Monday and Tuesday (August 5-6) I went on a really fun trip to Israel’s southern desert, so let me share some of my fun memories from that trip. We were going to hike in Israel’s largest
makhtesh—a giant, eroded crater. It measures 40x10km.
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| Outline of Makhtesh Ramon. (c) Google Earth |
Let me begin by saying that God was watching over me this entire trip, and that was very obvious at certain times. The first time was Monday morning. I was supposed to meet my German friend Nico at the bus station at about 9am. I set my alarm for 7am, but I forgot to turn my alarm’s volume on. I would have missed the alarm and meeting my friend, but thankfully I woke up spontaneously at 6:50am and discovered my oversight. I believe that was the first incident where God demonstrated He was watching over me in a gracious way. He also kept me safe throughout the hiking, which was definitely His gracious protection.
I took a very crowded bus to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem and waited for my friend. I was a little concerned at timing because we arrived there at 9:15am for a 9:30am bus. We made it onto the bus, though, on time, but then we encountered a small problem: there were no empty seats on the bus. In America this would be a BIG problem, and you’d have to wait for the next bus. In Israel, however, this is everyday life. Thus, Nico, I, and about 8 other Israelis stood or sat in the bus’s aisle for the entire 90 minute ride to Beersheva. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but we needed the bus ride. By the way, the entire bus ride to our final destination (3 hours) only cost 50 shekels ($14). It’s nice to have inexpensive public transportation across the entire country here.
View Jerusalem to Mizpe Ramon in a larger map
To get to Beersheva, first you drive west from Jerusalem toward Tel Aviv. Then, after you come down from the central hilly region of Israel where Jerusalem resides and start to enter the rolling hill country nearer to the coast (the Shephelah), you turn south and leave the
relatively green central region of Israel for the southern desert. Beersheva is just slightly past the transition edge of the desert. Beersheva is the city of the patriarchs. Here Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived and raised their flocks and built wells.
After the ride to Beersheva, we switched busses to finish the next 90 minute leg of our trip to the small town of Mizpe Ramon. On this bus we actually had seats, by the way. I’ve only ridden on these kind of long-distance busses once before, so this was a rather new experience. It was pretty fun being on a bus with a bunch of Israelis going about their daily lives in somewhere other than Jerusalem. Most of the Israelis on these two busses were soldiers going to their military bases in the south. Many of them would get off in the middle of nowhere (literally!) because their base was located there in the boonies.
I realized that I was at least 5 years older than most of these soldiers, though everyone of them are more grown up than me in many ways—not to mention the fact that even the girls probably know five different ways to kill me with their bare hands. But most of these young soldiers seemed like regular young adults, not all that different from youth around the world. Certainly they have different things to worry about. While American 18-year-olds are going to college, drinking, or playing video games, Israeli teenagers are training for war. Certainly Israeli youth know how to party excessively on weekends and evenings, but they also must live much more adult lives than American youth.
What amused me was how many of these uniformed soldiers were listening to ipods or napping along the bus route—just like other youth. What set them apart, however, was that most of them had automatic rifles on their laps or tucked between their legs. I took one mental picture of a young soldier with his head against the glass of the bus sleeping with his mouth open—and a machine gun in his lap. It was a weird sight to see. The other interesting thing is that, as a general rule, the further you get away from Jerusalem, the friendlier the people become to foreigners. Jerusalem residents don’t seem very friendly usually. This is especially true of the Orthodox—they won’t even look at you, oftentimes. But in southern and northern Israel you run into more “country” people, often secular. They are far more likely to talk with you and be friendly than the average person on the street in Jerusalem. One girl soldier on the bus got my attention as I was standing in the aisle and showed me to an empty seat on the bus out of concern for me; this would never happen on a Jerusalem bus.
Anyway, we made it to Mizpe Ramon safely and VERY early. The visitor’s center was still closed for construction, so we stopped elsewhere and picked up a map of the crater to plan our next day. We got the advice of one of the rangers there on which trail to take. Nico had a guide book with him, so we used that to find a youth hostel to stay at. When I first saw the hostel, I was dumbfounded. I was going to stay here?! I thought. It only cost $20, and, at the time, I didn’t know why it cost that much. There was a very nice lobby, but the “sleeping area” was a Bedouin-style
tent outside… There was a mud wall on one side, and the other walls and ceiling were tarp and fabric. We were provided with 2”-thick foam mattresses and a regular blanket. The bathrooms and shower area were metal trailers at one time, converted into their current use. At first I was not crazy about this idea, but Nico helped me lower my expectations by thinking of it in terms of camping. Once I got a “hotel” idea out of my head, I took a better liking to the place. However, needless to say, I won’t be taking any tour group there any time soon.
J Interestingly, Nico and I were the only guests at that hostel that night…
Mizpe Ramon is a very small town (about 4,700 people), and there is virtually nothing to do there. So, we spent most of Monday sitting around, napping, and talking. In the evening we bought some groceries at the store for the next day’s hike (fruit, a loaf of bread, water, trailmix [seemed appropriate], toilet paper, and junk food) and ate a nice meal at a restaurant. I accidentally discovered what goulash really was, but I was thankful to have meat for only the second time in Israel. I knew I would appreciate that protein the next day. We also heard the fighter jets from the nearby military bases and the target practice from the nearby artillery ranges, so we knew we were safe surrounded by all these soldiers. That night was rather cold, but we were fine in our Bedouin tent.
