Dabbling in the Dead Sea

As a teenager in the 1980s, inspired by an older cousin’s example, I dreamed of spending time as a ‘work-for-hire’ in a kibbutz. (It didn’t seem too far, workwise, from growing up on a farm but it offered novelty in other aspects.) I had forgotten that, until the BB and I arrived at our accommodation near the Dead Sea.

Fortunately, this was not our accommodation.

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Jaffa: Dishevelled Delight

The Holy Land is baking and laid over with haze. Brown smudges the horizon as if a painter has worked it with her thumb. The buildings are chunks of dirty brown-grey or cream. From the aeroplane, they seem to hug the ground. Even the taller blocks hunker down. Soon, the reason becomes clear: flat roofs. They cut off and create a no-nonsense appearance rather than the illusion of  uplift. Occasionally I spot a cluster of dull red roofs with low gradients; insufficient to alter the perception.

Tonight we stay in Jaffa (or Yafo) – the port from which Jonah set sail. Not only that, it was here that Perseus rescued Andromeda from the sea monster, Cetus. They have the rocks to prove it.

Waves break on Andromeda’s Rocks near The Sea Mosque.