Thursday 6 February 2014

51st day (Jerusalem)





It has long been said that in relation to the long and largely unsuccessful peace negotiations with our neighbours, the Palestinians, both sides know what the final agreement will more or less look like. The hardest nut to crack will be Jerusalem. "Leave that to the end," the experts say. "Don't talk about it till you're almost finished. Close off everything else and by the time both parties get to an agreement, they won't throw the whole package out over one point." Therefore, THE Carbolet, the hardest, most dangerous, most unconquerable section of the 1000 km of the Israel National Trail, has been nicknamed by us, "Jerusalem", because it has been left to the end. One of us, who goes un-named, refuses to believe that he can do it safely. And like other less important matters, here too, negotiations on how to negotiate our own shvil Jerusalem remain fruitless.
In the end, we gave up. We're pretty close to the end and we still couldn't find a way of convincing Yoni that, if he's walked 800 or so kilometres with us, some of which have been easy, some hard, sometimes with a bad knee, sometimes with a bad back, that he could get through the Carbolet. For the first time in 50 walking days spread over 5 years, we were walking a shvil section without Yoni. It felt strange.
The guidebook deems this 17 km section too difficult to do in one day. It advises walkers to take the only possible exit point, after a mere 8 km and walk down 4 non shvil km, return next time, climb those same 4 non-shvil km, and complete the remaining 9 km. Garry and I decided that if this was the advice, then we could do a "quickie". We would go down to the Negev and stay overnight in Yeruham, which is the closest settlement to the starting point. We'd be up at dawn, walk the first section, order a bush taxi to take us back to the car and head home. Simple. And it more or less worked.
Dotted along, or close to the shvil yisrael route, there are good-hearted souls who open their houses and offer shvillers a hot shower and a bed and for the night. These people are called shvil angels. The magnamity of inviting total strangers into your house, just because they are walking the length of the country, is one of the great features of the shvil. I have written a number of times throughout this blog that whilst the varied and beautiful landscape of tiny Israel is the main reason for setting off on this journey, the opportunity to meet the equally as varied human landscape is often just as good a reason. If walking without Yoni was a first, we figured we'd have another first and try staying with a shvil angel. It's quite easy finding a shvil angel. Lists of the hundreds of shvil angels can be found in a few different places on the internet. Three days before we set off I contacted Avishay and asked if he could put us up. He readily agreed.
Armed with token gifts of a cake and a bottle of wine, we arrived at Avishai's caravan in Yeruham not knowing what to expect. Sometimes, it seems that this country has gone totally and irreversibly down the tubes. You hear the news and nothing seems to be right. And then you stumble upon young, idealistic people like Avishay and his partner Ilana and you realize that there's still something to believe in here. Avishay studies economics at Be'er Sheva University. What we didn't know is that there is a large number of young graduates or students like Avishay, who want to do something positive for the country. They have decided that they want to come to struggling communities like Yeruham and try to make a difference. They get cheap housing and in return become involved in various local projects. We didn't even get to meet Ilana, as she was in Be'er Sheva helping set up a secular Jewish studies centre. Before and after dinner, Garry and I had long and fascinating conversations with Avishay on a wide range of subjects. I can only wish him and Ilana all the best in whatever they set their hearts and minds to in the future. Whatever it is, I'm sure that Israel will be the better for it.
Next morning we were up at 5. That's not to say that we awoke at 5. I spent most of the night nodding off to sleep and then being punched by Garry. For his part, Garry spent half the night trying to sleep, in between punching me in order to stop my snoring. It was a Punch and Gammy show. Anyhow, not entirely refreshed, we sneaked out of the caravan by 5.45  and drove, as planned, to the Oron chemical factory, where we parked Garry's car.
As I mentioned earlier, this section is regarded as the most difficult on shvil yisrael. With my combination of under fitness and over fatness, I was, for the first time, scared when I started walking. I honestly had no idea how difficult it was going to be and how I would cope with it. I was going to get through it, and that was that. The first kilometer and a half was easy. Huh, I thought. No worries. And then we started to climb…and climb…and climb. Sometimes we would walk, sometimes climb and sometimes crawl. But always up. Steeply up. Until we reached the peak, or more correctly the first peak. Because sure enough, as we reached one peak, another would appear 100 metres further up the trail. Once the ascent more or less evened out, the hard part started (as if the climb wasn't hard enough). We were walking along the ridge above hamachtesh hagadol, or the large crater. In reality, this crater is indeed bigger than the nearby hamachtesh hakatan, the small crater, but not as big as the Ramon crater. Trouble is whoever named this the big crater hadn't yet discovered and named the Ramon crater, so the name stuck, even though it isn't the biggest crater.


