Hamsin

A Hamsin is a local term for a hot, dusty wind that blows through Israel from the Negev and Sinai. It brings with it unbearable heat and heavy air pollution. It is generally unpleasant. Some have speculated that the term (Arabic for 50) refers to the number of days that a Hamsin blows through the country every year. I've heard another suggestion though: The temperature in the desert can reach 50 degrees (Celcius) during a bad Hamsin. That translates to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a heat I simply cannot fathom. Lucky us, we've got a Hamsin coming through the area now!

Midwesterners who may or may not still be getting snow in May will want to bash me for bitching about the weather here. Sure, it may be sunny and comfortably warm almost every day in Haifa during the Spring. I don't underrate that. Unfortunately, when it does get hot, I have no way to cope with it. I am a cold weather individual. Everything about me is built for the cold. I'm short, heavy, and hairy. When the heat hits, I just wilt. Give me sub freezing temperatures and ice any day over 100+ degree heat.

A Series Of Stupid Decisions

The international school had their first organized tiyul of the semester, two days hiking through the central Negev. We left Haifa at 6:30 on Friday morning and headed for Be'er Sheva. I dozed until about Netanya and then woke up again for good and listened to my mp3 the rest of the way. We got to Be'er Sheva at about 9 in the morning and waded into the Druze market on the southern edge of the city to get some breakfast. While there, Nate and Elan bought keffiyahs. I had brought the one I bought in Cairo (I got it expressly for hiking purposes) and once on the bus, Nate and I started playing around with them. One of our staffers, Oshrat was walking back counting heads when she came to our seat and did a double take. Can't say I blame her.

This photo was taken in Beirut in 1977

Our destination on Friday was the Small Machtesh, a large erosion crater of which there are several in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, and nowhere else on earth. In fact, the Hebrew word machtesh is the scientific term describing the phenomena. Thats pretty cool, says this observer.

Looking out across the machtesh.

We climbed down a steep, sheer cliff face into the crater. It was slow going to keep anyone from meeting their maker as a fleshy smear at the bottom of the machtesh. This was the kind of steep that would have given my mother a heart attack just being near the edge. Me, I loved it. Everyone was still nice and energized because we hadn't been out in the heat for that long, so we kept a lively chatter all the way down to the bottom. Once the ground leveled out, we picked up the pace and hiked for another half hour before pulling off the trail into a wadi to find some shade for lunch. We found a nice little overhang out of the sun where everyone piled in and munched.

Lunch was a subdued affair. Everyone was just passing around whatever they brought to eat and talking about movies. Our tour guide told a couple of racy jokes before we get moving. This one sticks out in my mind: Why are camels called the "ships of the desert?"
....................
"Because they are filled with Bedouin semen."
Fantastic. We rolled out after an hour or so. The terrain was a lot easier in the machtesh, which was more or less flat. Along the way I found a great walking stick that I kept with me for the rest of the day. We stopped briefly at the "colored sands" of marginal fame, before winding our way out of the machtesh and towards the waiting tour bus.

Lea and I on a rust colored sand dune.

I dozed off on the bus with an hour's distance to get to our camp site for the evening. When I came to, it was dusk and we were pulled off to the side of the road: Our bus had broken down! Always what you want when your on a back country road in the middle of the Negev. The driver was outside throwing buckets of cool water on the engine. I was talking to Eli on the phone about our weekend plans when the engine roared to life again, and we began to crawl forward. I was not in the mood to get out and push anyway. That night we stayed in the eternally cliche "Bedouin tent" again. We had a nice kabbalat shabbat program in the tent, with singing and a few Jewish morality themed stories. We made a feast as usual, with tons of meat, several different kinds of salad, fresh tehina and pita that we made ourselves over the campfire. Afterwards we roasted marshmallows for s'mores, and then a group of people climbed up a nearby hill to look at the stars.

Standing around the campfire.

The next day we hiked through Ein Bokek, a trail that is dominated by hot springs and wadi's that had some water in them due to the recent rains. We stopped at a natural pool and my better prepared colleagues started changing into swim suits. I had forgotten mine. I lay out on a flat rock to sun myself when I heard about the second pool nearby that was small enough to wade into without actually swimming. This would prove to be the start of my downfall. I headed over with the intent of washing the sweat and grime out of my hair. I waded in about knee deep and dunked my head into the water - and the rest of me followed shortly after. Thoroughly soaked and marginally embarrassed, I climbed out, only to feel an unwelcome weight in my side pocket - I reached in and pulled out my cell phone. It was off and wasn't turning back on. I let out a stream of curses and then took the thing apart, hoping that if it dried out it would work again.

