Travel Biography - Week 127

Looking Back at my 1993 visit to En Gedi.

Someone once told me, You're a man of Israel, after returning to Isfya from a day trip to Acre, on the Mediterranean coast north of Haifa and 18.8 km or 11 miles south of the Lebanese border. That was in 1994. How I was defined as a man of Israel was down to personal opinion. Maybe I became more deserving of the title six years later when I took a bus journey to Eilat from Jerusalem. Until then, the most southern location I ever visited in the Middle East was the Palestinian town of Hebron. Then, having travelled far south to Eilat, the total distance between Acre and Eilat is 372 kilometres or 230 miles as the crow flies. Perhaps I can claim the title of a man of Israel!

Eilat wasn't the only place we visited south of Jerusalem. On another day, we took another bus to En Gedi on the west bank of the Dead Sea. Fortunately, in 2000, this saltwater lake was at a higher level than it is today (2024). But unlike in 1976, 1993, and 1994, this time we didn't swim, or should I say float, on the syrupy water of the Dead Sea. Instead, we went inland to explore the desert environment of En Gedi.

The day passed off well. That is, except for the moment when I hit an area just above my forehead hard against a solid, unyielding rocky surface. This happened while I was climbing out just after we were bathing at the shallow pool fronting one of several waterfalls. Fortunately, although the impact was rather intense, there was no bone fracture nor was there any bleeding, or else I would have been escorted to a hospital, even for a minor procedure of having the wound stitched.

That morning, we arrived at a bus stop in the middle of a desert. From there, we walked to the Reservation entrance gate where we had to pay to get in. We then did some hiking, mainly along Nahal David (the Stream of David). The trail ran alongside the stream which flows towards the Dead Sea through a steep valley.

We arrive at En Gedi.

A pair of Ibax.

Alex by the Stream of David (Nahal David)

In Nahal David Canyon.

The name En Gedi sometimes referred to as Ein Gedi means Spring of the Kid, that is, a young goat or ibex. In keeping with its name, we did see a couple of ibex grazing nearby as we hiked along. There are two main streams or creeks about a mile apart, the Nahal Arugot and Nahal David. Each of the two creeks cuts through a canyon, the two valleys running roughly parallel to each other, forming the largest desert oasis in Israel. Further upstream along Nahal David is a shallow rock pool, and in 2000, it was accessible for a cool dip. It was fed by a waterfall. Above the water on one side, a natural recess consisting of a level floor and a low ceiling provides shade from the warm sunshine, and it was here where I bumped my head on the ceiling. At least the pain didn't linger for too long.

In 1993, I was by myself when I spent a day at En Gedi Oasis. Although I was aware of the rock pool at Nahal David, I didn't swim back then as I arrived unprepared, that is, without a change of clothing. Instead, I hiked along Nahal David and followed the trail as it switchbacked up a canyon wall to a level plateau separating the two streams. After a few hundred metres, I arrived at the ancient ruin of a Chalcolithic shrine, dating back to 3,500 BC, according to archaeologists (for further reading and accompanying photos, it's Week 51. The link is at the foot of this blog post.) In 2000, we didn't exert ourselves too much. But unlike at the Sea of Galilee and the Gulf of Aqaba, at En Gedi, I was happy for my pregnant beloved wife a dip in the freshwater rock pool.

In the Bible, the story goes that after the young David, a descendant of Jacob (renamed Israel) through one of his sons, Judah, had killed Goliath, he had to flee from the wrath of King Saul, whose jealousy was aroused by David's success on the battlefield. David fled to En Gedi with his men and hid in one of the caves there to stay safe.

Our Visit to En Gedi Desert Oasis.

One of several Nahal David Waterfalls.

A cool, refreshing dip.

Alex enjoys the waterfall cascading on her.

When we first arrived.

