Blogs from Ein Gedi, South District, Israel, Middle East - page 2

We woke up early in the morning to be the first to arrive at the national park of Ein Gedi. It was about 15-20 minutes walk from the campingsite (Ein Gedi Beach). When we arrived, around 7am, we saw alot of hyraxes and ibexs walking around the entrance and on the parking lot, this was fun:) We entered the park as the first ones which allowed us to have all the views and pools for ourselves, it was also not as hot to hike, like the day before in Masada. Ein Gedi has two wadis, we started with Nachal David, which was definitely my favourite out of the two. This wadi had alot more small pools and waterfalls and nice parts to climb. After a beautiful walk through Nachal David - 2-3hours - we walked to ... read more

A sunny week and all the northern slopes are suddenly green with fresh grass - even the Judean Desert in the distance is misty greenish. And yet, the trees on the street are all losing their leaves in dry, brown heaps; only the vines on the sides of some of the houses are vivid red. Today we've seen bursts of rain and it's supposed to continue off and on all week. It's Jerusalem late autumn! I'm still processing my visit to Hebron last week, but I wanted to share with you a much more light-hearted trip and some of the topics I've been learning about at Mandel, as well! Living One of the highlights of the week was visiting with a group of San Diego women who were here from Women's Division from the United Jewish ... read more

Photos of En Gedi Nature Reserve and National Park..... read more

It’s a long story why we headed back down to Eilat at the Red Sea and it has to do with border crossings and visas and I spare you the details. More exciting (for me) was that the trip involved a car and me behind the wheel. I really miss driving around and being able to stop wherever we like. So we boarded our new four wheels and headed south again. One of the things not to miss when coming to Israel is to float in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has a very high concentration of salt and other stuff which makes the water a lot more dense than the usual salt water. Ein Gedi was our chosen point of entry. The Dead Sea is actually in danger of disappearing and the water level ... read more

It was a swimming day today. I woke up this morning to the gruntings of Ernest doing his exercises on the balcony, knowing Ernest this wasn't Tai Chi or Yoga he was doing rather some obscure pelvic thrusts and leg raises - I didn't dare ask. After Breakfast, walked down to Ein Gedi public beach, which was a 10 min walk from the hostel. The public beach is free and has showers to boot. It seemed to me to be better than the Jordanian side of the dead sea where you had to pay 12jd for the pleasure on the Amman beach. The Sea is amazing, you can't really swim in it due to the buoyancy, you just have to lounge around in it - the beach was empty as well as it was first thing ... read more