A hike in the desert. The Negev. Not the Gobi, not the Sahara....

I, happily, have a very good friend who lives in Tel Aviv. We haven't seen each other so frequently since he moved over here, but I am ever so glad to have an established 'local' to spend some time with. The occasion arose this past weekend, with an invitation to go on a hike in a (somewhat) local river canyon - the Gov River.


(Eyal, noshing before hiking)

Eyal had emailed a translated web page invitation for the hike: a 3 or 4 kilometer easy wander through a canyon, with a few ladder climbs and some very non-technical slopes. Perfect! As Lee and I are without transport, we'd thought about staying at Eyal's in Tel Aviv, and riding with him the following morning to the 6:45AM meeting point. Well, that didn't work out so well, as Eyal was going to some crazy fancy dinner party the night before. So we arranged for him to come pick us up. At 6am.

FORTUNATELY, that changed to 7am, and instead of the meeting-and-caravan spot, we were going to meet everyone at the actual start of the hike. Eyal arrived at about 20 past 7, with his friend Amit, and we got on the road (after several minutes of heated Hebrew discussions from the front seat while poring over a map of Jerusalem- it seems that local to Israel is absolutely not equivalent to local to every city!). It was also revealed that Amit and Eyal were both running on ~3 hours of sleep after a banner birthday party with some gourmet chef cooking them a 6 course meal!

Getting on the road, our path was to take us by the Dead Sea, and towards Eliat, which is a resort town on the Red Sea, somewhere between the Dead Sea and Egypt. The drive was lovely - wide expanses of desert, and for a great deal of it, with the other side against the Dead Sea. Which is huge! And stinks of sulfur. The sea is only about an hours drive from Jerusalem, which means Lee and I can make a single day of spa-ing at one of the resorts butted up against the water, rather than needing to spend a whole weekend getting to and from.

The ride was uneventful: a single pit stop, getting slightly lost trying to find the meeting point, lots of conversation catching up and getting good information about places to visit while we're in the country. I was a little culture shocked at the 'BEWARE OF CAMELS BESIDE THE ROAD' signs every few miles, and the multiple stops we had to make at police checkpoints, which are becoming less shocking to me the longer I'm here.


(The trail head for the Gov River hike)

We arrived at the trail head, which seems to be fairly well used, and learned that we were going to be hiring a student or towns person to guard all the vehicles while we were away from them. It seems that the Bedouin tribes will steal cars left at trail heads, attempt to locate the owner, and sell them their car back. Yep, that's the country we're in. Where wandering tribes of gypsies steal your property and sell it back to you....I'm sure at a discounted price from market.


(Some shots of the trail)

There were approximately 25 other people, all of whom were very friendly, and I hope Lee and I established some new connections here in Israel - it will be really nice to have a group of local friends to go do things with. Particularly as we've got common interests, and these outings sound like a regular occurrence. The three hour hike usually has pools sporadically spaced along the path, collections of rainwater that last pretty much all year. Only there is a drought. In the desert. So the entirety of the hike was sunny and warm, with a few breaks for snacks and letting the big group recollect themselves before trudging on. We met up back at the cars, paid the guard(s), and made arrangements to meet up in Be'er Sheva (translates to Lakes Seven - seven lakes) for a group dinner.

(Re-hydration! Lee being himself on the trail)

We drove another hour through the desert (northeast, headed sorta back towards Jerusalem/Tel Aviv), more camel signs, and a military intelligence base that we weren't meant to photograph, where we saw what looked like a large white zeppelin tethered to the ground. That's all I'm saying about that....I don't know how ardently they screen web traffic around here. We drove through a very impoverished area called Dimona, which is really in the middle of nowhere. There was a stark difference between the shanty towns scattered across the desert (and I DID see camels!) and the larger city of Be'er Shava, which is a college town, and very well built up. There were lots of horses. And people riding horses. And goats on hillsides with goat herders.

Dinner reservations weren't so smooth- apparently the restaurant we'd planned on going to 'lost' our reservation for 25, and we were going to have to wait at least an hour to get seated. Well, that wouldn't do, as we were starving (I was sad to miss out on traditional Yemenite food- we're going to have to find that again somewhere closer to home), so we went to Spaghettim, a chain Italian restaurant nearby. The food was lovely and reasonably priced, and we used dinner to get to know the people from the hike a little better.

The drive home took us across a toll road- which isn't like a toll road in the states. The road is actually privately owned, and not subject to the same speed laws, or restrictions, as the rest of the highways in the country. The speed limit is generally 80kph, and the signs on the toll road are posted as 100kph, BUT as they aren't subject to the same laws, people go upwards of 140-150kph (that's about 95-100mph, for the readers stateside). It was a speedy journey home!

We made arrangements to go to Tel Aviv next weekend for a night of "binge drinking" (Amit's words) and dancing (Eyal's words). I'm excited Lee and I have local friends to go out with. We've also made tentative plans to visit Petra, in Jordon, with Eyal, for a weekend in January. Indiana Jones was filmed there :)


(Hooray for getting outdoors!)

Today I went to the large outdoor market here - I'll write a separate post about that one!