Arava – Aerial Photo

The Arava – وادي عربة‎ is a desert area. The meaning of the name is desolate and dry area. The Arava is a section of the Great Rift Valley between Israel and Jordan, which starts from the southern end the Sea of Galilee, goes down to the Dead Sea and ends at the Gulf of Aqaba/Eilat. The desert landscape is various and at some places looks like a moonscape. There are special tracks for people who like hiking and you can choose a route to get to the Mount Sodom (Har Sdom), made of rock salt and famous for one of its pillars called “Lot’s wife” with reference to the biblical story of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Another interesting fact about Arava is that it’s believed that King Solomon had copper mines there.

Syro-African Great Rift Valley

The entire Syro-African Great Rift Valley is a contiguous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in length, that runs from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in Asia to Mozambique in Southeastern Africa. The Jordan Rift Valley was formed millions of years ago in the Miocene epoch (23.8 – 5.3 Myr ago) when the Arabian Plate moved northward and then eastward away from Africa. One million years later, the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Rift Valley rose so that the sea water stopped flooding the area. The lowest point in the Jordan Rift Valley is in the Dead Sea, the lowest spot of which is 790 m (2,590 ft) below sea level. The shore of the Dead Sea is the lowest land on earth, at 400 m (1,300 ft) below sea level.