This ridge consisted of a straight cliff drop to our right and a very steep, very sharp incline on our left. We were walking along the point of a triangle. It was difficult, uncomfortable walking, with our left leg 40 cm lower than our right, such was the angle.  The walking along the razor's edge continued for about an hour and a half, sometimes walking up a bit, sometimes down a bit. Eventually the route dropped down and away from this knife edge. I use the word route and not path because the way we were meant to walk was well marked, but there was very little clear, hewn path.  Here, Mr Shvil Painter knew that there was no room for him to be lazy. A misplaced marker could have very very serious consequences. Eventually even Mr. Shvil Marker had enough of this, but not before a sharp drop, which of course was followed by a steep rise and eventually another drop into a valley and away from the difficult cliff's edge terrain. Maybe I'm getting blasé . The views today were very pretty, as you might expect when walking along a knife edged cliff top, but perhaps my concentration on self-preservation prevented me from really saying "wow…unbelievable…" Or maybe I'm just plain spoilt for amazing views.


If this was a section of firsts, then another unfortunate first had to be dealt with. I don't know if it was a direct result of the difficult terrain or it just happened, irrespective of the difficulty, but for the first time on the shvil I sustained an injury. At one point not too long after we'd started the actual carbolet, cliff edge walking, my knee went one way, my body the other. When you're miles away from any sort help or escape route, you grin and bear it. A large part of the remainder of the day was walked with pain running down the external side of my right knee. We have missed quite a lot of walking days due to Yoni's knee problems, and in some absurd way, it's as if Yoni's ghost cursed me with a knee injury, as retribution for walking without him. Now it remains to be seen if the curse is just a jarred knee, minor strain or torn ligament.
As said, we were planning to walk to the halfway point and then take a blue marked path 4 km off the official shvil yisrael route to our pick up point. As has so often happened, there was a breakdown in communication between us and the book. In this case, and upon rereading it numerous times, the book described what we had to do inaccurately and we subsequently missed the turn off.  Sometimes you miss a turn off, back track a few minutes and no harm done. And sometimes you miss a turn off, climb an ascent that is equally as hard, if not more so than the one you did 4 hours earlier and walk another 15 minutes along a knife edged slanted cliff, until you re-read the book and realize that there's been a mistake. Guess which type of missed turn-off this was?  Now for another first. Call it a meltdown, a brainfade, a kriza, dropping or losing the plot, spitting the dummy. I had it all. When I realized that I'd spent 12,000 calories climbing a near vertical incline, had reached the highest point on this leg ,all for nothing AND now had to do it all again in reverse, with a bung knee, I just sat down on this sharp escarpment and swore to my heart's discontent. I used the entire swearing vocabulary of English, Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish and Russian, and then invented some more words that hadn't yet been thought of. Poor old Garry had to just stand around and put up, rather stoically I might add, with my temper tantrum. We had a decision to make and then to act on it. We could continue on, through a route that was probably harder than what we'd just done, or turn back, knowing that the past hour had been a waste of time and energy. Unfortunately, I felt that the serious descents that lay ahead were not possible given the state of my wrenched knee. Otherwise we would have continued on. But no, it was back, down what we'd spent an hour climbing, then further dropping down through Nachal Mador, where we'd planned to meet Danon, our Bedouin 4*4  bush taxi driver. We backtracked with billows of smoke rising from my ears. By the time we'd gotten back to the point that we'd passed 2 hours previously, my blood pressure had returned to something approximating normal and enough blood was flowing to my brain to allow for coherent conversation.


There was quite a lot of evidence that there had been some rain here during this winter. The ground was damp her and there and the creek beds that we were walking though were very green. It was very nice, if a little incongruous, seeing wild flowers pop up next to bright green weeds in desert creeks. The varying shades of green were a welcome relief to the yellows of the surrounding desert.