That morning, after a long walk through Jaffa Street, we arrived at the Egged Bus Station and boarded a bus bound for Masada. Like the journey to Eilat, this service stops at En Gedi but unlike to Eilat, this one was not as a refreshment stop but a normal request stop. Once alighted, the bus pulled out to continue southwards, and we were left alone to take care of ourselves.

The road was Route 90 which begins in Metula, an Israeli border town with Lebanon, and runs southwards to Eilat. From Jerusalem, Route 1 runs eastwards, plunging below sea level as it enters the west side of the Rift Valley, to join Route 90 at the northern end of the Dead Sea, and also close to the border with Jordan. From Jerusalem, buses for Eilat, Masada, and En Gedi use Routes 1 and 90 respectively. Our bus journey to En Gedi took up to ninety minutes to cover a distance of 84 km or 52 miles.

After we had alighted, looking south, we saw that the Dead Sea was to our left, and the oasis was to our right. Towards the east and across the Dead Sea, the continuous range of Jordanian mountains testifies to the Rift Valley, as it does at Galilee and Eilat alike. We then made our way to the main entrance and paid the fee. After passing through a car park, we found a trailhead that was to run alongside Nahal David.

Although I tend to use the word hike a lot in this Biography, it wasn't any longer than a kilometre or so before we arrived at the rock pool. As we walked along, we passed a couple of ibex grazing. As for the coming swim at the rock pool, I was already prepared this time, and so was Alex. We found what looked like a recess in one of the cliffs surrounding the pool, and here we stripped off our day clothes (just the shirt and footwear for us) to reveal our swimwear. The quarry-like recess had a low ceiling, and I was mindful not to bump my head on it! At first, the water, less than a metre deep, was crystal clear and its coolness refreshed us from the warm sunshine. Not that it was that hot - after all, it was October. But autumn in Israel was as warm as a clear July day in Britain. 

Alex enjoyed standing under the waterfall that fed the pool. We had the pool to ourselves at first, until several families arrived to join us. It was then that the water turned cloudier as we all splashed about. In a sense, I felt like a child again, splashing in a shallow pool without a care in the world. It was quite a contrast to the snorkel swim at Coral Beach, where I examined the corals with a degree of seriousness and took underwater photos.

Standing by another Nahal David Waterfall.

Alex by the Creek, En Gedi Oasis.

With a slight headache, I relax by the stream.

The En Gedi Waterfall

When we had enough, I made my way to the natural recess in the limestone cliff. As I suddenly sat up, my head hit the ceiling, making quite a loud noise. I fell and rested on my back as if unconscious. But I remained conscious as I lay there. Strangely enough, the pain wasn't that intense but more of a dull ache. Rather, I was suffering from shock, and I felt my energy draining away, and I just lay there, inert as Alex tended to me. Almost immediately, a female officer, dressed in a military uniform, suddenly appeared from deep within the recess, as if she had suddenly materialised. That was when I realised that the facility was staffed, even when the whole site looked deserted and no one else could be seen.

The officer examined me and asked me questions. She allowed me to keep resting, and I cannot recall her phoning for an ambulance. She was right. I wasn't bleeding, there was no evidence of a fracture, and I was more shocked than in pain. She allowed me to rest on site until I was well enough to rise up and move on.

When I felt right enough to get up, we both left the recess with special care until we stood by the pool. We then followed the trail further inland from the Dead Sea. Soon we came to another waterfall. This one was greater in height than the last one we saw but had no pool. I remember this waterfall. In 1993, I stood under it, fully clothed and allowed a drenching, knowing that the hot summer sunshine would dry me out after a short time.

I knew this as the En Gedi Waterfall and being further upstream, could be the source of the Nahal David. There is apparently a cave entrance behind the waterfall, if so, this could be nicknamed, the Window Waterfall. Could this be the cave where the young David hid with his men from King Saul? To be honest, I couldn't tell, as there were no information signs throwing light on the matter, as found at most sites of special interest.

