39th day (Creek Beds)

4.45 muster. 5.30 Eli's taxi. 6.00 Arad airstrip. Today's walk started with clockwork efficiency. Just as well, since the shvil painter's inefficiency caused us to waste any time that we may have gained by getting out of bed at such an ungodly hour. But more of that soon enough.

Eli's white taxi

The Arad airstrip is the sort of place that Stephen King or Isaac Asimov may write about in their books. A few deserted hangars, a 200 metre strip of dirt track, sand, rocks, mottled dawn light and a cold desert wind. The undead or the aliens, depending on your preferred author, were about to jump out at us at any moment. In reality, the only other living creatures that we encountered on the first kilometre or so were mangy dogs that sniffed around indifferently from a distance.

It was nice walking, "nice" being that bland non offensive term when you have nothing else to say. The early morning light and sun rising from the east made the walking a bit more interesting. After half an hour of this "nice" walking we passed some markings painted on a rock that indicating that a red marked path branched to the right and the black marked path continued straight. After a further 20 metres, all the markings disappeared. Mr Shvil Marker once again was on strike, leaving us to the mercy of the Bedouins and the desert. Another fork 100 metres further on led us no-where in both directions and at this point it was safe to say that we didn't have a clue. My sense of direction  said that we were looking in the wrong place but my co-hikers have learnt over the years to do the exact opposite of my intuition. We walked backwards and forwards, took a path that led us down to a Bedouin camp, walked back, walked in circles, scratched our bums in confusion and didn't know what to do. We read and re-read the pertinent paragraph in the book and that was about as useful as a skipping rope is to an elephant. I branched off once again to check the area where I though the path should be, not expecting any results and lo and behold, there were the white, blue and orange markings that we were looking for. I tried not to be smug, but being right once in three years gave me a certain pathetic satisfaction. Having said that, I still agree that in all future deliberations as to which direction we should take, the correct route will be the one that is opposite to the one I indicate. No argument. A long steep valley lay out in front of us was, the sort that any kid would find too tempting to resist testing the echo. A loud coo-we was bellowed into the valley. Once the impressive echo had died down, a local unseen Bedouin lad tried his hand at the aboriginal call in reply.

Having wasted 45 minutes we didn't want to spend too long whooping into the distance and started our descent down the steep path into Nachal Canfan. Upon entering the nachal we were met with a pungent smell above us. Looking up we saw a herd of goats and their Bedouin goat-herds. Standing down-wind from the herd was not one of the most pleasant sensory experiences we've had on the shvil. Soon enough we escaped the goats and were treated to a far more pleasant fragrance, that of wild za'atar (hyssop). I have it growing wild in my garden, but up in the cooler and wetter Galil, the leaves are bigger and the smell and taste less sharp. In this desert canyon, the leaves are much smaller in order to reduce evaporation and the smell far more concentrated. It was quite intoxicating. At one point, when we stopped to eat our sandwiches, we sat down on a ledge overlooking the canyon below, picked a few leaves of the wild za'atar and put them into the sandwiches. Gourmet chefs search the world for new taste sensations such as this. Mark down another "it doesn't get any better than this" moment.
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We spent a good few hours walking through Nachal Canfan, which changed its topography as we progressed. Sometimes it was deep with high walls, other times shallower and broader. Sometimes there were clear watermarks on the rock walls, either soft sandstone having been  washed out by rushing flash-floods or harder,  more resilient rock that had been eroded smooth over time. It wasn't "nice", it was beautiful and different to anywhere we've walked thus far. Amazing how such a small country can provide such a wide variety of views.

I have read accounts of people who have walked through the desert describing the peace and quiet in almost mystical terms. Not having walked through these landscapes since I was about 18, I never quite appreciated those descriptions. In the greener, more forested north, it is peaceful as well, but not to the same degree. There are more people, more animals, more sounds in the north. Here in the desert the quiet is almost hypnotic. Desert silence, desert peace. We walked for large stretches, happy not to communicate.

The desert silence doesn't mean that the route was totally devoid of life. Unlike the day before, we saw birds overhead and more than once heard them calling from inside caves or bushes. Whilst resting we saw a herd of camels wander over the hill opposite us. The most common animal however was far smaller than camels and birds. Flies, and they were everywhere. The area looked spotlessly clean and natural, but I fear that the flies that abounded indicated carrion or other organic pollution. For those that don't know the term, look up "The Aussie Salute" on google, and think of us.
Once we reached the bottom of the descent the nachal evened out, but the walking was quite difficult. Traversing over varyingly shaped and sized rocks in a dry creek bed is quite uncomfortable and as time wears on, quite tiring. It would be true that we didn't talk too much amongst ourselves, not just because we were having an hypnotic, holy Buddhist, spiritual experience, but because we had to concentrate so hard where to put our feet so as not to fall or twist an ankle or knee. We actually spent a lot of the time walking above the gulley, where the ground was firmer and intact and therefore more comfortable to walk in, rather than the rocks and pebbles below. Occasionally  the creek bed would form a canyon, narrow with walls 10 metres high. If this appeared more interesting, I would descend into the canyon, walk though it for a while and leave Yoni and Garry to continue above











Gradually the valley broadened into a wide moonscape,
 dotted here and there by large lone acacia trees. These trees look so inviting, supplying the only shade in the wide open expanses.  We obviously weren't the first to discover the shade of the acacia tree and judging by the stench of the camel dung and the accompanying fly invasion, this was a permanent pit-stop on the trans-negev caravan route. Bedouin camel herders may not notice the smell and the flies, but we certainly did and were very upset that we couldn't enjoy this little bit of shade before continuing on in the sun. The lesson learnt here is that not every lone tree in the desert is a haven.

using hiking poles as antennas in order to find cell range

Our last break had us sipping the usual herbal tea when an aberration appeared before us. A lone man with what appeared to be his entire personal belongings on his back appearred on the horizon. As he neared we invited him to share our tea with us. Turns out that he is a lone shviller that is also walking Israel in stages. He sighed that his wife would only let him out every now and again, so he had to make the most of his shvil times. We were embarrassed to hear that he was covering in 2 days what we aim to cover in 4 shvil days. Very humbling indeed.
Nachal Canfan turned into the wide Nachal Kina which led to the wider Nachal Dimona.  It was refreshing not having seen jeeps so far but unfortunately it was almost inevitable finding them in the wide, rough Nachal Dimona. These jeeps were serious off-roaders, with heavy duty shocks, raised bodies, big, thick tread tyres and exhaust pipes up the side rather than under the bottom of the vehicles. We'd been on the trail  now for close to six hours, and after an hour of walking through these wide valleys, were happy to see our version of a desert vehicle, Eli's white taxi,  pull up exactly where we'd asked him to. Midday beer and chips at the Muza was the perfect end to our 2 day adventure.