47th day (Further Than Expected)

Benad was ready and waiting at 5 a.m., leading Yoni and his car to the end point, then returning him to us so we could walk out of Mitzpeh Ramon. Today's leg was an unexpected bonus. Yesterday's extra, unplanned 15 km on the shvil allowed us today to do a leg that we hadn't anticipated. We had planned to get as far as Mitzpeh Ramon this walking season and now we would get some 15 km further south. That's good.

 You can always tell when Yoni is unhappy. He has the look. He got out of Benad's car and was glowing the look. I think his exact words were "We're fucked". The car was parked miles away from the end point and we were going to have to add on 2 hours of walking just to get to it. Benad truly had Yoni's best interests in mind. Had the car been parked at our finishing point, there was a good chance that it wouldn't be waiting there when we got there. One of Sammi the Bedouin's cousins would have dismantled it prior to our arrival, selling the parts to a Tel Aviv mechanic.  Instead, Benad had Yoni park at a place that was secure but not anywhere near where we wanted to be. There was nothing that we could do about that now.

We asked Benad to drop us at the Mitzpeh Ramon field school, where we would start the day's walk by dropping down the cliff, so to speak, into the Ramon Crater. Garry was very specific. The field school. The field school happened to be at the other end of the Mitzpeh Ramon promenade, about a kilometer and a half from where we were. By the time we tried to say something, we were out of the car, Benad had received full payment and was last seen heading north into the horizon.  Less than 24 hours previously we had high hopes for Benad. Now we had some serious doubts.

 The walk along the promenade at sunrise, overlooking the entire crater, is a sight so stunning that I don't have the ability to describe it. I've used up my stash of superlatives describing previous places. Here, I was just speechless. Maybe not exactly speechless… we could all be heard muttering "fucking amazing" like morons who don't have the vocabulary to properly express themselves. But yet the drop down the cliff into the crater is no less stunning. I didn't need to walk 1.5 km further than expected. In his defense, upon comparing maps and book descriptions and checking with Sol, my shvil authority, when Benad walked the shvil, the day's route started from where he threw us out of his car. Since then, the shvil elders decided, for reasons that remain secret to them, to add about 4 km onto the day's proceedings. Still, Garry was very clear that we wanted to be let out at the field school and not where Benad thought he should let us out. It appears that people, Jewish, Bedouin or Sinhalese Buddhist, who drive shvillers around for money, do pretty much what they want and not always what those that are paying them want. Perhaps it’s a case of "I've got you by the short and curlys and you have no choice". Trouble is, they're right.

The drop down into the crater wasn't actually too steep. We've done far worse and were about to do a real bad one a bit later in the day. Once we hit the crater bottom we headed east inside Nachal Ramon. Nachal Ramon is not particularly wide, nor is it very deep. The walking was easy and uneventful. Walking along the bottom of a large desert crater, surrounded by high rock walls all around, is enough. We didn't need for the walking to be eventful. Truth be said, I was a little bored, despite the beautiful area. Garry, on the other hand, kept muttering under his breath "gee this is beautiful", over and over again. I think he liked it. And so we continued on, not a care in the world, ambling through the desert. The Ramon Crater is a bit different to the areas that we had seen these past 100 km or so. There is far more vegetation. It's even green. And there are far more birds as well. It resembled a scene from one of those old Wild West movies. All we needed were some Cowboys and Indians, tumbleweed blowing gently across the plain and John Wayne riding into the sunrise. It just had that sort of feel to it.