At 5:35 the next morning we woke up, packed, and started walking into town to begin our hike. We began descending the 930’ down the crater’s walls at 6:30am. The first part was enjoyable to watch the sunrise with its beautiful golden beams on the yellow desert scenery. The entire day, but especially at that point, it was particularly cool, so that made it pleasant. You don’t want to be hiking in the desert when it’s 100+ degrees out! The hike down was easy because there are plenty of rocks to walk on or grab if need be. There were other descents we did that day where it was much less fun and almost scary to me, since there were parts that were steep and had loose gravel and dirt to walk on, instead of solid rocks. I was thankful for God’s protection during those times especially.
Once down in the base of the makhtesh, we hiked along a dry streambed further into the makhtesh. We reached the one large tree in the makhtesh (an achacia tree) after a ways, and we rested there and ate some food because the ranger told us this would be the last shade we would find on our journey. That wasn’t quite true, because it was early enough that some of the cliffs provided a little shade later on, but we enjoyed the rest. Ironically, though we were in the middle of nowhere, I had full cell reception the entire time!
It was amazing to see the different kinds of landscape in the makhtesh. We were in the wilderness of Israel, so very few things grow there, but there are a few forms of life, including insects, birds, lizards, ibex (a kind of deer/antelope), scrub bushes, and a handful of trees. We walked through wind- and water-smoothed sandstone cliffs, volcanic rock-strewn open land, granite/basalt mountains, and rough sandstone cliffs. The contrast of these different regions so near each other was fascinating.
The trail was marked by colored paintings on rocks every few hundred feet, which were really helpful because at times you couldn’t really discern a trail in the ground. I laughed because this would never work in America. There would have to be a $200 sign and a well-designated trail. In Israel, however, painted rocks work just fine.
We followed this trail and soon discovered that we would have to climb a black mountain. It was relatively steep [420’] (though not as steep as Masada!) and took a little while to climb, but it wasn’t that bad. It did offer amazing views, though!
We continued walking on the other side of the mountain. All in all, we crossed three separate ridgelines on our walk.
Towards the end at our destination, we discovered the “Ammonite Hill.” In one wall of a cliff probably some 100’+ long, there are hundreds of ammonites buried in the cliffside. Ammonites were ancient, shelled sea creatures that were fossilized during the Flood. The presence of fossilized sea creatures here in the desert of Israel really suggests to me that the Flood is what carved out this makhtesh. Anyway, we documented some of these fossils for my pastor at home who collects these, then continued on.
We decided to climb one more cliff before we finished. That was somewhat a mistake on my part, because I developed some stomach sickness as a result, and that required us to rest for a while, but the view was nice. I noticed that as the day wore on, as the sun got hotter, as the weight of 5 liters of water on my back wearied me, I began to mentally complain and wish we would finish soon. I had to laugh, because that’s exactly what the ancient Israelites did in this area thousands of years ago as they wandered for 40 years in this desert! I was only there for 6 hours and had plenty of food and water, yet I began complaining! I don’t think I would have done any better than they did!!! That was an interesting lesson to learn.
The plan was to hike to the major highway through the area, then hitchhike back to the city. My friend had done that before, so it sounded like a good plan. However, there was virtually no traffic on the road that day… We started walking along the highway back towards town, and were passed by only about 12 cars during those 30 minutes, none of which picked us up. We were a little desperate because it was another 6.9mi back to town. I prayed, and God watched out for us again. A park ranger stopped for us and drove us into town. He was very friendly and pleased that I was from California. He joked about how small and boring the town here was. As I said earlier, Israelis in the south and north tend to be more friendly, and he was no exception. I really thanked God for his kindness in getting us back to town.
We went to shower at our hostel, but discovered that there was no water at that time. Yet another reason I questioned how much our accommodations cost… We got a bus back to Beersheva (with a seat!), but the bus broke down along the way! Another bus came and picked us up quickly, though, so it wasn’t too bad. Then we caught another bus from there to Jerusalem. On this last leg of the trip I met an interesting Israeli that sat next to me on the bus. His name was Israel Cohen. He was orthodox, though not ultra-orthodox. He was originally from Boston (though he had made aliyah to Israel in the 70’s) and spoke excellent English, so we talked the entire way home. He was really interesting. Although religiously he is conservative, politically he is liberal. He wants a Palestinian state now. Interestingly, he was also one of the protesters at the Glenn Beck rally. It is funny, but looking back through my pictures of that event, I found that I took photos of him. What a small country! Anyway, he was very open to the fact that I was a Christian, and he encouraged me to make sure I supported the Palestinians of Israel and not just the Jews of Israel. It was interesting to get a liberal Jews’ perspective on politics, and it was quite convenient that he was so friendly and spoke such good English.
View Hike thru Makhtesh Ramon in a larger map
All in all, we traveled 9.36 miles according to Google Earth (7.69mi trail, 1.67mi highway), and it took us 6 hours total. We saw only 3 other people that day while hiking, and they were either driving or walking the SHORT trail. It was a very fun trip, and I have really enjoyed looking back through my pictures and video. I wished the sun would have been cooler so I could have gone more slowly and enjoyed the trip more, but perhaps I’ll come back with some people on an Adventure Tour here and do it again. I did have to spend all of Wednesday in my room, lying down or sitting, to recover. My legs and back were quite sore that next day!!
I did notice that there were several semi-truck loads of hummers, armored personnel carriers, and other military equipment being shipped down into the south. In the news they said that Israeli military personnel are massing along the Egyptian border in an “unprecedented way” to prevent another imminent terror attack in the south. I definitely saw evidence of their buildup down there. Please pray for the peace of Israel.
