Eilat

God's creation has never amazed me as much as it has this past weekend! I felt like every moment I was constantly awed by a new, completely different facet of his creation. "God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Gen. 1:21)" It was good. It was really really good! (I know it's a lot of pictures, but trust me, I'm using intense self discipline not to post 30 more!)

This weekend, a big group of us had off (meaning no field studies) so we took the 5 hour bus ride in little groups to Eilat. Eilat is at the very southern tip of Israel and is pinned between the Sinai desert and the Red Sea. Israel seems to have every different kind of terrain all smooshed into one tiny country- it's great! Ashleigh, Kaytlin and I were travel buddies which always works out really well as we are all pretty chill and get along really well. It was a very relaxing weekend.

Kaytlin, Jesse, Ash, and I going snorkeling. It was the first time I have ever been, and I was not disappointed! The coral reefs of the Red Sea are supposed to be the second best in the world (after the Great Barrier Reef)

These next two pictures are of the reefs in Eialt I copied from the Internet. They are exactly what I saw!

It was so beautiful, I almost cried when I had my first look into the sea. It was "Finding Nemo" in real life! (-: I saw clown fish, lion fish, parrot fish, sea stars, angel fish, barracuda, and swam through a bunch of schools of fish!
Look how blue the sea is! That's the country of Jordan on the other side of the sea. Our first night we camped on the rocky beach- Kaytlin, Ashleigh, and I brought a little tent- everyone else slept under the stars.
I woke up to the most beautiful sunrise over the sea and Jordan.
Before going snorkeling again the next day, we went hiking up some crazy rocks and through a dried wadi.
Ashleigh and Kaytlin climbing up the pretty rough terrain The view from the top was incredible!
Me, Josh, Tyson, and Kaytlin- we were supposed to be looking tough after making it to the top...
but wait...another ridge
we sang "ain't no mountain high enough..." really loud and listened to our echo through the rocky hills That evening we traveled to another beach (more in the city) and hung out for the evening and had some good dinner (we had been surviving on bread, peanut butter and fruit for the previous two days)
Ash and me with our packs in front of our hostel where we stayed our second night.
We spent our last day on the more populated beach in town. Here is a Muslim family having a great time showering off after playing in the ocean. Note the mom- even in the ocean she keeps her coverings on.
We though we were pretty funny as we were walking around with our hard core backpacks in this posh western mall....we got more then a few looks.