After an hour and a half's walking in the nachal, the path took a turn to the left. That is, to the north. That is, back toward Mitzpeh Ramon. That is, away from the southerly direction that we were meant to be walking. For once, it wasn't a case of us taking the wrong path. It was simply a case of the shvil elders wantonly and unnecessarily adding on kilometres . The path we were on, marked both blue and white and shvil white, blue and orange, would meet up with a blue path that drops down from Mitzpeh Ramon. We could have taken this path directly from Mitzpeh Ramon, where Benad had dropped us off in the morning, rather than do a large loop in order to get to the same point. But no…there's only so much leading us around in circles we're going to allow the Shvil Elders and their man in the field, Mr Shvil Painter. The map seemed pretty clear that if we continue east inside Nachal Ramon rather than follow the shvil yisrael signs north, we will meet the shvil again a few kilometres further along after it finishes heading  north and does a U-turn south. We simply cut off the loop. This act of deliberately leaving the marked shvil signs in order to cut out a 2 kilometre loop was a potentially risky one. If we miss the meeting point we would continue east and not take the shvil path south. Our track history for finding and following shvil signs is not encouraging, but hey, you gotta live life on the edge. As it happened, all went to plan and we successfully found the shvil markings at the point we thought we would.

So now we were walking south in a different creek bed. The north-south view was only marginally more interesting than the east-west. That is, I was still a bit bored and Garry and Yoni remained over-awed by the beauty. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.  The path left the creek bed and evolved into a good dirt track, one that a regular car could probably negotiate. As we walked down this road we came to a shvil junction that gave the casual desert stroller (as opposed to the serious shviller) a choice. Continue on straight along the road and  get to the no. 40 road. Take a right hand turn along a faintly defined walking track, look up, gulp and see a path winding almost vertically up a rock face. Shvillers, of course, don't get a choice. No points for guessing in which direction we were lead. This crag that we were about to climb is called the Ramon Tooth. I have never heard of a geological feature being called a tooth, but I can guess that it is so called because a tooth is straight on both sides with a relatively small area at the top. And that pretty much describes what we were about to climb and then descend. The only consolation was that the climb was relatively short, only a few hundred metres. A very steep few hundred metres.

We had been walking now for over three hours and hadn't eaten breakfast. We'd had an orange and some nuts but were starting to feel hungry. The question is, do you climb on an empty stomach and without the caloric input needed for a good steep climb or do you go with a full stomach, possibly being weighed down by the undigested food? Decisions, decisions. In the end we decided that the view from the top would be better than the one from the bottom and it would be more pleasant having our break whilst sitting on a flat, 5*5 metre space, two hundred metres above the crater floor. Or perhaps the opposite is true…had we eaten breakfast in the shadow of this hill, there was no way we could have relaxed and enjoyed the food, knowing what was in store. Whatever. After 4 hours on the trail, we sat down on the top of the Ramon Tooth and attacked Kol-Bo Slomon's preservative laden fodder in a food frenzy worthy of a Great White.

 

If the ascent had been a grunt, then the descent was even more challenging. Both books warned us to follow the signs carefully, lest we find ourselves on the edge of an abyss. Sure enough, after descending 50 metres or so, the path disappeared and we were left trying to spot the markers. Had we not known that the route that might seem logical to us was in fact impassable, we would have thought that Mr Shvil Marker was drunk when painting the signs. The route down zigzagged over sharp rocks in what appeared to be an arbitrary fashion. In reality, Mr Shvil painter was trying to find the safest way down. Sometimes we didn't see the next marker till we crested an outcrop and looked ahead to see where we had to go. Just when we thought we'd gotten close to the bottom, the route took a sharp turn and went up a butte of jagged rocks. Getting past it was no joke, but when we looked back to the area we thought we would have been going through, we saw a straight, impassable drop. Sliding down was not really an option. These rocks were razor sharp. Eventually it bottomed out, a clear path appeared and we were back to the easy walking that typified the day before the Ramon Tooth.

After twenty four kilometres on the previous day and the stiff workout that the Ramon Tooth gave us today, we were starting to tire. My feet were blistered, Yoni's knees were complaining and for the first time in 3 years on the shvil, Garry consulted the book to find out how far we had to go till the end. Even he was tired.