Yet the whole area was dramatically spectacular. It's an oasis, fed by two streams cascading down the western face of the Rift Valley from its springs to the Dead Sea. The walls of the canyon in which the stream or creek flows are steep, and from the streams, wildlife flourishes, including the ibex from which the oasis is named, along with various species of birds. Lush vegetation also thrives here, providing an ideal habitat for wildlife.

Desert and City Bus Stop Contrasts.

Us at En Gedi.

The contrast couldn't be more different between the lush, well-watered vegetation, wildlife and visitors and the location of the bus stop for the journey back to Jerusalem. The bus stop was an isolated structure surrounded by barren desert, even if the west coast of the Dead Sea wasn't far away. As the evening was beginning to draw in, it felt as if we were the only two people left on this planet. Even the main road, Route 90, was sparse in traffic, with an occasional passing car indicating that we weren't that alone. I grew up in a world where bus stops either stand on a residential estate or on a busy street backed by shops and offices among a bustling crowd of pedestrians, dog walkers, and pram pushers, and the road congested by standing traffic with a horn or two beeping, the delayed bus finally arrives as it crawls slowly among the traffic. Not to mention the miserable weather.

But not at En Gedi. Here, the sheer isolation, the desert environment, the quiet road, and the utter silence of the Rift Valley under a clear sky as the sun began to set had made me wonder how it could be possible for buses to ply here. On arrival, I carefully studied the bus times and we made sure that we allowed plenty of time for the bus to arrive. This resulted in a fairly long wait, perhaps fifteen minutes.

The bus finally arrives from the left of us and slows down as we are seen by the driver. We boarded, leaving behind the bus stop standing alone and isolated in the desert.

Back at the hostel, Alex began to prepare dinner.

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For further reading of my 1993 visit to En Gedi, click here.

Next Week: Tel Aviv, and the Flight Home.

Travel Biography - Week 126.

In 2000, we spent two weeks in the Holy Land, the second week at a backpacker's hostel in Jerusalem's Old City. During that week, I had an idea of a day spent in Eilat, the southernmost town in Israel, which is a short distance from the border with Egypt. One afternoon, Alex and I sauntered along Jaffa Road to the bus station to find out about the service timetable and whether the fares were within our budget. We then cashed a traveller's cheque at a bank.

Eilat Coral Beach, south of the town centre, is on the west coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, one of two fingers extended from the arm of the Red Sea, the other being the Gulf of Suez. Between the two fingers is the Sinai Peninsula, almost wholly in Egypt, and the traditional site of the Decalogue delivered to the children of Israel as written in the Biblical book of Exodus. From Eilat, the town of Aqaba could be seen across the gulf, backed by the Jordan mountains. The Red Sea itself is the arm of the Indian Ocean.

Our Journey to Eilat.

Eilat Town.

Coral Beach, Eilat.

Alex at Coral Beach.

View of the coral shelf seen from the jetty.

At the Pier or Jetty.

Our bus departed from Jerusalem New City at 8.00 in the morning for a four-hour, 366 km or 227-mile bus journey to Eilat. This included a short break stop at En Gedi, on the west coast of the Dead Sea, to refresh ourselves. Further along the route, not far from Masada, I caught a momentary glimpse of a peculiar-looking but famous pillar a little way above the bus window I was sitting next to. This was Lot's Wife turned into a pillar of salt when the family fled from Sodom, which was under divine judgement. Just as surprising was that as the bus was approaching the pillar, my thoughts were far away as I gazed at the seat in front. Suddenly, without any forethought, my head turned to see the pillar as we passed by - as if turned by an invisible hand.

I would love to watch a TV documentary about that pillar if the lab scientists ever load it into an MRI scanner. What would the image reveal? Just a solid block of salt? Or the outline of a well-preserved female body encased deep within the rocky structure? Such a positive scan result would cause a psychological earthquake for both believers and sceptics!

