41st day (Down Into the Machtesh Hakatan)

One of the repercussions of finishing late the previous day was a reality check. We had originally planned to do a long 20 km through the Machtesh Hakatan, finishing the day with a climb out of the machtesh up Ma'aleh Eli which is a very long, very steep ascent. We probably could have done it, but it would have entailed us starting at 6 a.m. and finishing around 4 p.m. We saw from the previous day that planning to finish at about 4, with little daylight to spare, can be a bit risky, to say the least. We also didn't want to finish walking at 4 and therefore leave Dimona at 5, getting home at around 8.30 on a friday night, missing Shabbat dinner. So we decided to have an easier day, walking down into the machtesh and through half of it, getting picked up by Eli at the main entrance of the Machtesh Hakatan National Park, which is accessible by regular vehicle. I'm not going to describe here the exact geographical definition of a machtesh. It's sort of like a crater, but I'll let wikipedia do a fuller description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhtesh

We had to cover 6 km from the day's starting point at Matzad Tamar before descending into the machtesh. Not long after setting off we encountered one of the weirdest, most inexplicable and totally inconsequential events we've seen on the shvil to date. A single, pink balloon floated by. It must have been half filled with helium since it stayed about 10 metres above the ground. There is no civilisation within  30 kilometres of where we were, so it is a total mystery how it got there and how it happened that it floated past us at exactly the time we walked through this part of the Judean Desert National Park. A scene from a Fellini movie. But what did it mean?
Given that we had shortened the day's walk to about 13 km, we decided to implement a form of Singapore style benevolent dictatorship where Yoni would be the Lee Kuan Yew, setting the pace for his admiring and loving shvil partners. In reality, I've said for a long time that we walk too quickly and today we had the time to take it nice and easy. We've also tweaked some food democracy rules, setting ourselves a specific time and length for breaks. Let's see how it lasts in the future. Today, at least, it worked well.

The six kilometres were basically uneventful. But not boring. Up hills, down wadi's, a desert plateau surrounded by high hills in the distance. There seems to have been some rain in the area this winter because we saw  plants sprouting between the rocks, a bit like a desert pot-plant. If we weren't so busy trying to make it to Eilat it might be nice to return in the spring and see these plants flower. It's hard to say whether these Negev desert landscapes are beautiful by everyone's standards, or simply to us Galileans, the  difference between the mountainous, forested north and the yellow canyons and dry river beds of the south make it appear more striking. I tend to think that anyone walking down into a wadi and climbing up steeply the other side in cool desert winter conditions would find it inspiring, no matter what he's used to at home.
But let's save the superlatives for the Machtesh Hakatan. I've used inspiring already, so how about breathtaking? Awe-invoking? Mind-boggling? You get the picture. Undoubtedly amongst the most dramatic views we've seen on the 600 km or so we've walked already. We were plodding along the path when we get to a sign that says in big bold red print "danger, no thoroughfare". We noticed some old animal bones, licked clean by the vultures, at the base of the sign. Great. We looked up from the sign and there in front of us, or more correctly, 500 metres below us, was a giant (the smallest machtesh in the Negev) crater. The walls were rippled and wavy and the floor on the bottom multicoloured from the different coloured sands. Once we awoke from the stupor, we followed the path ahead with our eyes. It snaked down onto the valley floor. Very steeply. We had time on our side and took the descent slow and easy. Taking the descent this way not only saved wear and tear on knees and ankles, but allowed us to fully appreciate the vista. As we descended, the angle changed and thus the view. From the bottom, looking up to the crater walls was no less striking.

Other than the views, the machtesh has another interesting feature; the coloured rocks and sand. We were walking in and around red, purple, yellow and ochre valleys. When we arrived at the agreed (dictated?) lunch time, we plonked ourselves down in the shadows of a red sand-box. The packed breakfast that the guest-house provided for us was another plus for the small town hotel that couldn't do enough to make us feel welcome. If anyone is touring in the area, you could do a lot worse than the Drachim Guest House in Dimona.

We finished the designated lunch break and continued on along the crater floor. The walking was easy and flat, with an occasional drop into a creek and a short steep climb out. I couldn't help but muse that I have so often seen in magazines or on television desert canyons with grand, striking views and wondered how much I would love to walk through such a place. And here we were, walking through a postcard that I've always dreamt of. "Wow", I thought to myself. For a variety of reasons and situations, there have been a number of times on the shvil that I have felt a certain privilege. This was one of them.

