Features

Israel - Eilat

by Mike Levy

They say that you can love a thing for what it’s not. Eilat, Israel’s only Red Sea port has Nots in abundance. It is not sophisticated, nor pristine; you could neither describe it as quiet nor unspoilt. Eilat is certainly not St Tropez, Sharm el Sheikh or Barbados. So why do I love it? Is it about my memories as a young traveller sleeping on its deserted beach in 1969? The tourist office would have you believe that it’s all about the year-round good weather, the abundant shopping malls, the cobalt-blue sea, the wonderful diving, the stunning coral reef abundant with Disney-esque fish or Eilat’s proximity to Petra, that rose-red wonder of the ancient world. I don’t think it is any of those.

Billie who hails from Blackpool, Lancs and who has brought up her kids in Eilat says that there is something intangibly special about this place. “There’s not much culture here and the architecture is out of kilter with the Middle East but as soon as I’m away, I want to get back,” she says. She helps run the town’s newish art gallery – a dedicated space for local artists to strut their stuff. One such is her husband who was commissioned to paint most of Eilat’s on-street electricity cabinets. He chose the theme of legs – and why not? The town is thus awash with surreal images of legs in ballet tights, acrobat’s gear or clown’s pantaloons. The colourful public art displays offer an eye-catching counterweight to the port’s somewhat tacky line of souvenir stalls behind the beach or the massively dominant Miami-style hotels that line the furthest bit of Eilat as it drifts towards the scrubby no-mans-land that marks the border with Jordan.

Eilat is a place of borders – and fringes. It sits at the end of a very long funnel-like border on the very southern tip of Israel and the extreme northern end of the Red Sea. Aqaba, Jordan’s only port is tantalisingly close – just 6 km away – but you can’t stroll along the beach to get there as there is no crossing point there. A short drive the other way takes you to Taba, the Egyptian border, the gateway to Sharm and the Sinai peninsular. Behind Eilat is the vastness of the Negev Desert – a lunar landscape that cuts the town off from the rest of Israel. Eilat has so many frontiers that it is not surprisingly has the characteristics of frontier town. “This is definitely not a normal place,” says Sandra, a Dutch ex-pat turned citizen who runs the excellent Cactus B&B. “Being so far from anywhere gives it a special atmosphere. To live here is both fun and infuriating and there is never a dull moment.” Eilat is a magnet that draws people of such rich and diverse origins that people watching here should be considered as an Olympic sport. There are dark-skinned Jews from Iraq and the North Africa, Ethiopians, Russians, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan and a recent influx of Muslim Sudanese seeking asylum in this tolerant border outpost. It all makes for a vibrant and noisy buzz and a wonderful mix of eating establishments. If Eilat is not the world’s Falafel capital I would like to know where is!

People like Billie and Sandra who have made their home here still see themselves as pioneers. A map of Eilat in 1945 (displayed in the predictably quirky local museum) shows a completely barren bay save one single building – a British mandate police post. Though Moses stopped here en route to somewhere much more milky and honeycombed, and the Bedouin with their goatherds passed through it, Eilat wasn’t even a name on a map 65 years ago. Since then the town has grown rapidly and not in any well-planned or aesthetically pleasing way. “It’s a shame that we went for all things American and didn’t plan to be in sympathy with Middle Eastern architecture,” says Billie.

With summer temperatures averaging over 40 degrees, it is not surprising that locals see themselves as players in some Sergio Leone landscape. It is that very landscape that makes the place so special. Eilat is slap bang in the middle of the Great Rift Valley – a flat as a pancake valley floor between two huge mountain ranges, which glow red at dusk, and dawn. “Whenever I’m feeling a bit down or exhausted from the heat in summer, I look up at those mountains and it gives me a real lift,” says Billie.

Perhaps it is Eilat’s unique position and jaw-droppingly stunning location that makes it special. I think it is more about the people – a sense that here at the end of everything, you can be yourself, you can cross personal frontiers. It feels like a place for free spirits (or could it be nostalgia kicking in?) It could be that this far-off bit of Israel sees itself more part of the neighbourhood than the rest of the country – there are all kinds of heartening joint projects with Jordan and Egypt and many more in the pipeline. It is likely to be the richly diverse social mix here - maybe it’s just the desert air? Whatever it is, Eilat (love it or hate it and many Israelis are in the latter camp) is a place like no other; a bit ramshackle, somewhat tatty, gawdy and loud, offbeat and off message. I love it.