Wednesday, April 02, 2014

California Dreaming

What can be better than sitting on a sunny beach listening to the Mamas and the Papas? That is what we did in Eilat today. We got up late and found the breakfast here to be excellent. After stuffing myself with a yummy cheese croissant we gathered our "stuff" and headed to the Eilat Birding Reserve.


This is a few hundred feet before the border crossing to Jordan and a truly lovely place. There are paved walkways with different kinds of shrubs, trees, thickets and other plantings to attract birds. We heard lots of chirping and saw some different species. There were several structures that they call hides and we call blinds.


Jeff was able to hang out for a while and read his book while I walked off looking for feathered friends. There were some water areas too. This guy is a spur-winged Lapwing.



After a while we headed north to an area where we were told there are flocks of flamingoes. Turned out to be a tree farm which uses sewerage water for irrigation. The flamingoes were in ponds adjacent to the trees and it smelled awful. Not sure if it was sulfur or sewerage.


Black Winged Stilt


Heading south we came back through the city center of Eilat and south to the best beaches. We went to the Coral Reef Nature preserve and found it pretty empty. The beach is nice with three long wooden boardwalks that take you over the reef and deposit you into deep water.


It was very windy today and the water was too cold for me. So we did not swim or snorkel, but did see fish from the boardwalk and soaked up some sun. Had lunch in an outdoor restaurant next door and just relaxed.


They have fun sculptures and things inside the traffic circles. One we like has jazz musicians.


Back at the room we packed up for our trip to Petra tomorrow. We will leave our large suitcases at the hotel and return here on Friday. Then we had dinner at a nearby kosher Italian dairy restaurant. It was very good food and service and we even had dessert.


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