Weekend 6: The South

By my sixth weekend in Israel, I had seen a large part of the country—Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Dead Sea, the West Bank—but there was one huge area that I had not yet explored: the South. Most of the major population centers in Israel lie in the middle and northern parts of the country; the South consists mainly of a large desert called the Negev, and I wanted to see it.

A couple days before the weekend, my good friend Edith wrote me and said that she had read my blog and was going to be my travel buddy sometime whether I liked it or not. I told her that I wanted to go somewhere south that weekend, and on Thursday, we met up at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station.

Knowing that food in the desert is as scarce as open restaurants on Saturdays, we decided to stock up before leaving. I found some large subs selling for only five shekels each and purchased four of them. Edith got a box of cereal and some chips.

One nice custom in Israel is that if a bus is full, they’ll just keep letting people on and make the losers sit on the floor. Somehow Edith and I ended up there with them for our ninety-minute ride to the city of Be’er Sheva, which looked like a good jumping-off point to get into the desert the next day.

Another practice I’ve observed in several countries outside the US, Israel included, involves loud usage of cell phones in public places. Americans certainly engage in this practice, but foreigners often take it a step further: they’ll have conversations on speakerphone so everyone can hear both sides! Moreover, many people will use their cell phones as sound systems to play loud music for everyone. Hence, on our bus to Be’er Sheva, we listened to a kid on one side of us playing cell phone music the whole time while the woman on the other side had a loud speakerphone conversation. I always enjoy noting cultural differences and often find ones that I like, but this isn’t one of them. So, if you’re one of those non-Americans that I’m talking about and you use your cell phone in this manner, please turn off speakerphone and get headphones for your music. Nobody thinks you’re cool.

Upon arriving in Be’er Sheva a little after midnight, we checked to see if any buses continued south. Everything had stopped for the night, so we had reached our final destination. Between the two of us, we knew several people in the city, but they were all out of town. Apparently other people like traveling too.

Despite its status as the “Capital of the Negev,” Be’er Sheva notoriously lacks affordable accommodations as well as accommodations in general. As Edith and I strolled through the streets, we passed people hanging out, an Arab party, a cemetery enclosed by a barbed-wire fence angled inwards at the top (to contain zombies, I believe), and eventually arrived at a hotel on a shady Russian street. The building was clearly abandoned. Continuing on, we found a small park with, much to my delight, a homeless man asleep on the grass.

Many people believe that the homeless have no skills, but this is not true: they are experts at finding the best free places to stay. You can’t lie down in just any old trashcan; you must worry about safety, rules, drunk people messing with you, and obvious requirements like comfort and quietness. Homeless men are masters of finding ideal locations. I suppose most of us could be as well if we made it our full time jobs, but until then they have us beat.

Edith and I wandered a bit more and returned to find that the man had vacated his spot, and we set up camp in his place. Edith had brought a sleeping bag, and I packed a sheet, so we made our beds and went to sleep.

I awoke only briefly in the night to the sound of some stray dogs playing loudly nearby, and when I looked around, a lone man in the empty streets called out “hakol beseder?” (everything okay?). I nodded and lay down again.

As the sky grew light around five or six, we rose from the dewy grass, packed our belongings, and returned to the bus station.

Figuring that we should save our rations and purchase food while we could, we examined the bus station options and found—toast! Those of you who haven’t spent time in Israel do not know what “toast” is. In English, it refers to a slice of toasted bread. Here, “toast” is a bagel or other similar large round bread horizontally sliced and filled with ingredients such as cheese, olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, tuna, hard-boiled eggs, and spices, cooked for several minutes in a panini press. The resulting hot and invariably delicious sandwich makes a satisfying meal and has an average cost of three dollars. I purchased a toast, and Edith got a calzone-pastry sort-of-thing.

As we sat eating and waiting for the buses to start, we talked about where to go. One distinct feature of the Negev Desert is Makhtesh Ramon, a 40km long crater (good guess, “makhtesh” means crater in Hebrew). We decided that we wanted to make it our first stop, so we boarded bus 60 headed south to Mitzpe Ramon, a town along the rim. Knowing that we wanted to end the day in Sde Boker, a town between Be’er Sheva and the crater, we asked the bus driver when the last bus out of the Mitzpe Ramon would run. He told us 1:35PM.

When we arrived midmorning, I woke up and stumbled off the bus disorientedly, fixing my dry contacts. As soon as I could see again, I realized that the bus had dropped us off on a road literally running along the rim of the crater, and my eyes caught sight of the enormous hole. It was huge! I still remember clearly a trip to the Grand Canyon when I was in fourth grade, and this reminded me a lot of it. We walked to the edge and gazed into Ramon Crater’s vastness. I wanted to be in it.

