After being told by more than one Israeli that Eilat – the most southern city of Israel – was really worth checking out, we figured we might as well go there and cross into Jordan from there. We got on the Bus from Ein Gedi, and found ourselves in the city center of Eilat 4 hours later. (Bus connections with Egged, the national bus company, by the way, almost rival Swiss ones: Comfy seats, working aircon, and they pretty much leave on the minute…and they’re cheap: CHF 12 for a 4-hour ride is quite the bargain).
We were initially only planning on staying in Eilat for a day or two, max, and then cross over to Aqaba, the adjacent harbor city in Jordan. We prolonged that stay to 3 days, since we had to wait for some important news from back home, and our next stop – the Jordanian desert – would most likely not feature internet. When wanting to leave on the third day, we had somewhat of a deja-vu: When wanting to rent a car to get something back from Ein Gedi we’d forgotten there, we were told that we would not make it back in time. Back in time? What time? Well – everything closed at noon this day. Answering our question why we could not just return the car around 3 PM and then cross the border to Jordan, where we assumed live would go on normally, the lady stated that the border would close at noon, too. Oh, and furthermore, after noon there would not be any service in case of an emergency with the car. Or even an open gas station, for that matter, making it really hard to return the car with a full tank.
Meet Yom Kippur. Getting trapped for the second time in two weeks due to a Jewish holiday (Jewish New Year made us stay in Jerusalem for an additional 3 days), we felt quite stupid not having read up on the subject beforehand. Turns out Yom Kippur is the single most important event in Jewish religion, and everything shuts down for about 26 hours (from sunset on day 1 until about 8 PM on day 2). Since it’s officially a holiday, most things shut down at noon already. And everything really means everything: There is nothing open. No restaurants, no shops, no taxis, no airport. That’s right, they close down the airport for one day. Nobody on the street – and no food. Yes, Yom Kippur officially means fasting for 26 hours.
Deserted streets. Tourists walk in the middle of the road…
So we considered leaving our forgotten stuff in Ein Gedi and just crossing over into Jordan before noon. Nope – not going to happen either.
Meet Eid Al-Adha. The second most important Muslim holiday – where pretty much everything shuts down. Wait – a Jewish and a Muslim holiday at the same time? Yes, it happens: Once every 33 years, to be precise. And yes, it’s been 33 years this year, it seems.
So we reluctantly found ourselves a new place to stay, and prepared for an additional 2 days in little Russia. Yes – there are more Russians here than anything else, it seems. Waiters speak Russian, and most attractions actually feature Hebrew, English and Russian instructions. We’re still to find out the reason for that, but somehow, the Russians really dig this place.
We can’t blame them, though. The city does have its nice side, but after 5 days here, we can’t really make up our minds whether we like it or not. There is much to like: Lots of beaches, great restaurants, awesome diving and snorkeling spots (coral reefs), it’s pretty clean and you just can’t beat an average of 360 sunny days a year. Oh, and it’s great for shopping, since Eilat (as well as Aqaba right next door) are free trade zones, so no taxes here. From the most southern point of Eilat, you can actually see Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia on a clear day. That’s pretty cool.
The view from the largest room we’ve had so far.
But somehow, we didn’t feel all that comfortable. We missed that immediate attraction we felt in Tel Aviv, or the historic awe of Jerusalem. And while I realize that saying that is a bit hypocritical, being one of them myself, we felt drowned by tourists. Like, thousands of them, even with the main summer season already being over. The main promenade along the coastline is plastered with hotels and “tourist attractions”, hotel-owned beach chairs are lined up to the thousands blocking the entire coastline – and they’re all occupied. With the main beaches not even being all that nice (very small and too much fake grass), we’d pretty much had enough of it after 3 hours.
To sum up, I think Eilat might be great for a short one-week-getaway for some diving and kite surfing. Great water, lots of places to stay at, perfect weather and a pretty constant warm wind. For us, it’s probably not going to be one of the highlights.
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