The Struggle of Man against Nature

As you arrive by ship at Eliat, part of Israel, you cannot avoid looking East. On the horizon, at the foot of a mountain, rises Aqaba, the Jordanian city which lends its name ot the gulf that from the Red Sea penetrates the Sinai and Arabia in the promised land. This area ha long been cause for wars and tensions among peoples and nations. You could think you're entering a large coastal city, were it not for the border separating the two towns. On the docking area of the harbor, an army of Korean and Japanese vehicles sits still. They stay there waiting to be shipped to Europe. Between Eliat and Ashdod, another Israeli port but on the Mediterranean, there is a 300-kilometer-long land bridge. It was used when the Suez Canal was closed to Israel's maritime traffic: it's always useful not to be dependent on the will or whims of others.
From Eliat, just like from Aqaba, two parallel roads depart: the first to Jerusalem, the second to Amman. Both run along the coast of the Dead Sea. This is Israel's fourth sea, after the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Sea of Galilee, as it is called by the New Testament, which is in fact the Lake Tiberias. On the way to the Dead Sea along the Israeli road, unlike along the Jordanian road, the ancient and the very modern mix, nature immutable for centuries and nature modified by the work of man.After the saltworks by the sea, there is the Negev Desert, a pale yellow expanse dotted by rare umbrella-shaped bushes. Many are the archeological sites, starting with the ancient copper mines of King Salomon. On the bald mountains, there are greenhouses that look like ships moored at the port. Agricultural production in Israel is the by-product of a felicitous combination of scientists, farmers and agribusiness. Technology is implemented at a very high level to enable agriculture in what is a half- desertic country.
Further down the road, you reach the Dead Sea, which is in excess of 400 meters below the sea level. It's a lake that's dying because of the imbalance between the limited inflow coming from the Jordan river and heavy evaporation; so heavy that an artificial canal is being planned, against the opinion of environmentalists, bringing the water from the Gulf of Aqaba.
Salts and minerals – magnesium chloride and potassium – are this region's wealth. To this should be added the thermal-mineral algae, which retain heat, and mud originated by millennia of sedimentation. Consider the absence of pollution and continuous evaporation, whose droplets constitute a shield against radiation. Such microclimate attracts tourists, also lured by spas. Ten minutes floating in Dead Sea are enough to bring benefits to the skin for 48 hours. Dead Sea salts and mud have scientifically tested therapeutic properties. They have an effect on skin diseases and mitigate muscle and articulatory pain. Hotels and spas have sprung next to salt flats and an industry for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals making use of Dead Sea's natural products has blossomed. There are now around fifty firms marketing Dead-Sea-related products, mostly abroad. These are firms that are betting on innovation as well as on local resources.
Moving north, you arrive at Masada and, and up the Snake Trail, to the fortress of Herod the Great, symbol of Jewish resistance to Roman conquest. It is said that immoral Sodom once rose there, and you can observe a rock, called Lot's wife, the unlucky woman who, overtaken by curiosity, looks back during the escape to glance at the fire engulfing the city, and, struck by divine wrath, is turned into a pillar of salt. From the top of the fortress, there is an unforgettable view: the hues of the sea, the desert, of distant worlds come alive and intermingle down below.