It's hard ( at least for us) to estimate how long it will take to finish any individual leg. More often than not, we finish later than we plan. Occasionally we finish earlier. This was one such time and we weren't sorry for it. We'd asked Eli to pick us up from the park entrance at 12.30 and by 11.15 were waiting already at the agreed point. You can forget cell phone range. Yoni and Garry meaningfully exploited the spare time by promptly finding a comfortable concrete barrier and fell asleep. I wasn't tired after the half day's walk and had shpilkers, so I trotted off along the road hoping to get cell phone range in order to tell Eli to come earlier.Getting to the park entrance took us off the shvil yisrael track by about 600 metres. The guide book recommends to walkers, even those that are continuing through the machtesh and up Ma'aleh Eli, to take this detour in order to see a special geological formation. The said detour enabled the enraptured viewer to see a large break in the rock-face. The split showed pylons of layered rock sprouting out of the ground and curving upwards and outwards. Very impressive, but if my day included a 20 km walk culminating in one of the steepest climbs on the entire 10000 km shvil, I'm not sure how much I would have appreciated the recommended detour. Still, on a day when I had an hour to kill it was more interesting than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

We hankered for our traditional double machiatto before heading home and knew that any of the 130 branches of Aroma coffee house would serve us the beverage in exactly the way we liked it. Even in Dimona. Yoni made an interesting sociological observation over coffee. On this  early friday afternoon, there wasn't a single, pale-skinned Ashkenazi in sight. This was perhaps the most homogeneous Aroma in the country, where all the clientele where dark-skinned Jews of North African heritage, mixed with a few local Arabs. We were by far the whitest customers in the place. I am in no way being sarcastic, patronising or racist. Our shvil yisrael experience isn't only about craters and deserts. It's about seeing parts of Israel that we wouldn't otherwise see.
The three of us hobbled pathetically back to Garry's car, feeling all of our 50 plus years after two days of steep climbs and descents. The jacuzzi at the guest-house was a tempting finale, but we have families to get back to for shabbath.

40th day (Blue)

Sometimes things just don't go to plan. We met up late, there were traffic jams along the way and the morning just didn't flow. If I believed in omens, then the morning's tardiness certainly would have been one. It was close to eleven by the time we arrived in Dimona. Ronny, the taxi driver who I'd spoken to on the previous day and with who I'd arranged prices, put me on to his brother Eli. Eli was busy, so arranged for the third brother, Menachem, to take us out to the starting point. Who would have thought that we'd stumbled on to Dimona's transport magnate family? Since I'm the one who made the arrangements and am also the most adept at small-talk of the three of us, I was assigned the front seat next to the driver. It seemed strange to me that Menachem, a pleasant religious man with a very strong Moroccan accent, would make comment that my Hebrew was heavily accented. We would discover later that in Dimona if you don't speak with a pronounced Moroccan or Indian accent, then you have an accent. At any rate, after living a good many years in Dimona, Menachem had no idea where it was that we wanted him to drop us off and like many before him, couldn't quite get a grip on why in heaven's name 4 middle aged Australians would want to wander through the desert in the first place. I think I detected  a modicum of doubt when I claimed that we had actually walked this far from Israel's northern extreme.
 

It was almost midday when we hit the trail, believing that we could cover the 13 km in around 4 hours and get picked up around 4, with not quite an hour of sunlight up our sleeve. Sometimes things just don't go to plan. But more of that later.

Dimona is renowned not for its diverse ethnic population (which it doesn't have) nor for its diverse culinary traditions (which it also doesn't have) but for a certain top secret, heavily guarded military, whoops, sorry, civilian, facility just outside of town. We obviously didn't see it, but a very pretty, impressive zeppelin, similar to the Goodyear blimp that takes aerial shots over the super-bowl, certainly saw us. I imagine that our mugshots are now on the bulletin boards of all of Israel's security and intelligence apparatus.
The shvil itself was ok, you know, in a desert pretty way. We're getting used to this yellow rock and inner silence stuff. We passed 2 or 3 old Roman fort ruins, set up on a string of hilltops in the area in order to control this part of the Holy Land 2000 years ago. A Roman legionnaire from Liguria might have been sent to the Levant just like a reservist from Iowa might have been sent to Southern Iraq. Some things never change.  Matsad (fort) Tamar, where we started our previous trek, is part of this ancient defensive line, as was Matsad Tzapir, the best preserved of the ruined fortresses, which commanded views of the entire area below. It also commanded us to stop and eat our lunch here. It was undoubtedly one of the prettiest lunch stops we've had so far en-route.