We knew we were close to road no. 40 when we started to see families with young kids on the path. They had come to see the ammonite wall. For those, like me, that don't know what ammonites are, they're prehistoric shellfish. There's an exposed clay wall with hundreds of the critters stuck into them. Or at least, that's what the book said and that what the sign on the road indicated. Somehow we missed it. I don't know how, but we didn't see it. It's supposed to be a major attraction in the Ramon crater but we must have just walked right past it. We must have been really tired. Or maybe Yoni was too busy concentrating on trying to get 3G. It was his turn today to try to find out how his AFL team, the Blues, went. Like Garry and I the previous day, he should have saved his energy. They lost.

Garry may be the fittest of the three of us, but I'm the one who least likes to miss things along the way. When we discuss skipping a certain part, or taking a detour to see something interesting that is not actually on the shvil yisrael route, it is almost always me that wants to do that extra bit. We had another very steep climb, similar to the Ramon Tooth, to encounter before we got to the no. 40 road. For one of the first times en route, I played chicken. There was no logical reason to climb this nameless mountain, other than because it was on the shvil yisrael. The views from the top would have been similar to those atop the Ramon Tooth. Yoni and Garry, a little surprised that I played the "c" card, readily agreed to dodge around this part of the shvil. So rather than climbing up and over for an hour, we just trotted up to road no. 40. Today's route was meant to get to the Saronim camp ground, but since Yoni's car was at the Be'erot camp ground, there was no point going there. As far as we were concerned, shvil yisrael today finished at road no. 40.

But the adventure wasn't finished. Not by a long shot. Now it was time to curse Benad for taking Yoni so far out of the way and to try to figure out how we were going to get to Yoni's car which was 8 km away. "Simple" I chirped. "We'll hitch-hike the 3 km along Road no. 40 to the turnoff and any car going down the dirt track will pick us up."  We figured that a lone hitch-hiker would have more chance of getting a lift than 3 middle aged vagabonds. Yoni was elected to stand on the road and stick his finger out, whilst Garry and I hid behind a road sign. After 15 minutes and 4 cars (this isn't exactly downtown Manhattan here) Yoni gave up. It was my turn. After a further 15 minutes and 5 cars, I decided to walk to the turnoff, intent on still trying to catch a lift as I walked. Intent is all well and good, but results are what matter and in this case, the result was failure. I walked the 3 km to the turnoff to Be'erot campground. By this stage I was tired, my feet were sore and blistered and I had no intention of walking the 5 km down the road. Yoni and Garry had set off about 15 minutes after me and had as much luck as I did getting a lift. They decided that they could walk the 5 km to the car and set off down the track. I stayed where I was.

If road no. 40 was quiet, then this dirt track leading to no-where in the desert was deathly. The only thing missing were the vultures circling overhead. And suddenly, the German Embassy in Tel Aviv came to the rescue. Or more correctly, Hilda, who works in the embassy and her French friend Karin. How many people can say that they have hitched a ride in a vehicle with diplomatic plates in the middle of the desert? And German! In Israel! Oh the irony of it all. In any case, I had Yoni's keys, started his car and picked him and Garry up from the road. All's well that ends well.

So we finished the season covering 40 km over two days. By far the most we've done on a weekend. We knew that we had exploited to the maximum the long trip south. It was hard but felt good. There's a reasonable chance that the next winter season will see us arrive in Eilat.

 See you in October.

46th day (Change In Plan)

Remember us? It's been a long time. For the first time in 3 years on the shvil we were forced to postpone a shvil leg due to the weather. Not unbearably hot desert weather but cold and wet March weather. And then along came Pesach and suddenly we've missed the winter walking season. Oh well. That's life.

