עין גדי "Spring of the Goat-kid"

Today we went for a hike in En Gedi National Park close to Masada at the Dead Sea.
We started out at Wadi David on the right side (-420 m) went over that peak which was definitely above sea level (tell your mam you climbed a mountain which was at least +10 m high and you feel like in kindergarden again) went down to the left into another wadi with hidden waterfalls and nice pools. You actually had to walk in the creek sometimes. This was fun.







I love nationalparks. You see a lot of rocks - and some of them move and climb up into trees to eat leafs, eventually you find out that rockrabbit is called hyrax.



Looking down into the next wadi(arugot)!



What a beauty. I am really lucky with birds of prey (a vulture). On the top it was so windy - this bird came from below us, and glided up without flapping its wings once!
A M A Z I N G !



The trail was steep and exposed - no big deal, but a bit unexpected. View to the SE over the dead sea.



Eugene & Daniel.





No I did not wear waterproof sandals in the mountains - well prepared for the wadi as I was.











I think I fell in love with the desert...

תל אביב

Well, I finally made it to Tel-Aviv... I've heard a lot about the city upfront & I'm sure it has it's qualities - so I was looking forward to spend a day there (haven't experienced the night life yet). Probably the most interesting (?), recommended place in the modern part is the market, with some nice streets around, art/craftsmanship, galleries and cafes.



These images don't do it justice - there is a "real" market as you would expect it.







At the beach are a lot of hotels, bars, restaurants - BUT you are not allowed to swim ;(



What I personally liked the best was יפו, with a nice (flea-)market, old buildings (kind of touristic) and nice bars.









It became quite hazy during the day - again greetings from the desert, and the sun looked more like the moon. Werwolves everywhere.



This was kind of interesting - around the docks of Jaffa I felt as walking through and exhibition with some kind of installations - I'm pretty sure this was not the case...





Please focus on the next pic - this weeks riddle: "What does the sign say?"





This however is from a well known artist - i can't think of the name right now, but I'm positive I saw his stuff in an art mag (possibly juxtapoz - anybody got a clue?).
(edit 15/3) just found the guy again: Know Hope(/edit)



From a tourists point of view I think you can do the sightseeing rather quickly - the hype about Tel-Aviv is probably about the night life and the modern lifestyle. At least if you ask people what they like about tel-aviv, these are the answers you get.

Flora and the Faun

Yes, there is a wasp queen!

Maresha Bet Guvrin תל מראשה

Yesterday I went out with my roommate and my neighbour and we decided over a couple of hebrew beers to do a small oneday trip to תל מראשה. This place has a lot of history, apparantly it was built by Jews during the time of the First Temple (which was destroyed ~ 6th cent bc), and was visited during the centuries by Sidonians, Greek, Eqyptians, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Polish,...




ZOOM

So what is so special about this pile of stones? There are some "reconstructed ruins" with basements...





...but those basements are something special... What started out as cisterns, was extended to...



oil plants...





more cisterns, stiegl,...



bath caves,... an infrastructure network was installed, so everything could be reached underground and nobody would have to go to the hot surface...



pigeons were kept for food, cultic purposes and their dung - a bird per niche, 2000 niches in one "columbarium", 85 of them spread "under" the whole city.







These bell caves are also particularly interesting - they got their name due to their characteristic shape. These caves are the remains of the ancient "limestone mines" - the rocks on the surface were quite hard, so the pple dug a small round hole to get into the soft limestone. After reaching it, they cut out blocks of about 30cm height expanding the whole diagonally. The stones were hauled up through the hole in the ceiling with ropes. Sounds like fun.
The caves would be really nice in summer, cool and silent, in winter however there are thousands of children and I was lucky to get this almost empty shot...



On the way back everything became very hazy until it was almost foggy...



... this is not the moon, it is still the sun with greetings from the desert.



The appropriate music for a roadtrip like ours:

Rollin' on the Highway

Rise and Shine - 6am departure for the bike ride... Why so early on weekend? (People here work a lot and...) as almost everywhere: there is lots of traffic on highways, and those drivers here are aggressive and frankly, quite mad.
Early in the morning you may find some empty roads and enjoy the beauty of the landscape - it's all green around here. And in the late morning it became warm enough (23ºC by now), which is a lot warmer in direct sunlight down here.



Daniel & Lea showed me a nice route (~63 km), "to get used to the highways" - and I had fun, despite my pulled thigh muscles. The hills are not very high, but on some roads you have a nice slope for quite long distances - so when I'm fit again, I expect to gain a lot of speed :D


Zoom

Looking back from point C.



The next Highway in the back - which was busier than it looked...



Yalla! Yalla!