Hezbollah Magicians, Super-Gays, and other Other Colorful Middle Easterners

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Shalom y'all. For most of you who are thoroughly confused by the title of this entry, let me update you are some recent developments in the Middle East, courtesy of the BBC.
First, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, declared that Israel would disappear, and that this is inevitable. This was, of course, in response to the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior commander of Hezbollah. This sounds like quite the magic trick, and as much as I am enjoying Israel, I would like to hear how he intends to pull this off. Next, in probably unrelated news, Shlomo Benizri, an Israeli Parliament member from the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) political party Shas, blamed recent earthquakes in Jerusalem on legal tolerance of gays. Now, Shlomo, I am sure you have your reasons for speaking out, but if these Israeli gays have the power to shift tectonic plates, this is one group I'd like to have on my side. Think of the power you could wield! THE POWER! I hadn't planned on the "other colorful Middle Easterners" part meaning anything, but I found that it fits nicely with an online BBC article on an Iraqi clown troupe. (Also, one of those quakes occured about a week ago, though I was in Mitzpe Ramon at the time)
So this weekend I went with my roommates, Carolyn and Alyssa, and two other of our friends, Valentina and Jenny, down to Eilat, a beach resort city on the southern tip of Israel. The trip was approximately four hours by bus, through the Judean and Negev deserts. For those of you scared of the West Bank or Palestinians in general, about a third of the trip took place in the West Bank, and all was quiet. It was actually quite nice, we spent a good part of the trip riding parallel to the Dead Sea, watching the moon rise up over the Edom Mountains in Jordan to reflect on Yam haMelach (Dead Sea). The one disheartening part of the trip was that you could clearly see that the people who constructed the highway simply carved their way through rolling desert hills. It reminded of the movie "Cars" (poor Route 66). Sad stuff.
Upon arrival, we checked in to Arava Hostel, where we found that our room fit 5 people, and not much else. After getting settled and cleaned we went out to a quiet little bar called the Underground, modeled after an English Pub, where I had deep-fried bone-in chicken wings, undercooked chips, and a couple Guinesses. We called it an early night to be rested for the next day.
The itinerary for Friday was meant to climb a climb up Mt. Zefahot (278m), from where you can see the Gulf of Eilat, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. We got to the starting point from the road, walked perhaps 1.5-2 km, and arrived at Camel Ranch (it is exactly what it sounds like). The tour guides here then informed us that the path to Mt. Zefahot was closed, because the IDF was patrolling the area, looking for stray Palestinians or terrorists or whatnot. We received different advice from different guides at the Camel Ranch. For instance, one man said that he would be going down the closed path, but he was Israeli, so it was OK. Another told us we were too white to go down the path (fear of sunburn, evidently). Still another told us a Moroccan saying, which translated to, "Act like a moron, and no one will bother you" (In other words, if the army catches us on the path, we simply tell them we can't read Hebrew, and so did not understand what the sign said). Finally, one guide suggested that we take an alternative and open path, leading off to the right, as opposed to the left path to Mt. Zefahot. This "path" turned out to be neither open, nor in fact existent. And so, realizing our hike up Zefahot was not going to happen, we turned around and found a path about 1 km back that led us to some large, rocky hills nearby the coast. Afterwards, we returned for some R&R on the beach before heading to "the world's only underwater restaurant," the Red Sea Star. We saw a sea snake, schools of fish, and a lionfish through the windows in the restaurants. I ordered the Sea Fruite Paille, with crab, shrimp, calimari, and mussels, which I would recommend against, since everything was still in their shells, and opening the crabs, mussels, and shrimp proved both messy and unrewarding. However, the Penne with Mozzarella is absolutely amazing, truly something you don't want to miss. If you are set on seafood, I would also recommend the Fried Calamari, mainly because one of the dipping sauces is the same as that in the pasta dish.
Saturday was spent mostly in the sun on the beach, and I got thoroughly burned in placed that I either forgot about, or were too difficult to reach. That night we took the bus home, and got to bed to be rested for the first day of classes.
Today was my first class, Arabic II, which proved to be rather relaxing. Now I am off to hopefully get pictures to add to Facebook, something very long overdue. Maa Salaama.

-Bob

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