 Rather than try to get down south on a Thursday, a work day, we decided to do a proper Friday and Saturday weekend on the shvil. It turned out to be a wise decision but it entailed getting up at 3.45 (yes, there is such a time on the clock. It just isn't meant for humans) meeting up and heading off from the north at 5.00. At least we arrived at Nafhah prison by 8.30. Nafhah prison has no special significance other than it is just north of Mitzpeh Ramon, is the place where we agreed to leave Yoni's car and meet up with Benad. He was our Jewish replacement for Sammi the Bedouin who proved to be somewhat  unreliable last time. We had high hopes for Benad. Hiring a 4WD vehicle and driver to drop you off and pick you up in the middle of no-where in the desert is an expensive business. Most people do it as a business and quote prices which allow for a very handsome profit. Benad, who himself walked the entire Shvil Yisrael, claims to do it to satisfy his desire to help other shvillers out.  I'm not convinced that this wasn't just a sales pitch, since he turned out to be not a lot cheaper than the professionals from the area. No matter. He arrived at the jail about 15 minutes after us. After the necessary introductions and other niceties we were off to the Hava campground. We'd finished the previous leg at a point on the oil route (shvil haneft) and technically should have started there, BUT, since that would have entailed walking for some 6 km along a dirt track with no notable landmarks other than a tunnel that was built to hold emergency supplies of oil that proved to be very leaky and a campground that goes by the imaginative name of "the thirsty snake", we skipped forward to the Hava campground.

By 10 a.m. we were looking for the trail markings above the Hava canyon, or perhaps the Eve canyon if I want to translate accurately. Hava or Eve, it is very pretty. We walked above a 30 metre deep gash in the earth that snakes through the desert above. After a kilometer or so the path steeply dropped into the canyon. We could have backtracked within the canyon in order to see the Hava waterholes but the prospect of seeing a series of small holes with a light covering of brackish water just didn't seem a big attraction. Other people who have seen them recommend visiting the waterholes. Oh well. Next time. The path continued for 3 or so km inside the canyon and made for very pleasant, "why did it take us so long to get back on the shvil?" walking. At some point the trail took a sharp right hand turn up a different, equally as steep sided canyon. Had we continued straight we would have gotten to the Hava\Eve springs which are apparently very nice but apparently not nice enough for the shvil elders to decide that we should go there. True, we have seen the Yorkam, Akev and Shaviv springs which are all very special, each in a different way, so I guess I can't complain about missing a desert spring. I can however complain about missing a cave. As we turned right we spotted a largish looking cave a few hundred metres straight ahead. Yoni and Garry had to almost physically restrain me from not rushing up to see it. The path had us turning right on our way to Matsad Machmal, today's planned end point and not to an unnamed cave that held little interest to anyone but me. Oh well. Next time.

The canyon twisted left and right, occasionally even continuing straight for a few hundred metres. Generally the path was easy to spot and just as easy to negotiate. At other points there was no clear path and we had to make our way forward by climbing, clawing or crawling over the terrain, each of us using whatever method we deemed appropriate. I'm being gentle here. One of us crawled more than the others, but for pride's sake, his name remains with the author.

The thing about walking through steep sided desert canyons is that eventually you have to get out of them. And it's rarely easy. A shvil marking was painted on a boulder adjacent to the canyon wall. Trouble is we couldn't see a path. Hmm. "This will be fun," I exclaimed. And indeed it was. Soon after the marking on the boulder we saw another one leading into a near vertical crevice that split the canyon wall. And another marking above that. At least Mr Shvil Marker was clear about his intent. About half way up he was kind enough to bolt some hand rungs into the wall, but we had to get to this about half way point to use them. Funnily enough, as formidable as the climb looked from the bottom, when looking down upon what we had just accomplished from the top, it looked even more difficult. "Did we really just climb that?" we asked ourselves. The view in front of us from the top, however, was not of vast awe inspiring expanses, as we might have hoped, but of a path that continued steeply upwards. We may have been out of the canyon but we hadn't finished the ascent. At least it was a walk and not a climb. Eventually the path led us to a flat mountain top that did indeed overlook a breathtaking vista. The perfect spot for a tea-and-chocolate-croissant break.