The bus travelled through miles and miles over the barren desert of Judah, bypassing the town of Beersheba a few miles west of the route. Across the valley on our left, the border with Jordan continues, backed by the Rift mountains once inhabited by the Ammonites towards the north of the Dead Sea, the Moabites along its east coast, and the Edomites by the time we arrived at Eilat.

Four hours after boarding at Jerusalem, we finally arrived in Eilat town centre. The air was warm, and along the sidewalks lining the streets were fine water sprays where anyone could stand and cool down. In all, the town itself looked somewhat tacky for a holiday resort, consisting of low commercial buildings and dominated by the single runway of Eilat Airport which, unlike all other cities, was in the heart of town. At the beachfront, modern multistorey hotels reached for the sky, obscuring the golden brown mountains of the Rift Valley that begin at Galilee and continue on along the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and then the Gulf of Aqaba and the whole length of the Red Sea before crossing over to the continent of Africa to end at Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

However, I knew where I wanted to go, as the town centre held little interest to me. We found a bus stop for the route to Coral Beach, nearly 7 km or 4.3 miles south of the bus station. When we arrived, the bus carried on a little further where it terminated close to Taba, on the Egyptian side of the border. Amazingly enough, we were the only two people who alighted at this location. There were some people on the beach, diving and snorkelling but being off-season, there were no beach crowds like we see during the summer at Bournemouth on a warm, sunny weekend. By comparison, Coral Beach was virtually deserted.

View of Coral Beach from the Pierhead.

Facing towards the Egyptian Border.

A closer look at the shallow coral shelf.

The Mountains of Jordan are behind Alex.

We had to pay a fee to enter the beach area which was backed by a hotel. I thought that this would have been ideal for a week's holiday, or even a long weekend. As a hotel guest, I would have had unlimited access to the beach and the coral reef. At the hotel reception, I hired a snorkelling mask and also bought a single-use underwater camera like the ones I had in Australia. Alex and I came to an agreement for her to remain dry due to her pregnancy. She was cooperative, and although she would have liked to have sampled some snorkelling experience for herself, she agreed to remain on the pierhead for the baby's sake. She also took care of our picnic lunch and other necessities after paying for the use of one of the clothes lockers.

Entry into the sea was not from the beach itself but from the end of a pier or jetty jutting some 30 metres out to sea. As the sandy beach sloped into the sea, the sand gave way to a shallow coral shelf, a very spectacular and colourful sight from the pier. The shelf continued on until it suddenly dropped to the sea floor, several metres down, forming a submerged cliff wall of coral. This was the coral garden I was about to see. The seafloor itself remains barren of any coral life as it consists of sand, and hard, firm rock is needed for the polyps to settle and establish a colony. Although I was able to make comparisons with the Great Barrier Reef, this reef was quite different. The Australian version has the reef spreading across the sea floor, whether surrounding a coral cay, a continental island off the mainland, or covering a range of seamounts such as the Outer Barrier Reef, all coral reefs need hard bedrock.

Another difference between Coral Beach and the Great Barrier Reef was the condition of the water. The sea within the Gulf of Aqaba has a greater salinity level than around Australia. The higher salt content makes the water very clear and free from the cloudiness common in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, when it comes to underwater photography, the photos I got back were superior to those from Australia in clarity and sharpness of colour.

After I had changed into my swimwear, Alex and I made our way to the pier, passing the line that roped off entry into the sea directly from the beach. As we strolled along the pier, we watched the strip of sand turn into a coral bed as it sloped beneath the surface. At the end of the pier, a short platform had steps leading straight into the deep water. Alex sat on one of those steps whilst I swam straight out, with mask and snorkel fully in position.

Coral Detail using my underwater camera.

All these pictures were taken by me.

Coral detail.

Coral detail

As I surveyed the spectacular reef, my mind went back to Australia just three years earlier. The sheer joy of coral reef snorkelling returned, but with a difference. In 1997, I was free, single and with little responsibility. This time, I was married, my beloved wife was here with me, and a child was on its way. As I looked ahead, I'd be trading my reef snorkelling for sleepless nights as I tend to a crying child.