 

 
Ho hum. Nachal mador proved to be another desert nachal, pretty enough, very green, gradually widening until it was just a broad yellow plain. We weren't sure how far it was to the meeting point with Danon, but had a sneaking feeling it was another couple of kilometres. To be honest, after not altogether successful dealings with Danon in the past, we weren't so sure that he was going to meet us at all, even though I'd spoken to him a number of times and he assured me that he knew exactly where we wanted to be picked up. I'm happy he knew, because we weren't so sure we knew where we wanted to picked up. Bugger this. We were tired, I was sore and he had a Jeep. We stopped and told him that we wanted him to drive to us, rather than us walk to him. Garry had a good feeling about Danon this time, though Garry often suffers from an overabundance of optimism. He got it right this time. 10 minutes later than the agreed time (20 minutes earlier than Beduoin Mean Time) we climbed into Danon's Jeep. Barely 24 hours after we headed south we were back home, safe and sound, having negotiated THE carbolet, or at least half of it. Our own private Jerusalem was difficult, but not nearly as hard as it's made out to be.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

50th day (...and God laughs)


I have long admired how Israelis love getting out into nature. During the spring or autumn holiday periods, on any single day, more than a million people can be found in Israel's numerous national parks. That's out of a population of 8 million. Shvil Yisrael's existence and popularity is further evidence. (not that we actually ever see any through shvillers on our journeys.)  I'm convinced that one of the reasons for this love of the Israeli outdoors is the mandated tiyul shnattie, annual school field trips that every pupil in the country goes on, starting from 3rd grade. By high school, these yearly excursions take the children into the wild for 3-5 days, where they will cover some pretty difficult but very beautiful terrain.  And so, as we fell out of Salvador's taxi at 6.30 in the middle of no-where, we were confronted by two large buses and a group of 70 high school pupils, gathered around getting last minute instructions. Yep. This is Israel.



I may be full of poetic admiration for one of the few things that the Israeli education system gets right, but we had no intention of getting stuck behind this gaggle of loud Israeli youth. We started the climb up the first of today's many hills, before the Ramat Gan 3rd district high school broke from its huddle.
This hastily started climb was the ascent of Mt Saharonim. We've climbed steeper mountains over our time on the shvil, but it's still a pretty rude way to start your day, puffing and panting so early in the morning. (no risqué comments, please). I always like to see a point of reference below get smaller as I climb. By the time we got to the pinnacle, the 2 buses below in the valley looked like tiny ants. I look down at what I have just climbed with some satisfaction, thinking "wow, look how far I've climbed in such a short time". And then my gaze leaves the buses and roams up the entire valley beneath us and my self-congratulation turns to awe. Wow. From here we can see the entire Ramon crater beneath us, a mirror image of the amazing view you get from Mitzpeh Ramon. The first of many stunning views of the day.









We continued along the ridge at the top of Mt Saharonim for a bit, until we started to drop down in to the Nekarot stream valley. The walking was not too difficult, the company good and the weather perfect. There had been reports of the possibility of rain and flash floods in the southern valleys, but it was cool with light high clouds. Not a raincloud in sight.
We may not have seen any other walkers in the area, but we did meet some locals. Not Bedouins, but Ibexes, standing around on some rocks next to the path. Very nice. They were far less excited about the chance meeting than we were. The ibexes didn't seem scared of us at all and stood on their rocks oblivious of our existence. For our part, we lined up like Japanese tourists at the Mona Lisa, snapping away with our smartphones.



Like everything so far today, the Nekarot stream is very pretty. The big attraction here is the Nekarot Horseshoe, a deep smooth-sided bend in the stream. The riverbed itself is strewn with enormous boulders, thrown randomly around like kids' toys over the floor of their bedroom. After 20 minutes of walking through this, the creekbed narrowed into a winding bottleneck, no more than a couple of metres wide with the walls scrubbed white from the yearly floods.  We'd barely been walking 2 hours and had already seen a larger variety of landscape than we get in an average day on the shvil. And we hadn't even gotten to the day's main attraction, the carbolet charirim. Carbolet is Hebrew for cock's comb, which is thin and jagged. There is this, the carbolet charirim on the edge of the ramon crater, which may be a path on the top of a high narrow ridge, but it isn't too difficult to negotiate. Then there's THE Carbolet, on the edge of the machtesh hagadol, (the large crater) which is the hardest section of shvil yisrael. There, it's razor thin with numerous hills and gullies and sheer drops off the path.  Don't bother trying to look for it in past blog posts. You won't find it. We have elegantly dodged it, it deemed too difficult for one of our intrepid party.
               