A short way down the road sat the official visitor center, which we appropriately decided to visit. After a few minutes of basking in the air-conditioning’s amazingness, we made use of the bathrooms to change, brush our teeth, and fill up our water bottles. There was a sign saying “visitors must pay to use restrooms,” but the woman at the counter never asked us for money. Instead, she told us that hiking to the bottom of the crater and back by 1:30 would be impossible. “We’ll show her,” I thought.

Before leaving, we started to look at the typical visitor center informational signs and models on display were told that there was a charge for viewing them. I’m used to the lonely people in American visitor centers who live for the occasional guest interested in their displays, and I could not bring myself to pay money to see one (of the displays, not the lonely people). We did have time to read a panel about the formation of the crater: Makhtesh Ramon is not a meteor crater but was instead somehow formed by natural processes on Earth (which makes it infinitely less exciting). The visitor center gave a ridiculous explanation concerning the ground folding upwards under an ancient sea and leaving a crater in the crack. The correct answer can of course be found on Wikipedia, however, and involves water eroding a soft layer of rock and causing the ground above to collapse, producing the giant void that we see today. I still chose to pretend it was made by aliens, though.

Although I normally don’t take advice from old ladies about the feasibility of my plans (nor do I normally receive it), I knew that given our time constraint, we should still plan carefully. People often run into trouble when hiking into canyons because starting with the downhill presents an inherent problem: you can easily travel much further than you should, and upon turning around, realize that fatigue and lack of water prevent you from returning.

Seeing that my phone read 11AM, giving us 150 minutes to make the trip, I allotted fifty for the descent and a hundred for returning to ensure that we’d make it on time. We were both in good shape and carrying three liters of water each, so I figured we’d be alright.

The hike down was easy and pleasant. We enjoyed spectacular views of the chiseled landscape as we watched the crater floor grow closer. Promising myself that we’d turn around at 11:50 even if we weren’t at the bottom yet, I hoped that we would make it down in time.

We did. After a high-five and discussion about how great we are, we sat atop a small hill of black gravel, a strange island in a sea of reddish-brown rock. While lying in the torrent of radiation that is the midday sun, we realized why nobody else attempted to hike at this hour: it’s really hot. We drank water, thankful for our ample supply, and Edith watched while I ran around on the rocks like a little kid.

As we faced the crater wall on the way up, we discovered how deep we had gone: very. The sun beat down on us while we climbed the steep trail and stopped frequently for water. As we struggled and worried about making it back on time to catch the bus, I reminded Edith what all her years of soccer practice were for, and she reminded me that there was ice cream in little store at the top. We pushed onwards and made it with twenty minutes to spare.

I wanted to return to the visitor center and brag to the woman, but instead we just used the restrooms and refilled our water before getting ice cream at the nearby shop and relaxing at the shaded bus stop.

At 1:35, we caught the much-anticipated bus that would take us to Sde Boker and told the driver that we wanted go to Ein Avdat National Park, which supposedly contained natural springs and great trails through the desert. We figured it’d be a good place to spend the night and hike around the next day, and the driver said he’d let us know when to get off.

When the time came, Edith and I exited the bus, saw a sign pointing down a side road to the Ein Avdat Entrance, and walked for fifteen minutes before arriving at the gate. A ranger then explained to us that we were at the “Upper Entrance,” in the South, and the trail is one-way and you can only start hiking at the “Lower Entrance,” in the North.

Ok, I don’t know WHO told this guy that he’s working at an ENTRANCE, but he’s not! If you can only leave through there, it’s an EXIT! Why would they ever print all the maps and signs and call this gate an “entrance,” only to turn down the people who try to enter there? It wasn’t even a translation problem; Edith speaks fluent Hebrew and did all the talking.

And what’s with the bus driver who dropped us off there? We clearly told him that we wanted to hike through Ein Avdat, and surely, he knows a bit about the five or ten stops that he drives past every day. Why would he direct us through the decoy entrance?

Even more frustrating, as we trekked back out to the main road, we saw another bus 60 passing by! The first driver lied to about when the last bus left! We subsequently saw two or three more of them pass in the next hour. Why do these people seem to know so little? Are they even real bus drivers?

We started walking the four miles down the road to the real park entrance, when a van stopped and a door opened, revealing a family inside. Edith and I climbed in with what turned out to be one of the nicest families ever. They lived on a kibbutz (farm) in the area and had been out someplace with their kids, one of whom was an adopted Ethiopian. They gave us some apples and water and dropped us off at the next Ein Avdat entrance.

When we saw that there was an alternative trail off to the side, we decided to save the main hike through the canyon and springs for the next day and instead take the optional route, especially since it turned out that the entrance to the main route was actually still a fair distance away.

The trail brought us through a desert full of huge rocks, hills, and dunes that I will remember as one of my favorite places ever. The last two years have led me to realize that I have a strange love for foreign deserts. The hot sun, rich blue skies, and bright beige sand surrounding us that day kept me constantly entertained. Several times, I told Edith, “I really want to go run up that dune over there and see what’s on the other side,” and she was a great sport and always let me go.