Upon resuming, we followed the red marked path as far as a major shvil intersection, where a blue path came up from the south and continued west, a black path headed north and the red path couldn't decide what to do so it just stayed put.

The guide book instructed us to continue with the blue. The clearly marked path continued down and south. The weather was perfect, the views impressive and of course the conversation flowed. I made a comment to Yoni that I was glad that we were walking down the whole time, because it would have been a lot less pleasant doing it the opposite direction. At one point was came around a bend to the site of an enormous chasm below us, the Dead Sea in front and the Mountains of Moab in Jordan behind. For that split second all conversation ceased, such was the sudden and awe inspiring beauty. On numerous occasions over the next day and a half we would encounter views that took our breath away. We would also climb some mountains that would also take our breath away, but that's a different story. The sight of Jordan to our south east brought up a worrying thought. We were meant to be heading in a roughly westerly direction, not decidedly south east. Could it be that we took the blue path in the opposite direction and have now walked an hour out of our way?  Upon consulting the map and looking at the road beneath us for reference, Yoni and Garry, the map mavens, decreed that indeed we had wasted a full hour in the wrong direction. Fuck. We weren't meant to have seen that awesome sight of the chasm, Dead Sea and Mountains of Moab. We were meant to be seeing other awesome sights.

 
 
Now came the time for some adult decision making. We had the choice of continuing down to the road below, call one of the 3 taxi driving brothers and finish at the sensible time of about 3 o'clock. The alternative was to back track an hour, find the proper blue path and hope to get out as early as possible, knowing full well that there was little chance that we'd be finishing in daylight. Ah, the joys of behaving like a little boy and taking the irresponsible but more enjoyable path. How many of us have ever taken a knowingly "wrong" decision?  So there we were, making an about face, walking up a hill that I'd so smugly remarked that I wouldn't want to climb, following the wrong blue marking and traipsing back almost to the place where we had lunch. Mark had gotten us on to the subject of previous girlfriends and perhaps the blue conversation had distracted us from looking for the correct blue markings. Perhaps we were simply morons who are constantly getting lost. Whatever. We arrived back at the major shvil intersection, took the correct turn and saw the first white, blue and orange shvil sign that we'd seen for almost 2 hours.

From this point on, Mark was determined not to allow us to walk any more than 50 metres without finding a shvil yisrael marker and not just a blue marker. Every time he found such a marker, he would yell "shvil sign" at full volume, as if heralding the presence of the king. So much for desert peace and quiet.

Before starting today's walk we'd agreed with Yoni that we needed to change our walking philosophy, taking longer breaks and walking at a more leisurely pace. Philosophy is good only when conditions allow it to be relevant. We were racing against time to finish the day before sunset, so leisurely walking was not an option. The only breaks we had were 30 second stops to take 4 gulps of water before continuing on the cross desert run. And whilst it was clear that the lack of time dictated the pace at which we were walking, it was a pity, because the route was really quite beautiful. We passed more desert canyons, crossed wadis,  saw giant boulders strewn around as if they were child's marbles and almost fell into a deep crevice. And this was the "boring" part of the walk. After following the correct blue markings that had the shvill markings painted next to them for about 3 km we approached Ma'ale (ascent) Yemin. The steep descent into Nachal Yemin passed by a high, dry waterfall shaped like an amphitheatre. The rocks had slits and grooves etched into them, the result of millions of years of seasonal, violent  flash floods. More boulders, weighing many tons, were tossed here and there. We'd dropped from Matzad Tzapir, at almost 500 metres above sea level, down to the floor of Nachal Hatira which is not much higher than sea level.

