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.