At one point as we hiked through a dry streambed, I looked back and saw what appeared to be the remains of a vehicle in a ravine that led to the top of the canyon. “Edith, what’s that up there?”

“It’s a car,” she stated.

“Oh… just checking.”

I could not resist the urge to get a closer look, so together we climbed up to see it. Sure enough, it looked as if someone fifty years ago had tried to drive a car into or out of the canyon (we couldn’t tell which), and it had gone horribly wrong. Or else they were trying to cover up a murder or something, in which case they were probably successful.

We never once saw another person on the trails, although we did see a few ibex (mountain goat-type animals) and lizards. The place was so beautiful and fascinating that we spent the whole afternoon exploring.

As sunset approached, we talked about where to spend the night. Edith had inquired about camping in the area and was told that there was a sort of parking lot along the road where people parked RVs but that sleeping in the national park was not permitted. We determined that we were probably still technically on national park land, but I really didn’t want to leave this amazing place and pay money to sleep in some parking lot, so I suggested that we just hike off the trail a bit and sleep on top of a hill. Edith noted that the wind was picking up and suggested that if we don’t return to the actual campsite, we instead seek shelter at the bottom of a hill. This sounded like a good compromise to me, so we set off to look for an ideal spot. With plenty of food and water and maps of the area, what could go wrong? The only dangers were scorpions, snakes, and the Arabs that everyone warned us about. We figured we’d probably be ok though.

Hiking down the trail a bit and looking behind the hills on either side, we eventually found a perfect little spot hidden from the trail and between two dunes. I used my foot to brush the sand around and flatten out a sleeping area, and we settled in and made our beds.

Growing hungry, we grabbed some food and water and climbed to the top of a hill to eat dinner and watch the sunset. As distant walls of sand shrouded the sun’s last rays and the desert began to grow dim, we descended to our belongings, brushed our teeth, and lay down.

The stars began to appear one by one, then many at a time, until they were too numerous count. We watched meteors and satellites and listened in the darkness to the cold wind pass overhead as we lay in the soft, sandy bed in our narrow, sheltered valley.

A beam of light skimmed across the tops of the dunes in front of us. “What the hell was that!?!” We froze and brought our conversation to a whisper.

“Why is someone hiking through here at 10:00 at night?”

“Could it be a park ranger looking for trespassers?”

“Is it a Bedouin protecting his land?” We had heard about men who rob people in the desert, or worse yet, kidnap them.

The beam disappeared, but we noticed the hilltops seemed not as dark as they had before and were left with an eerie glow. I assured Edith that we were well-hidden and that anyone would really have to look to come upon us. We lay down and tried to relax.

Fifteen minutes passed. The light returned. It swept across the dunes, stopped, continued, and again disappeared. Our hearts pounded as we listened for footsteps. “Edith, if we hear anyone coming towards us, we get up and run the other way and hide. Do you have your valuables on you?”

“No! I don’t have any pockets!”

“Give me your wallet; I'll hold onto it. Just be ready to leave quickly if we have to,” I told her. Our minds raced as we ran through the possible scenarios. If it was a park ranger or soldier, we would turn ourselves in and apologize for sleeping there. If it was an Arab trying to rob us and we didn’t have time to escape, we’d try to fight him as long as he didn’t show a weapon. If he was armed or there was a group, we’d give them our money and hope they let us go.

“Maybe we should pack up and go back to the campground,” Edith suggested.

“No, we’ll be much more visible hiking on the trails with a flashlight than we will be if we hide here,” I replied. We lay still and quiet and listened; we heard no sign of movement. I decided to scamper to the top of the dune in front of us and look for the source of the light. “If we can’t hear them walking, they won’t hear me climbing,” I reasoned.

I reached the top, poked my head up, and peered across. Five floodlights shined from posts on top of a cliff far in the distance. They were stationary and looked like they turned on every night. I turned to see my own shadow in the orange light on the dune behind me. Having solved the mystery of the ambient illumination, we still did not know about the moving beam of light. I gazed at stretches of trail visible from my vantage point, looking for any sign of motion. Seeing none, I returned to Edith and told her what I saw.

We felt slightly better to know about the source of the stationary glow, but we still did not know from where the moving, flashlight-looking beam had emanated. “Maybe it’s an automated searchlight,” we reasoned.

The light reappeared twice in the next five minutes and scanned the hilltops. It can’t be automated; there’s no set interval. We continued to lie and look and listen.

To this day, we don’t know exactly where the light came from. Israelis have since told us that soldiers, rangers, and Arabs are all definite possibilities. The most reasonable that I can come up with is that perhaps the parking lot at the distant trailhead lay at the perfect elevation for cars to shine their headlights over the desert and clip the tops of the dunes that we lay beneath. I still don’t know why there would be any traffic at that hour though.