Throughout the morning Garry and I had been distracted by our inability to obtain information regarding one of the most important events on the world sporting calendar that was taking place as we walked. No, not the Monacco Grand Prix. Nor Flushing Meadows. Barcelona hadn't lost yet to Chelsea in the European Champion's League. St.Kilda, our beloved and perennial loser AFL team was playing Fremantle, a team that we'd had no firm opinion about until they poached our coach at the end of the previous season. And we couldn't get 3G range anywhere here in the desert. I will have to write a formal letter of complaint to the government Department of Communications and the cellular phone companies about their lack of range in the desert. Where are their priorities, I ask? At least here, on top of this mountain, we had cellphone range. I rang my son Gal who was listening to the commentary on the radio via the internet. I shouldn't have made the effort. We lost.

It wasn't particularly late and we didn't have a long way to get to Matsad Machmal, but we didn't wait at our tea stop for too long. We headed off the plateau along a saddle between two peaks. Suddenly, in the distance, we spotted two figures walking in our direction. Lo and behold…shvillers. We haven't seen other shvillers for at least 6 months, perhaps longer. Benad assured us that this was the season and that there had been swarms of walkers passing thorough this area over the past 2 months. "Swarms" is the exact word that he'd used. We most certainly hadn't encountered swarms, but we were excited all the same to meet even a single pair of shvillers. As it happened, they would change the entire weekend for us. They were a pretty "standard" shvil yisrael pair (If there is such a thing as standard, given that we hadn't seen a sole for over 6 months); a young Israeli boy and girl, probably just out of the army, carrying their entire worldly possessions on their backs.  The girl looked especially tough and fit, as if she was a fitness instructor in a top battle unit. To prove she was extra tough and fit, she was walking the shvil in socks and sandals, not the usual walking shoes. Naturally, we exchanged niceties, informing them that they were the first shvillers that we'd seen for a long long time. We also informed them that we were heading for Matsad Machmal, intending to walk from there to Mitzpeh Ramon the following day. They looked puzzled. Matsad Machmal was only a few kilometres ahead and it was still relatively early. "Why not continue on to Mitzpeh Ramon," they asked. "You can easily make it there today". They were, of course, correct. Sometimes you get into a mindset and  become blinkered by your pre-existing plan. We were walking as far as Matsad  Machmal today and that was it. It was 27 kilometres from where we'd started the day to Mitzpeh Ramon. In our minds, that's just too far for us to do in one day. But in reality, we can do it. It's a matter of putting your mind to it. Had these shvillers not suggested the obvious to us, we wouldn't have thought to continue. Of course we also would not have been able to continue onwards from Mitzpeh Ramon the next day. Instead, Benad would have dropped us back at Matsad Machmal and we would have walked into Mitzpeh Ramon. In a flash, we had just added 17 kilometres on to our day's walk. What, are we mad?

 

Sure enough, after an easy few kilometres and another pair of shvillers, we arrived at the turnoff to Matsad Machmal. Matsad Machmal is another ancient Roman fort, strategically placed above the Ramon crater in order to protect the interests of the Empire, all those years ago. Now that we had another 17 kilometres to cover, we didn't take the short detour to see the fort, but continued onwards.

You can tell that we're starting to think about the end of the shvil. We have about 300 km left, of which 40 or so go next to the no. 40 road and will be driven. 260 walked km is about 14 more walking days. Or, as I asked my 2 friends who are more mathematically astute than me, "by the time we get to Eilat, how many steps will we have taken?"  Using a complicated logarithm of average step length, a quotient for additional short steps whilst climbing or descending, adding in extra steps for unplanned, superfluous or lost metres and subtracting parts that we have or will drive or skip, we got to the rough figure of 1.6 million steps. Impressive, no? We're not in Eilat yet, but we're certainly thinking about it.

