest, what they loved was that they could keep going back and taking something else in the hopes that *this* one would be what they'd like.



Then we hit the road for Timna National Park. Timna is the site of a large Cu deposit which was mined from the 4th millennium BCE until the mid-1980s. It has got a bunch of wall carvings from the Egyptian presence in 1400-1200 BCE, and the ruins of a temple to Hathor, who was apparently not only goddess of beer, childbirth, and lactation, but also of copper.

hahathor, have I got a nom pic for you!



It's also a stunningly and unearthly gorgeous place, which reminded us of Mars. (No, we haven't been there personally; I mean the pictures that Spirit and Opportunity have sent back.)


We took a short hike to the Spiral Rock formation.

 

We noticed that in the middle of this barren desert plain were clear signs of periodic flooding --- distinctive clay patterns in the soil, and scrub vegetation along that route.




Tani (the small speck in the middle) walking back to the car (which is way off in the distance).



We drove to the site of the old copper mines. This is the main location of the rock carvings, some of which are still in situ.


Egyptians and Midianites hunting together, wall carving, c. 1400 BCE, in situ

  
One that's not in situ is this replica of one from the temple of Hathor, elsewhere on site, depicting Raamses III giving an offering to Hathor.

We hiked partway up to the old copper mines, but decided that the path was getting too challenging and turned back.

 

 
Tani climbing up one of the mine shafts

 
Tani and Alissa examine copper ore on the surface

         

At about this time we got a cell call from abbasegal (yes, we had great reception in the middle of the desert) telling us that they were at the Coral Reef, where we were planning to go in the afternoon, and the last boat ride was about to sell out, did we want them to buy tickets for us? We said yes, and that gave us a 12:55 deadline to get back to Eilat.

Next we drove to the visitors' center by the lake. On the way, we passed a natural rock formation called the Sphinx:



Kinda sorta, I suppose.

At the visitors' center we got to fill small plastic bottles with colored sand, and to stamp copper coin blanks. Tourist stuff.

Finally, we visited the ruins of Hathor's temple.

 
Hathor's temple. The picture on the right is an idol of Hathor from the left side of the temple.

One thing that I learned is that in Hebrew her name is pronounced Haht-CHOR. Another is that apparently one of the idols used in worshipping her was a copper snake. This is interesting because in Hebrew, a copper snake is a nachash nechoshet, and one appears towards the end of the book of Numbers as a talisman that Moses uses to stop the spread of a plague among those who have fled Egypt.



We then rushed back to Eilat, getting to the Coral Reef with plenty of time to spare. We joined our friends and boarded the "Coral 2000" glass-bottomed boat.

   

Now whenever I'd heard of the famous glass-bottomed boat of Eilat, I had pictured a small boat with a flat glass window in its bottom. No, that was wrong. This was a boat with windows all along its hull, and the passengers descend to seats below sea level. Much, much cooler.

 

We went along the coast for about ten minutes while a guide described what we were seeing out the port windows; then the boat turned around and she described the same things out the starboard windows for those on that side. It was --- here's that phrase again --- stunningly beautiful. The kids were transfixed, and so were we.

   



 

When we returned, we went into the underwater observatory, or as abbasegal calls it, "the reverse aquarium." And this time, I'm not talking about outdoor chanukiyot. We climbed down about 6 meters below sea level and looked out at the coral and fish from inside the observatory. I was reminded a little bit of Asimov's story Waterclap.

    
      



We had lunch, and then saw a movie about sharks. It had motion seats, which H and I found tiresome but the kids were thrilled.

 

Then it was time to head back to our hotel for the 53 minutes of relaxation that I had planned into our itinerary. Unfortunately, our hotel pool was closed. Fortunately, the Astral Topaz is one of three hotels in Eilat run by the Astral chain, and they told us we had pool privileges at the Astral Village. So we piled into the car and drove over there. It was a nice pool, and more importantly my new corrective-lens goggles worked really well. I could see, and water didn't leak in, and so I was able to enjoy swimming for the first time in ages. It was so much fun I allowed us to run over the 53 alloted minutes. :-)

After we got back to our own hotel and showered and changed, we walked around with our friends for a bit. Eilat is a tax-free zone, so we hit a bookstore and did a bunch of our shopping --- Asterix in Hebrew for the kids (and Tani wanted a book he saw about the Eilat Coral reefs), some Israeli CDs for me, and postcards to send back home. (Yeah, I know, you're reading this instead.)

Then dinner, and now bed.

Actually, one more thing. We have no internet access here, as you've noticed, and the TV in our room doesn't work, and I hadn't seen a newspaper in days, so we haven't actually been able to follow the news about the fact that the country we're in seems to be at war. In some ways, that's a good thing: life here is as normal as it ever is. In some ways, it's a scary thing: we don't really know what's going on.

Tonight at the bookstore we saw this morning's newspapers; from the headlines I deduce that Hamas's missles, the Qassams, have an extended range that allowed them to kill three people in the heart of Ashdod. And from the silent TV screen in the corner of the restaurant, which mostly showed talking heads in a studio all evening long, I deduce that things are serious enough to warrant preempting the entertainment programs but not serious enough to actually entail breaking news reports. (They did have a reporter doing a standup from Sderot, which reminded me of Al Roker in New Orleans braving hurricane-force winds.)

Anyway, tomorrow we'll drive back up the east highway, stopping at Masada, and tomorrow night we'll be back in Efrat. At which point I'll post this.