Regardless, we eventually fell asleep and awoke at dawn, safe. Edith lay in her sleeping bag while I rose to climb the dune from which we had watched the sun set the night before. This time facing east, I watched it rise, casting a reddish glow over the infinite expanse of sand and mountains.

I returned to our little camp below as Edith began to get up. We noted how much better we felt in daylight again, consumed a quick breakfast of sandwich and cereal, and packed our bags. The hike out passed quickly, and we reached the road by 8:30AM.

A twenty-minute walk brought us to the site we had sought since yesterday afternoon: the REAL entrance to Ein Avdat: the “Lower” one, where you are actually allowed to enter. We paid a small admission fee and went in.

The canyon was indeed very scenic but somehow did not quite compare to the previous day’s hike. Tall walls of rock rose on either side of the trail, which followed a stream, fed by natural springs. Knowing that we had all day, we strolled leisurely along the path, admiring the birds, tadpoles, and novel bits of greenery.

I greatly enjoyed traveling with Edith for several reasons: she’s easy going and doesn’t mind my spontaneity, she’s a good companion and fun conversationalist, she’s a great athlete and physically able to keep up with my pace, but one thing that I particularly enjoyed was her ability to speak Hebrew. Having been born in Jerusalem but grown up in the States, she’s fluent in both English and Hebrew, and she happily endured my constant barrage of questions. “I hear this word a lot; can you tell me what it means?” “How would you conjugate this verb?” “What’s the Hebrew spelling and the English transliteration?” “How do you make hummus?”

We stopped to sit by an algae-filled pool at the base of a waterfall (we refrained from swimming) and again under the shade of some trees, where she gave me as much information as I could retain. Her lessons have served me numerous times since.

A steep staircase and set of ladders led us up the huge canyon wall (the ladders are the reason it is a one-way trail—they say they are too dangerous to go down). We stopped to rest in a cave that supposedly once housed Byzantine monks.

The day grew hot as we reached the top of the canyon and left the park through the familiar gate that rejected us the day before. Yes, definitely an exit, not an entrance.

We reached the main road around noon and knew that buses would start in the early evening. Knowing that the other entrance had a small air-conditioned visitor center that we could hang out in, we decided to try to hitchhike there. We agreed that Edith would do all the talking, in Hebrew, and that we would decline if the driver looked too suspicious.

After walking for a long time and seeing only the occasional northbound car (why was everybody heading south?), we began to grow frustrated. Nobody would stop for us. We even tried taking off our hats and sunglasses to look friendlier. Eventually, we came to a shaded bus stop on the side of the road and took shelter. We ate lunch and drank water while resting and examining the crude artwork on the small concrete structure.

We started walking again, and at last, a car stopped, containing a single female driver. We got in. Although I couldn’t understand the conversation, she and Edith talked at length, and the woman ended up taking us all the way back to Be’er Sheva.

She dropped us off at an Aroma, an Israeli chain similar to Panera Bread. After thanking her extensively, we entered the air-conditioned oasis. We still had a bus station sandwich, some cereal, and warm water left, but we happily purchased delicious “sabich” sandwiches—an Iraqi eggplant and egg specialty—with cold water.

Glad to be back to civilization, we ate and talked about what to do next. “I kind of want to get ice cream from McDonald’s,” Edith said.

“Sounds good to me, let’s go!” The nearest McDonald’s lay a thirty-second walk across the street. We stopped at the door to let the security guard check our bags and went in to order. I watched as the middle-aged Russian woman prepared our cones, perfectly spiraling the vanilla soft-serve along the rim and up to a swirly point.

“What? There’s no ice cream inside the cone! It’s all on top,” I complained to Edith.

“That’s how they do it here,” she informed me. “It’s a national regulation, so you get less ice cream.”

“Oh… those Jews,” I thought. At least it only cost seventy-five cents (unlike the rest of the food, which was mad-expensive—some value meals cost more than ten US dollars!).

We sat inside and enjoyed our ice cream before heading back to the bus station and finding a sherut to Tel Aviv.

We arrived in the city at five, two hours before the buses start running. Walking through the nearly-empty bus station, I saw Filipino women selling kebabs of meat. I approached them and asked what it was—they were selling pork! I bought two pork kebabs, wondering how they managed to sneak it into the country, and felt like a bad person as I enjoyed the delicious meat that I had not tasted for a month and a half.

We got a taxi to Edith’s place, which was not too far away (she lives right in the city), and hung out around there until the buses began again and I could head back home out to Kiryat Ono.

My sixth weekend turned out to be a great success: there was a region that I wanted to explore, and I returned home quite confident that I knew what was there. We made it out alive, had fun in the process, and most importantly proved previous weekend’s calmness an exception to the rule and not a new trend.