December 17, 2013

Today was our last and final day in Eilat. We all woke up early again, packed up all of our things, and headed to the main lobby for our delicious (NOT) breakfast. We had to check out of the hotel today because we were leaving tonight to go back to Tel Aviv. After breakfast we headed into the buses and then drove for a few minutes, basically to the border of Egypt and Israel. This is where our hike was at. We hiked the mountains above Camel ranch, which was right on the border. The hike was not that hard and challenging but the views on top were SO work it and beautiful! Once we made it to the top of the mountain, you could see all of the Eilat, the Red Sea gulf, Jordan across the water, Saudi Arabia a few miles past Jordan, further down the gulf, the border of Israel and Jordan (the Jordan Valley), and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. These views were absolutely incredible. We stayed on the peak for an hour or so, just taking advantage of the views and having some snacks. OUr tour guide, Gili, made brewed hot tea and coffee for us on top. It was so nice to sit on top of the mountain, looking at all these countries and borders, relaxing and drinking homemade fresh hot tea. There is nothing like that! It took a while to get back down to the ground and sea level because the mountain was very steep, so we had to climb down it VERY slowly.

Once we got down the mountain, we headed over to the dolphin reef beach. We had lunch there and sat out on the beach. Paige and I brought our snorkels with us to the beach, attempting to snorkle. We went into the water and it was FREEZING. Eilat's tourist season is basically over. Because the water is so cold, there are not a lot of the pretty fish swimming around in the shallow water, the coral is not as pretty and colorful, and the water is not as clear and clean. Due to these things, our snorkeling was not great and we were not able to see a lot or stay in the water for a long enough time. A bunch of us ended up just sitting in a big circle in chairs, tanning and talking on the beach. It was so much fun. My favorit part about this day was seeing the dolphins. We all went over to the dolphin reef area and stood along the edge of the dock, looking for the dolphins to come up to the surface. After the dolphin trainer blew his whistle to alert the dolphins, they came swimming up to us. At some points we got about a foot away from them and some people even got to touch them or the dolphins would swim up along the feet. I personally have never seen and been soup close to dolphins. I have been to dolphin shows at the aquarium and Shamu at Sea World, but this was a whole new experience. It was so cool to be so close to them and see them playing int he water and doing jumps and flips without a trainer making them do it. They were living in their own natural habitat. We had to leave the dolphin reef around four in the afternoon because we had to drive back to Tel Aviv. We said bye to the dolphins (!!!!) and got on the road, driving four hours back to Tel Aviv. The bus ride actually was not that bad because everyone basically just listened to music and slept the whole way back. Eilat, and specifically today were amazing. I had a great trip and tons of fun!