The swimming hole.

Having already gotten all wet, I figured I may as well go swimming, so I ditched my shirt and climbed down the narrow crevice into the water. Nothing could have prepared me for this cold. My testicles were up somewhere near small intestine. I swam across to the bank on the other side to get out of the water, when I felt the second unwelcome weight, this time in my back pocket. I pulled out my waterlogged wallet and pondered it for a second, before cutting loose with a second string of F-bombs. Dejected, I lobbed the wallet up to some friends sitting on the ledge above, hoping my money and cards would later be salvageable. I waded back into the water, ready to face the chill in the hopes of at least accomplishing what I initially set out to do, and wash my hair out. I dunked my head a second time, shook it out and then came up blind: my motherfucking glasses had fallen off and disappeared into the murk! Bless my friend Colleen, she refused to let my moronic decisions doom me to a lost pair of glasses on top of everything else. She found them and pulled them out of the water for me, very much intact and no worse off.

At least I didn't do something stupid in this photo.

Our final stop on yesterday's trip was at the dead sea. I actually went in the water this time, for the first time since I was 17. It was pleasant. I only had one minor cut so there wasn't much stinging or discomfort this time around. I floated with a group of people, and then showered off and changed into dry (but not clean) clothing. I smelled like a cross between a rotten egg and a foot all the way home. The ride home was actually one of the highlights of the trip. We took the road from the dead sea to Jericho, and then traveled through the West Bank to Jerusalem. Along the way, Danny Moss busted out with his guitar and myself and four or five other guys serenaded the group for a solid 45 minutes. People were singing along, clapping and having a grand old time. After a stop for food and diesel, I headed to the back of the bus where Diana and Josh were performing slam poetry. It was a sweet ride home, and a relaxing way to close out the evening. By the way, my phone is dried out and working again, and my cards and money are all in working order as well. Mallory gave me the idea of putting all the phone parts in a bag of rice overnight, as the rice would absorb the moisture. I don't know if that's what did it, but the phone works again so I owe her one. The wallet is the only thing that wasn't salvageable, but that's not a huge deal. I can laugh about it today.

Jews marching through the desert.

Hailey celebrating wide open spaces.

Our tour guide caught a desert scorpion.

Bill and I on the edge of the crater.

A rest along the way.

What Day Is It Today?

I was up in the morning before dawn on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning this past weekend while on Tiyul. This has a way of scrambling one's mind to the point that my days blended into each other while I was in the south. As many of you know, I am very cranky in the morning, and getting up early is generally anathema to me. However, this trip was probably the best trip I have been on since I arrived in Israel almost two months ago, and that allowed me to rise early in the morning with a smile in my heart (there was still a grimace on my face from what I've been told.)

Dawn in Haifa, the first of many I would experience on this trip.

We left Haifa by 6:15 Friday morning and began the long trek south to Ein Gedi. I crashed pretty early in the trip but it was a fitful sleep and not very satisfying. I woke up as we were heading east down the hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem and into the desert. This came as quite a surprise to me since the only rule that the director of the International School laid out for us is "we are not allowed to travel inside the West Bank." I can only assume that this rule actually means "we are not allowed to travel inside the West Bank without a chaperon."

Emil goes for a short camel ride outside Jericho.

We arrived at Ein Gedi around 9:30 in the morning and began our day. Our first hike was along a trail known as Nahal Arugot, and it was seriously beautiful. Ein Gedi has a natural spring flowing underneath it (The word 'ein' in Hebrew is derived from "Ma'ayan", meaning spring.) This meant desert solitude and scenery combined with pools, streams, waterfalls and flora that you just don't find in the Negev. Plus, lots of ibex running around! Midway through the hike we stopped at a natural pool with a waterfall and nearly everyone got in for a swim.

Just a taste of the incredible natural beauty of Ein Gedi

After the swim we headed for a spot called the hidden waterfall. It is down into the wadi, completely covered by plants and hidden behind several narrow twists and bends in the cliff face. It is here that I slipped and fell in with my shoes on, making for a soggy denouement to my hike that day. The area around the waterfall was very crowded with lots of other hikers, so we didn't stay long. The group split at this point: Half walked back to the bus to drive down to the beach of the Dead Sea, while the other half (including myself) walked further on to see the upper pools. I found a fossilized sea shell along the way, which I put in my bag and brought back to Haifa with me. We finally made our way back out of Nahal Arugot around 3 o'clock, filed onto the bus and drove down to the beach where we met everyone else. We ate a little outside at th

e picnic tables, then shuffled drowsily back onto our bus and made for camp that evening.