Besides the plain logic of walking for half a day rather than wasting that same time hanging around Mitzpeh Ramon, the walk was excruciatingly boring. Had we returned the following day just to do this, we would have been spectacularly pissed off. We had other things that would spectacularly piss us off the next day, but more of that in the next chapter. We thought that the walk into Mitzpeh Ramon was along the crater rim the entire way. So we thought. After an hour and a half's walking along a wide dirt track through an area that can only be described as absolutely nondescript, we arrived to the edge of Machtesh Ramon. As with the previous two machteshim that we had encountered, the views from the top are simply breathtaking. This crater, however, is far bigger than the other two (Hamchtesh Hakatan {the small crater} and Hamachtesh Hagadol {the Big Crater}) so the views are even grander, if that is at all possible. Nature as a work of art. After stopping to breathe in the view, we continued on. The path once again took us away from the crater's edge, along yet more nondescript landscapes. It did return once again to the crater's edge, but this really wasn't the sort of walking that justified adding 17km on to our day. As soon as we had cell range we rang good old Benad and asked him to come and pick us up at 5 o'clock. Enough is enough. He may be of the Jewish nation but his understanding of time was straight out of the Bedouin handbook. 6 o'clock rolled up as he did, with a nonchalant apology that he mistimed his own day out. At this point Sammi the Bedouin suddenly wasn't such a bad option.

The further south we get the more frontier the towns get. Way back in Arad, there was a good, normal pub. In Dimona, a guest house with a Jacuzzi.  If Yeruham  had a feeling of the middle of no-where, then Mitzpeh Ramon is the outer extremities of no-where. Firstly you can't help but notice the potential of the place, sitting on the lip of the Machtesh Ramon. The possibilities for eco-tourism are endless. Instead there are a couple of world class hotels, a few more run-down ones, no restaurants or even a coffee shop open on a Friday night and one miniscule mini-market open for supplies once the sun goes down. The place has an air of sadness. Our accommodation, Tzimmer B'shchuna  or Orna's place, was in keeping with the malaise of the town. It was clean, basic and answered to all our needs. It even had satellite TV that broadcast some of the world's leading stations, like ImamTV from Iran alongside numerous Afghani, Pakistani, Bahraini and Saudi options. I was shocked to see Arab porn tv, with names like Arab xxx, Arab babes and the likes, where Salima was waiting for your call. I could have tuned in to Bosnia Today, but if I'd wanted Israel 1, 2 or 10, then I would have had to find other accommodation.

Luckily the only store open within 150km, Kol-bo Slomon, was just across the road from the apartment. This retail giant of the Negev was about the size of a standard bathroom in an average western home. Other than yesterday's bread rolls, there was nothing there that hadn't come off the production line before the beginning of last month. "Fresh" was a dirty word. No matter. There was enough stuff to supply us for a good breakfast the next day and at least we were safe in the thought that everything that we'd bought had enough preservatives in it to prevent spoilage until we ate it.

And then there was dinner. We had the option of Chez Eugene, a very classy French restaurant at the newly opened 5 star hotel. There was a restaurant in another hotel where Garry had stayed when he was in Mitzpeh Ramon not too long ago that he liked very much. Unfortunately it was booked out and no amount of pleading could get us in. So we settled for the Hotel Club Ramon, where for the sum of 100 NIS each we got food that kibbutznikim have been eating in their dining rooms these past 100 years. The chef even whipped up for Garry a vegetarian delight, comprising of yesterday's mashed potatoes crumbed, battered and fried into a giant patty. Good thing we had that old reliable bottle of Grey Goose back in the apartment to calm the spirits. I'm running out of the good vodka and think that next time we hit the trail we may try an alternative to this version of Mitzpeh Ramon.

We were "sleeping in" till 4.30 tomorrow, so after 24 km of walking, the gourmet dining and the post dinner vodka, snoring by 10 p.m. seemed a better alternative to watching the edited highlights of the Koran on television.