The climb up from the Nekarot streambed to the carbolet charirim ridge started easily enough, gradually steepening until the last section was a vertical scramble up to the pinnacle. As we struggled to the top we'd half noticed that the view looked pretty good. There's an understatement if ever there was one. Now that we'd stopped for a water break after reaching the top, we could see that the view was breathtaking. We had a broad desert valley directly beneath us to the left (north). This birds-eye view was to accompany us for the next hour or so as the path followed the top of the ridge. Narrow mountain-top ridges tend to have two sides, and the path sometimes changed to its other, southern side. Here we had a different, equally as stunning view of other desert valleys, over to the Afro-Syrian rift valley and the Red Mountains of Moab in Jordan making our horizon. We were 300 metres up, on a path that switches from one breath-taking view to the other, sort of like flicking between National Geographic and Discovery Channels, only in real life. Have I ever mentioned, "it doesn't get any better than this"?






Eventually the path dropped down into Nachal Ma'uk. Without wishing to sound blasé, we were happy to have some "boring", plain old desert valley walking. Mind you, this was still far more interesting than, say, Nachal Faran that we walked through last time we were in the area. At some point, I saw Yoni struggling a little. As friends do, I asked him what the matter was. Through a tight faced grimace, he complained that his left thigh was starting to cramp. Friends are not meant to laugh when they hear of such strife, but I did. It was sort of an embarrassed laugh. I had also started to cramp in my left thigh muscle. I don't know if it’s a coincidence or the walking was such that the left thigh muscle was the one that had been forced to work hardest. What is certain, Yoni and I are at similar level of non-fitness and Garry, who runs regularly, and Bob and Sharon who looks as good as they did when they left Mt Scopus, 30+ years ago, had strolled through everything that today's route had so far offered. Whatever. We'd been on the trail almost 5 hours and had really enjoying it so far. With cramps in mind, we decided to stop and eat our lunch. Yoni and I figured that processed cold-meats, tinned tuna and tomatoes would replace the salts that our left thigh muscles so craved.

 
As we sat and relaxed, Garry and I noticed the light white clouds that had accompanied us most of the day were starting to be replaced by their lower, darker and heavier cousins. We exchanged worried looks but knew that there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. Our only wish was that if the weather was going to get nasty, that it should do so before we arrived at the campsite where we were staying the night. Getting drenched whille walking is far better than getting drenched overnight . Soon enough we would get our wish.
The processed meat, other assorted goodies and a good rest did the trick. After lunch we crawled, crampless, up a short but sheer vertical climb and continued along a nice easy section. The clouds continued to gather. Still, it rains in the desert only 5 days a year. What were the chances of getting serious rain? The answer was "very high". Less than half an hour after we'd resumed our walk, light rain started to fall. "It won't last" we said to one another. "This is the desert". Were our perfectly laid and executed plans about to unravel? Bob and Sharon had to meet our jeep man so he could take them out, in order for them to catch the  bus to Tel Aviv. Was the rain going to affect that? We weren't too far from the end and couldn't influence the weather. All we could do was raise the easy walking pace that had been the norm so far to a quicker walk, to avoid the chance of being stuck, or worse, in flash floods. This, however, was easier said than done. The last part of the day's walk threw up yet another variation in topography. We had been walking for most of the day at altitudes that ranged between 300 and 600 metres above sea level. The Gev Holit campground, where we'd planned to stay overnight, is at 12 metres above sea level. The way down is not via a gentle stroll along pastoral meadows. No sir, it's straight down the Gled waterfall and cliff-face. Like everything else today, breathtakingly beautiful. The descent can be more or less divided into 3. The first part is pretty rough, dropping down between boulders, often on our bums. After completing 16 km and with legs that weren't quite as supple as they were 6 hours, let alone 30 years ago, grace and shvil chic are the last things on our minds.
As this steep section petered out to a nice, gentle, easy slope, I thought we were only 5 minutes from the end. I promised Bob, who was starting to look a little ragged, that we'd done the hard stuff. I was forced to apologize and hope that he wasn't inclined to use his expertise as a lawyer against those who innocently can't keep to their promises. The third part of the descent was by far the steepest and most difficult to pass, especially over wet and very slippery rocks.
The rain had now progressed from a light drizzle to steady downpour. At first, light puddles formed on the ground. These puddles burst into rivulets that joined to form small streams. We were witnessing the formation of flash floods. Fascinating. As we descended the Gled cliff face, these streams came together and burst out of the cliff, forming spontaneous waterfalls. The cliff face is a couple of hundred metres wide and had four or five jets of water sprouting from the top. To see this sight, up close and personal, is something that I will always remember, and is certainly one of the highlights of our time on shvil yisrael. The path, being so steep, didn't allow us to see where we were heading for any more than 5 metres ahead. At one point it looked as if the path was taking us through one of the water falls. Fortunately, it changed direction and we got no closer than about 30 metres to the waterfall. Believe me, that's close enough.
Eventually, the path did get to the bottom, and so did we, wet but safe. I can't speak for the others, and I'm not  so sure they even agree, but I found walking in the cold rain quite exhilarating. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it's the little boy in me.