Swimming hole!

Camp was a lot of fun on Shabbat evening. A few guys and I built the fire while others were preparing dinner courses for dinner. We made pita from scratch and generally feasted like I'm getting used to doing on tiyulim. Our guide Yisrael made a fantastic rice and meat dish that really stuck to the bones, along with warm and cold salads, fresh tehina, soup and drinks. Afterwards, everyone gathered around the campfire where we made smores. After dessert, people began to migrate in every direction. I stayed around the fire most of the night, chatting with old and new friends.

A look into the abyss of the Judean desert

The next morning, Per and I got up before dawn to watch the sun rise over the Dead Sea. This was a mistake. It was cloudy and hazy, so there was no visible sunrise. Our surroundings just went from black to grey to light. I did get to go back to the tent and sleep for another two hours before everyone got up to get a move on. We ate a hasty breakfast, packed up all of our things and then the hike left. Our Shabbat hike was along a path called the "Upper Darja" in southern Judea. This was the best hike of all. Lots of mountain climbing and clinging to cliff faces. We had to jump, crawl, hang and climb our way through the terrain. Parts of the walk were so steep, they were practically vertical. My mother would have had a heart attack just seeing it.

Mari and Anna at the edge of the cliff in Upper Darja

As always, education and history are a goal on these trips. We climbed up into a cave that had been used by the last remnants of the Bar Kochva rebellion and talked about what had happened there. The cave was covered in bird shit from floor to ceiling and everywhere in between, so we weren't inclined to linger for very long. Even so, it was humbling to think that Jews had been forced to live in such wretched conditions because they refused to submit to Roman domination. It was nice to climb back down. Even though we were all laughing and talking the whole time, there was still an unhealthy air in the cave. It was oppressive.

Bar Kochva's rebels, or university students? You decide.

We stopped for lunch in a ravine soon afterwards and sat around relaxing for an hour. Cold rice-meat from the night before and raw canned corn never tasted quite so good! The second half of the hike was more of the same. Climbing, scrambling and working our way through very broken terrain. I spent most of the time yacking with Mari and Anna about literature and theatre, or with Sam about baseball. I am who I am. The walk back to camp was actually fairly boring by comparison. It was along a gravel road with nothing new to see. Everyone was tired out from a 6 hour hike anyway, so people just sort of moved along talking and looking at their feat for the last 45 minutes of the hike. We were supposed to be able to shower when we got back to camp, but the campsite's owners had washed the bathrooms and then locked them, so they would be clean when the next group arrived that night. What a bunch of bastards. I taught euchre to 3 friends and we played a few hands before it was time to load up and move on.

Yisrael giving a shpiel along the trail.

We drove to Arad to eat dinner in their mall. I don't have much to say about the trip except this: Arad is a dump, and our bus driver is a maniac. He was weaving and swerving along an already choppy rode the whole way there. It was stuffy on the bus too. By the time we arrived, I was so green I might as well have been pickled. I bought a shawarma which can only be described as 'adequate' and then we left for our campsite under Masada. I did get to shower at this campsite, and I felt like a new man after getting clean. Most people went to bed on time. I stayed up drinking beer with some of the Europeans, and didn't get to bed until after midnight.

A dry riverbed in the Upper Darja

We rose once more before the dawn and quickly packed up the tent. After a heartening cup of tea, we walked up to the base of the mountain. I missed the sunrise on Masada last time I visited because we arrived too late. I missed it again on this trip, but not because we weren't on time: we walked up the mountain in a driving rainstorm! It rains 4 or 5 days a year in the region, and we picked one of those days to visit.

Rain on Masada

It was cold on top of Masada, so I was very glad I brought my sweatshirt. The rain tapered off about 15 minutes after we reached the plateau, and it was actually quite beautiful once the rain cleared. We toured the archaeological sites and talked about the history and mythology behind Masada. We were getting ready to start walking down the snake path, when we began to hear thunder crashes again. We took shelter in one of the buildings, and the rain began pelting down again! We rested inside and watched the rain for a half hour or so, before heading over to the lift to carry us down. The other group walked down the mountain in the rain: Either they are more bad ass or just stupid.

The birds and I enjoy the view from the top

The rain mercifully stopped eventually and we were able to finish what we planned to do that day. Next stop was a beach on the Dead Sea, where we got to wade in and walk across the salt formations. I was so tired I was giddy, and I hammed it up pretty good in front of the camera. We found a hat in the water that was half encased in salt. I tried tugging it out, but it was no use. Do you realize that if you were to stay in one place at the Dead Sea long enough, the same would happen to you? Not that you would be around to see it or anything, but the thought is still pretty cool to ponder.

