On the move again, this time to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel on the Red Sea.  We have been in this general area before but in Aqaba, a Jordanian town just across the narrow end of the Red Sea from Eilat.  The drive was not a long distance (as no drives in Israel are very long) but before we left we had one last activity in En Gedi.  We had postponed our planned longer distance hike up Wadi Arugot from yesterday to today. There are several destinations up Wadi Arugot but rather than choose one we simply decided to hike for two hours and then turn around.  With a 10:00 start this would allow us to get to Eilat at a reasonable hour.  We hoped this would let us reach at least as far as the Hidden Waterfall.  First we took our leave of Zehava and her husband Danny, who carried our luggage downstairs when we had our backs turned and were full of advice till the moment we drove away.  We have rarely had a host as engaged as Zehava, or one who was so full of good suggestions.

The Wadi Arugot drainage was separate from Wadi David of yesterday, with a separate entrance, barely a five-minute drive from the kibbutz.  When we arrived at the parking lot just a few minutes past 10:00, we were a little dismayed to see several large tour-size buses with what seemed to be high school students spilling out of them.  Field trip day apparently!  One large group was headed towards the entrance but we managed to get ahead of them and onto the trail, walking rather more briskly to get some distance between us.  We probably needn't have worried, because any chaperone of teenagers knows it is like herding cats.  One mixed-sex secular group caught up with us occasionally and we learned from their leader that all Israeli school kids take a two-day nature trip like this every year.  They would be camping that night at Masada.  They were pretty impressed to hear we were Alaskan, and we continued to hear "Hi Alaska" every time our paths crossed thereafter.  How we failed to take a group photo with them is beyond us.  At our first meet-up, Craig was still trying to persuade Phyllis to take the "water" trail rather than the dry trail, which entails walking in the stream much of the time.  She was skeptical having already seen a few deep pools and despite having our brand new reef shoes.  The leader of the school group told us it was pretty rough and we would get very wet, which was enough to cinch the no-go for Phyllis.  (Craig remained disappointed the whole rest of the day even after we noticed on the way back that the rangers had closed the water route due to a danger of flash floods.)

The "dry" trail itself was lovely and quite pleasant, although Craig had a close encounter early on with a crab on a rock on which he was steadying himself (to be precise it crawled across his hand).  Since we had just earlier learned from some signage that there are a couple of poisonous snakes in this area, we were relieved it was a crab and furthermore that it didn't pinch him.  We saw no other wildlife on the hike; still none of the elusive ibex that signs keep warning will pelt you with rocks from above.  We made it to the Hidden Waterfall well ahead of the school group(s) and found only one other person meditating there.  After a snack lunch of fruit and chocolate chip bread courtesy of Zehava, we started our return hike just as the school kids arrived, "Hi Alaska"-ing again.  Further back on the trail we encountered another group which appeared to be high school girls from a religious school, as they were all dressed in black... long skirts, hose, shoes, and sweaters with occasionally a white or blue blouse.  They were less friendly, and many seemed unhappy with the day's activity.  But they did break into rousing song at one point, so maybe they were happy after all.

We hit the road to Eilat and made very good time along a pretty unattractive road once we passed En Bokek.  The lower stretch of the Dead Sea's Israeli side is given over to industry, largely salt and mineral production like potash, some of which is mined in the surrounding hills and some obtained from giant evaporation ponds.  We initially thought some huge piles of gleaming white "sand" were piles of salt, but apparently they were processed potash.

Besides the chemistry lesson, the highlight of the drive south was finally seeing the elusive ibex on some hills near the road.  We arrived at the Yam Suf Hotel in Eilat well before dark and wandered out for dinner, where we found that the first couple of places suggested by Google to be open were in fact closed (why were we not surprised?).  Our third effort worked well although we inadvertently ordered a large meal rather than the small plates we intended.  Seriously, who puts a whole large plate of calamari under the appetizer section of the menu?  So much for our effort to save a few calories.  Perhaps tomorrow.