that's the moon, not the sun

The path criss-crossed the nachal a number of times until it arrived to a point where Mr. shvil-painter decided that he'd had enough. At this point he decided that he'd had enough of Nachal Hatira and he wanted out. Straight out. Up-and-over out. With light fading fast, we were left with the choice of sitting down and crying or walking straight up a near vertical path. This was the ascent known as Ma'aleh HaPalmach. By the time we reached the top of the path, we were left with 2 light sources. The flashlight that I'd brought and the light of the full moon. The sun was a faded memory. If I'd been there with Angelina Jolie, I might have called it the most romantic moment of my life. Since I was there with Yoni, Garry and Mark, lets just say that the beauty of the moment didn't escape my tired attention. The spell was quickly broken when we realised that we may have finished walking up the incline, but that doesn't mean that we'd finished climbing. Not by a long shot. Before us stood an old metal ladder, cemented into the ground and attached to the cliff face. We were meant to climb this in order to get to the next stage of the trial.
When Mark is not accompanying us through the desert he holds a position that demands him to be always available to give authoritative answers to calls from certain people, often journalists, on certain subjects. He got one such call when climbing the ladder. It didn't interest the foreign editor of the Tokyo Times that he was answering his call stuck half way up a ladder on a cliff in the middle of the Negev Desert. The conversation went something like this:
Editor: haro, is dis mister Cohen?
Mark: Yes it is. who is this please?
Editor: Hayuki Kawasaka, the foreign editor of the Tokyo Times. I would rike your opinion on the ratest dewelopments in your sphere of work.
Mark: So nice to talk to you again Mr Kawasaka san. I'm actually taking a days holiday today. Do you think that you could possibly talk to my assistant Yossi?
Editor: No. I ront to give my readers an authoritative official statement.
Eventually mark convinced Mr Kawasaki that Yossi could be just as reliable as him. Mark continued up the ladder, safe in the knowledge that Yossi would deal with Mr Kawasaki and we would eventually stop laughing.

At the top of the ladder, hand rungs had been driven into the wall. Once we passed the ladder test, it was time to prove our dexterity and eye-hand co-ordination by swinging our legs onto the rungs and climb a little higher. Next was the balance test. The "path" narrowed to 10 centimetres wide and ran along the top of the ridge. Luckily there was a metal cable running along the wall to our side to hang onto. On the other side was a precipice. This series of acrobatic trials, to be bested by the light of the full moon, continued on until eventually we reached the top of the cliff and safe, straight, stable ground was underfoot. It was only then that we could appreciate the beauty of the scenery below, even, or especially, in this light. It was at once eerie, spectacular and special. To be honest, I'm perfectly aware that climbing cliffs at night is a tad, how should I put it?... irresponsible?... dangerous? But it was an experience that I will probably only have once in my life and it was exhilarating. Once we got into cell phone range I rang Eli, our contact brother with the transport magnates, and asked him to pick us up at Ein Yorkam.

night with the full moon

Dimona may not be one of the great cities of the world, but we were happy to get there after our big day out. The Drachim guest house proved to be a good place to settle for the night, but before testing the rooms we had some culinary issues to work out. It appears that for a city of 40,000 people, 4 restaurants is suffice. One is Kosher dairy (no way), one is an Aroma coffee shop, the McDonalds of Israeli coffee shop chains, another is "Capiot", the more up-market meat restaurant and the fourth is "Shipudai Ron" (Ron's meat-house), where you get authentic, simple, local fare. Gourmet it wasn't, but it was certainly fresh and clean. Washed down with a couple of beers, it was just right. Mark couldn't stay the night and said his farewells. We went back to the guest house where a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi was waiting for us. Now I wouldn't say that we are spoilt. Far from it. We've stayed in a couple of hovels so far, though most places have been ok. But the jacuzzi is a first. And its going to be really hard to go back to anything less. When you've walked 16 hard kilometres, 3 of them needlessly, drop 450 metres into a valley and then climb 350 metres up a cliff, your 52 year old muscles start to object. And as for the 52 year old feet...You can't imagine how good that jacuzzi felt. The ice cold Grey Goose Vodka that we were sipping just added to the ambience. For the second time today, I dreamt of  Angelina Jolie and got Garry and Yoni.
If little had gone to plan today, then why should it end to plan? The Israel Electric Company decided that the jacuzzi was using too much power and all of Dimona had to pay the price of a power blackout. So there we were, 3 grown men, sitting in a hot bath in the dark, sipping vodka. By the time we went to bed we were left to consider the fact that on the shvil, even if things don't go as planned, you can still have a great day.