A classic pose!

We had one final stop back in Ein Gedi, to do a short walk in Nahal David. There was very beautiful scenery, although it was quite similar to Nahal Arugot. Yisrael yielded to pressure and kept it short and sweet. People were beginning to get grumpy with the walking. We stayed in the Nahal for perhaps an hour before leaving the area for good. There had been so much rain that morning, parts of the road were washed out. Cars had to turn back, but not our mighty tour bus! We drove back up to Jerusalem and stopped at a restaurant in Abu Gosh for what turned out to be my lunch and dinner. It was massive. It is an Arab hummus restaurant with a special on the menu: 40 shekels for all you can eat of every salad they make with pita, followed by coffee and baklava. The whole group went in on it. They brought us what had to have been 20 different fresh salads. It was epic.

The stream in Nahal David

Finally, we loaded up one last time to head back to Haifa. I tried to doze on the bus but there was a movie on the television and caffeine back in my bloodstream, so I talked to Mari most of the way back home. I slept for maybe the last 20 minutes. It's tough to get back into my routine now that I am home again, but I have little choice in the matter. School will not wait for me. I'll work and study and wait for the next time I can go out and experience this land the way it begs to be experienced: on foot.

Extreme relaxation.

Do you want to ram with me?!

Yes, I did go hiking in a bathing suit.

Gollum!

Oshrat and I try to warm up on the mountain.

The Ramon Crater

Or more accurately, מכתש רמון. I'm back from tiyul in the Negev. I will spare you the geological definition of a machtesh, but if you are interested here is wikipedia's entry on the Ramon Crater: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Crater. One thing that should be noted is that it is not a crater, but rather a huge depression caused by millions of years of erosion and plate tectonics.


We left Haifa at 6 AM, but the trip didn't really begin until a breakfast stop in Be'er Sheva. We walked into an open air market, bought hummus and lafa bread and sat down on the side of the road to eat. There wasn't much remarkable about the stop. We did see Ben Gurion University and the Soroka hospital from the bus, but otherwise there was very little to see. I did get into an argument with a Druze guy in the market, who wanted to know how much it would cost to buy Lina (second from the left, above.)


Once we had left any semblance of civilization behind, we stopped at the Ovdat archaeological site, about 40 minutes south of Sde Boker. The site is the ruins of an ancient Nabatean city in the middle of the desert. The Nabateans were a Roman - era people who made their livings by carting Indian spices across the Arabian Peninsula, through Petra and then crossing the Negev to the port of Gaza, where they sold the goods to waiting Roman and Greek patrons. This became known as the "Spice Route." What keyed their success was their ability to survive the trek across the desert. They accomplished this through shrewd water conservation and collection, and desert cities and camps like Ovdat.


We did a relatively short 2 and a half hour hike that afternoon, going down into the crater and walking to our campsite at a Beduin tent. From there we spent the next 3 hours cooking our dinner, eating, and then talking around the campfire. As hot as it gets in the desert during the day, it gets very cold at night, so the fire was extremely welcome. That night it was very difficult to sleep because an Israeli family was staying in the tent as well, and they were miserably loud and obnoxious all night. Needless to say the dinner and conversation was more memorable than sleeping in the tent.


Yesterday we left for the long hike: 9 hours through the desert. Here is the basic route we took; Leaving camp, we walked up a winding pass through one of the mountains in the machtesh. Once we reached the top, we followed the path along a ridge of the mountain for a while, before turning back down into one of the wadi's (a dry riverbed.) We walked through the wadi until we reached the point at which several of the wadi's come together and then followed another. The hike ended with another trek up the highest mountain inside the machtesh, where we got the most spectacular view of all of the surrounding area. Not that my photos do justice to the incredible natural beauty of the desert, but I'll close this post with a selection of other photos that are fairly representative of the hike.

The first real difficult part of the hike. This was about a 45 degree grade.

Part of the group looking out over the ridge into the machtesh.

We stopped to rest by more Nabattean ruins.

My friend Per and I at the Nabattean ruins.

Walking through a wadi. Some vegetation grows here because of the annual floods.

Napping in the shade after lunch. We rested here for about an hour.

The face of the cliff. You can see the different strata of rock from different periods in the creation of the machtesh.

Exploring a cave with some guys from the Habo U.

On the road to nowhere.

Victory!