I fell behind on posting pictures, so here's a taste of what happened the past two months...
In early November (pre-Operation Pillar of Defense), Beit Leni witnessed a peaceful anti-Netanyahu demonstration. Our apartment building is right across the street from the Likud headquarters. Actually, the demonstration was nearly quiet, people were very lack-luster with their chanting and it was kind of anti-climactic.
Then a few days later, banjo man showed up across the street playing everything from "Happy Birthday" to "Hello, Dolly."
The following pictures are from when I went to the Ein Gedi Spa with a group from Rishon...
Camel friends at a gas station.
Mountains surrounding the Dead Sea
More mountains - palm trees for scale :)
These signs mark the waterline from 1991 and 2000, respectively. You can just barely see the current shoreline on the horizon.The Dead Sea is vanishing at an alarming rate!
The geologist in me couldn't resist taking a picture of this :)
"Bathing forbidden at this section of the beach" - maybe that's because there's no water?
Dessicated mud/salt - this was under water not too long ago...
Mud/salt cracks, close up!
One of the many salt formations at the "beach" - sorry, no scale! But it was at least 2' in diameter.
I finally reached the beach! I've learned that every beach at the Dead Sea is different - the surface of this beach was entirely salt crystals and extremely painful to walk on.
Still, it is beautiful....
Dead Sea framboids!!! My toes for scale :) I did bring one home, but I had to pry it off!
After we were nicely relaxed/exfoliated, etc, we went to the nearby Ein Gedi Kibbutz to learn about the local flora. Our guide was a little 80-some-year-old Israeli man named Zoab (or something close to that).
One of the many baobab trees on the kibbutz.
I wouldn't mind having this for my backyard...
Zoab with "Obama Baobab," which is the same age as Obama and "Comes from Africa, just like Obama." According to Zoab. hmmm....