excuse the water drop on my lense- gives a certain camera veritae look to it

There was, of course, a major down-side to this deluge. We'd planned this two day section meticulously and it all added up to naught. We were soaked and there was no chance that we could camp out. Instead, we would drive home and spend New Year's Eve on the road. Man plans and God laughs. Then again, in some way, we still had the last laugh. We'd managed to do a leg of shvil yisrael that was as beautiful and as varied as we'd done to date. It had everything that the shvil has to offer; it was the complete package. True, we didn't sleep out and wouldn't be walking the next day, as planned. Instead, we were privileged to witness a rare and powerful force of nature, from as close as is safely possible. Ultimately, given the choice, I know which one I would have taken.

The Gev Holit campground was sufficiently high to protect us from the rising Gled stream. We had no cell phone range, so we couldn't ring Itsik, our jeep man, to tell him that we'd arrived an hour and a half early. All that was left was to wait for him to come and get us. I walked down the campsite towards the confluence of Nachal Gled and Nachal Nekrot in order to see if perhaps there was cell phone range. Suddenly I saw a white 4*4 van trying to ford the rushing stream.  I waved liked a lunatic, sure that it was Itsik or his son coming to fetch us. But no. It was Tsachi and his wife Michal. Tsachi was taking Michal to watch floods as a birthday treat. I'm not sure that this was the birthday treat that Michal always dreamed of, but who knows?  In America there are tornado followers, in Israel, flood followers. After seeing it up close, I could suddenly understand their fascination with this exhibition of nature's power. This being the meeting point of 2 flooding streams, the current was quite fast, but not so fast that he couldn't cross. I was of course surprised to see anyone out here in the rain, but I think Tzachi was way ahead of me in the surprise stakes, seeing a lone, drenched, fat, middle aged Australian in the middle of a flash flood, waving like a lunatic. Surreal doesn't even get close to describing the scene. When I called the other 4 over, surprise gave way to astonishment.
We had a slight dilemma here. We knew that Itsik was coming to get us but had no way to communicate with him. We were cold and wet and didn't feel too inclined to stick around. The longer it rained, the more swollen the streams would become, so if we waited too long, there was a very real risk that no-one would be able to get in. Then we would be really stuffed. Tsachi assured us that there was only one way of getting to this point, so we would certainly meet him along the way. Next problem was how were we going to fit 5 sodden people into the 3 seat back of a work utility? There is no answer. We just did it. Tsachi took a baby seat and some baby toys, yesterday's newspaper, his toolkit and other assorted stuff off the seat, placed it all into the van section at the back of the vehicle and in we rolled.  Not for the first time I felt like a little kid and not a 54 year old father of 4.
 I knew I liked Tsachi from the outset. When he politely asked what we do, we gave him the roll-call. One a lawyer, another a world renowned doctor.One of us is a  manufacturer of tools, another a business consultant and the last a chef and culinary entrepreneur. And which one did he see as the most important or interesting? The chef!! Indeed, a clever man who's priorities are in the right place!

Now I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I really do appreciate Tsachi's willingness to help us out by sardining us into his ute (and who am I to criticize one with such astute taste?). However, driving like a rally cross driver over rivers, mud, bumps and dips was great fun for him, but had the spinal care unit of Be'er Sheva hospital on full alert, waiting for incomings. Eventually we crossed Amotz, Itzik's driver, and disembarked from Tsachi's ute. We were a little embarrassed when we saw the mud that we left in his car, but he took it in his cool good-natured manner. And now, for once, God was interfering with our plans in a good way. Tsachi is from Be'er Sheva. Bob and Sharon had to get to Tel Aviv. The plan was for them to catch a bus at 5 to Be'er Sheva and then an onward train to Tel Aviv. Tsach was quite happy to drop them in Be'er Sheva, almost 4 hours ahead of what they had originally planned. We farewelled our guest shvillers here in the mud and continued on with Amotz to Yoni's car that we'd parked a little over 24 hours earlier at Sapir. Only 24 hours? It seemed liked we'd packed a week's worth of activities in this short time.
It's funny how quickly you stiffen up after finishing the walking. By the time we'd gotten to the closest Aroma coffee shop, about an hour and a half's drive from where we'd picked up Yoni's car, we could barely move. In fact, I'm not sure what the servers at the Aroma thought when 3 decrepit old men, dirty, wet and walking in a very hunched and unnatural manner, asked to be served coffee.  To make matters worse, Garry and I were barefoot, our shoes being far too muddy to be allowed into Yoni's Prius, our socks too wet to wear.
When we'd finished our coffee, Garry's car, which we'd picked up on the way back from Mitzpeh Ramon, decided to act decrepit as well and refused to start. So as a final act of unplanned activity, we had to run around (still barefoot) in the car park of the Aroma, begging people to help jump-start the car.
 I could hear God laughing all the way home.


