48th day (4 Km)

With much fanfare and ado, after almost a year and a half of shvil dormancy, we arose at 4 in the morning, met at Manof at 5 (a bit after…I was late) and headed to the deep south for 2 days of our usual, and unusual fun and games.

I have to admit, coming back to the shvil was sort of like meeting up with an old girlfriend. On the one hand, excitement and anticipation, on the other, will it be harder than in the past and will I be up to it? I am certainly a year and a half heavier and older. I've also had some minor injuries. Put together, it sowed doubt as to how I would cope with the physical demands of 2 day's walking over 35 at times difficult kilometres. But first and foremost, we were excited. It was good to get out there again.

With a short stop along the way to pick up our permanent guest (Mark) and a double macchiato, we arrived to the Moab Caravan (ancient, not trailer) Spice Route Centre, just south of Tzofar in the Aravah. We're actually waiting for Mark to join us as an official member of the Shvillers, but in his line of work, it's not certain that the Boss will allow it.

We saw one black marking at the entrance of this Moab place, but knew something wasn't quite right when instead of paths, there was earth-moving equipment. One of the workers came running up, looking somewhat confused seeing 4 middle-aged Anglo-Saxons wandering around in circles looking for non-existent signs on non-existent paths. "oh no," he said, "the path you're looking for is over there," as he pointed vaguely in a direction that was anywhere other than where he was. Strangely enough, we did find another black path marker where he had vaguely pointed.

And now for our big mistake of the day. As we got out of the car, Garry innocently suggested to Yoni, who was our tour director for the day, that he take the detailed Nature Protection Society map with us. "We won't need it" was the brusque reply.

Given that it was obvious that the earth-moving equipment had also visited here recently, it came as no surprise that we couldn't find another marker. Worse, as is often the case, there was a major discrepancy between the maps in the two shvil yisrael books that we consult. If we'd cross referenced the maps with the authoritative map that we wouldn't need that was back in the car, then we would have seen that the book that Yoni was relying on to get us to the start of the shvil yisrael section was hopelessly wrong. So instead, we wandered around an empty lot, then up and down the surrounding hills, looking for a way to start our day's walk. Eventually we found a black path marker, which after a few hundred metres was meant to cross the white, blue and orange marked shvil yisrael  path. 3 kilometres and almost an hour's walking later, we hit the shvil yisrael path.  This is a record, even for us. We had left home at 4.20 in the morning and were starting to walk on the shvil after midday. We had 14 km of shvil ahead of us in what remained of the day's light. An ominous start to the season.

There's no denying that the desert can be beautiful. Breathtakingly so. But here, at the crossroads of the black marked path and the shvil yisrael route, we were surrounded by a plane of rocky yellow. As if God hadn't quite made up his mind what he wanted to do with it, so he left it as is. The only sort of point of interest was the first forest we'd seen for a long time. But this is the desert, so no thick green canopies, or cool lush undergrowth. This was an acacia forest. There were about fifty spikey leaved trees of various size, spread over a reasonably large area.  It’s the closest thing to a forest we're going to see.

And that's about it. The scenery didn't really change. It was hot. And we had 14, 13, 12 km ahead. As time wore on, we started to doubt our ability to make the end point before dark. We've finished sections in the dark before, but didn't feel like doing that today. We had one possible out. A green marked path would take us back to route 90, a few km south from where we'd parked. It seemed obvious that this was the logical thing to do, and upon consulting some National Parks workers that happened to drive past (who had a copy of the map that had been deemed unnecessary a few hours earlier) we decided to take the out. Another hour or so later we were back at route 90, somewhere between the two cars that had been parked at each end. 

That was it for the day's walking, but not for the day's fun and games. So let me take the opportunity to summarize the day so far. We started walking close to route 90, on a black marked path. We took this path 3 km west, in order to arrive to the shvil yisrael path. We walked south 4 km on shvil yisrael and another 4 km east in order to get back to the middle of no-where on route 90. Three sides of a square, 11 km of walking, and only 4 were actually on shvil yisrael. A really productive day. Fucking brilliant, I say.
 The next hurdle was getting back to the car, parked in the construction site some kms North. We had two ways of getting there; walking or hitch-hiking. I was convinced that one of us could hitch-hike back to the car. My three partners scoffed and sneered at my belief in the essential good in human nature, that someone would stop for a 53 y.o. vagabond sticking his finger out on a desert road. Gary and Mark started walking, certain that I was wasting my time. Yoni just stayed put in the shade.

Have I mentioned before that I love it when I'm right? Well I do, and I was right. After 20 minutes or so, someone stopped to pick me up and dropped me a few metres away from Yoni's waiting car.

Home for the night was a spacious Bedouin style tent at the Arava Antelope farm. It was clean and basic, with hot showers and the added bonus of a sulphur pool. Just right. We sat around for a while over a bottle of plonk, relaxing away the frustrations of today's walking failures. Eventually, we drove off to procure supplies for the next day, jostling with Thai agricultural workers in the local supermarket. Dinner at the quaint Gamalia restaurant and by 10 we were all out for the night, hoping for more success the next day.