The fish I saw while I was snorkelling at Coral Beach Reef were more abundant than at the Great Barrier Reef. The most common was Sergeant Major Damselfish, which I saw also in the Indo-Pacific. Also, the Jewel Fairy Basslet swarming in great numbers around the coral provided a spectacular sight in itself, and actually swimming with them was an experience no visit to an aquarium could match. I also identified a single Emperor Angelfish with its beautiful shining blue body - beautiful to us, but a message to potential predators that this fish would not be good to eat. Bright colours are often associated with poison and a warning to predators.

I spent a considerable amount of time in the water while Alex watched and waited patiently. It's during those times - like I was at the Great Barrier Reef, and now here in the Gulf of Aqaba, I wished that I had done a lot better at school, and attended University (in my day there were no university fees. I would have lived on a Government student grant) and entered the field of marine biology - and then specialise in coral reefs. Instead of climbing a ladder in the cold to clean windows owned by shifty customers, I would have learned to scuba dive, work in a laboratory, and contribute to the reef's health. Dealing with bleaching caused by the warming of the surrounding water would have demanded full commitment - and the joy that would have accompanied such dedication when I saw the polyps beginning to thrive.

But in the sixties, the decade of schooling, I was aware of the existence of corals, but I knew nothing about them. Even right up to 1997, my knowledge of corals was very limited. It took a first-hand view of the coral polyps at Green Island for the scales to fall out of my eyes and discover what is to me an exciting new world. And a world I would have done my best to dedicate my living to protect and preserve.

We remained at the pierhead as Alex took out our lunch and picnicked over the sea. Afterwards, we took a stroll together along the beach while my stomach digested the food. I looked around this beautiful environment. Instead of the sea vanishing in a straight line at the horizon as all large bodies of water do, here the pinkish mountains of Jordan back what looks more like a large ribbon lake or a very wide river. By looking carefully at the base of the Jordan mountains, I could see the faraway town of Aqaba, after which the whole gulf is named.

There weren't many people at Coral Beach, but there were a small number. Some of the divers and snorkelers were crowding around a spot in the sea about 70 or 80 metres off the coast. I began to feel curious about what these people were looking at. After a while, Alex and I made our way to the pierhead. Once again, Alex sat where she sat before and watched. With the snorkel equipment in place, I swam out to where the offshore divers were.

What I saw was a small seamount, an isolated conical rock formation that had been colonised by a healthy-looking reef. Some divers were close to it, but from where I was, I still had a good view. Too bad that all the snapshots of the underwater camera were all exposed. I would have loved to have taken at least two or three of this isolated reef, with divers attending to it.

Sergeant Major Damselfish

Jewel Fairy Basslets.

Sergeant Majors and other species near Pierhead.

Returning to Jerusalem.

The schedule for the day was four hours to get to Eilat, and four hours to return to Jerusalem. Since our bus was scheduled to leave at 17.00 hours to arrive in Jerusalem at 21.00 hours, that allowed us a clear four hours at Coral Beach before we made our way back to the Central Bus Station. To us, four hours was enough. Within that timeslot, I saw as much of the coral as my heart desired. Furthermore, I have an underwater camera with a film of 24 exposures, all of the coral, the acetate film awaiting development and from it, prints made. All the underwater pics featured here are from that film.

We saw dusk as the bus headed north through Judah. The mountains of Jordan continued northward, uninterrupted, as these mountains are the result of a Rift Valley stretching as far north as Galilee.

Alex was not pleased with me as she slept next to me on the bus. She really would have liked to have seen the reef for herself, and I might have been overcautious in protecting our baby. Maybe next time I hope to be happier in watching her enjoy a swim. Fortunately, that opportunity wasn't far off. However, by the time we arrived back at the hostel, things between us were beginning to look up.

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Next Week: En Gedi, where I could have ended up in hospital.