Monday 6 January 2014

Man Plans

Checklist
  •   Place to stay night before in Mitzpeh Ramon
  •   Taxi ordered to take us the actual starting point at Saharonim campground
  •   Jeep man booked
  •   Shopping done, separated into days and given to jeep man to bring to us at end of day 1
  •   Map is with us
  •   Thermal underwear, warm clothing, wool hat, sleeping bag and tent for sleeping out in the desert. Torches. Toilet paper. Spare water
  •   Yoni made soup. I made pasta. Portable stove and "gazia". Coffee, tea, munchies
  •   Sharon and Bobby - out with jeep man to bus to TA

After the frustrations of wasted time and cross-country car driving of last time, we were determined to apply the lessons that we'd learnt, get the logistics right and enjoy 2 full days of walking.
The day started at 1p.m. at Sharon and Bobby's hotel in Tel Aviv. Some more old Melbourne friends joining the 3 little boys on their ongoing adventure. At a quick count, that makes 6 ex school friends from 35 years ago to have joined us so far. Having decided for the first time in 5 years to sleep out, mid winter in the middle of the desert, we really felt like little kids getting ready for an adventure. And what an adventure it turned out to be!
After meeting Garry at the agreed time and place we continued on to Ein Yahav in the Arava, where we completed the shopping for the next 2 days, then headed to Hatzeva to meet our Jeep man. The plan was to give him all our camping equipment and food so he could meet us at the conclusion of the following day's walk at the Gev Holit campground. We would sleep there and continue walking the next day as far as Sapir, where we will have parked a car.  Itsik, our Jeep man, seemed to fully understand what we wanted and where we wanted him to meet us. He instilled far more confidence than some of his predecessors.
All that remained of the day was to find our pre-booked apartment in Mitzpeh Ramon. With a little difficulty, we found Johnny and his AirnBnB apartment. Without giving away free plugs, AirBnB can be really good. It can also be a bit weird. Johnny, the owner and inhabitant of the apartment, simply goes to sleep at the neighbours' when he rents his place out for the night. A bit weird.
 I have always wanted to cook something on one of our shvil legs, and since we were in an apartment with a proper kitchen, I readily promised to cook up a curry. There's something very comforting about 5 friends, sitting around the table, with good food and wine. Even more so when it's cold outside, warm (sort of) inside, a holiday feel and  anticipation that we are about to embark on an adventure. By 9.30 we were ready to turn in. As always,we had early start tomorrow.


I was watching some TV on the couch I was about to sleep on when I heard Johnny come in from next door and start to check through the kitchen. A bit strange, I thought. I wasn't quite sure why he would come in and how he knew exactly when to come, but I put it down to co-incidence. We arose at 5.15 in order to be ready for the taxi arriving at 6.00. Johnny came in at 5.30 to check everything was ok. Again, how did he know that we were awake at this ungodly hour? I seriously suspect a spy-cam. Very creepy. Bate's AirBnB?
At any rate, Salvador, our funny little taxi driver, arrived exactly on time, crammed the five of us into the four places in his car and traversed the dirt track to the saharonim campsite. He was cheerily oblivious to the fact that his car wasn't made for this type of mistreatment.
So far, almost unbelievably, everything had gone exactly to plan. Even the weather, which had been a bit drizzly on the previous night, seemed to be smiling on us.
I rarely mention actual dates of our trips, but I would like to point out that we disembarked from Salvador's Skoda on the morning of 31st of December. I was planning to spend New Year's Eve with my 2 friends, sipping ouzo till, say, 7.30. It's dark already by 5 in the evening, and I can't really see any way that we were going to stay awake in the freezing desert any later than that. Happy New Year.



 
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