5/30 - 6/1
Couchsurfing requests sent and replies received we set off to the bus station. Not a hundred metres out the door we're hailed by a guy with a van who's going to the border and will take us there for about the same price as the bus. Bargain!
Tons of deserted beach resorts, from the grand to the straw huts. Israeli tourists must be thin on the ground.
The Egyptian border was slow, lazy and almost unmanned, you could walk straight through and some people did, only to realise they needed exit stamps and come back looking for some staff. The Israeli side was as organised as you'd expect with lots of questions for us, but friendly enough. We shared a taxi with a bossy Canadian woman and a very upright Japanese guy who was studying kosher food.
No-one wanted Egyptian pounds, everyone being worried that the Egyptian economy could crash at any time, so we got a crap 2:1 rate for shekels in order to pay the taxi driver, who kindly left the meter running while we ran around looking for a decent exchange rate.
The only other people on the bus were teenage soldiers with their big guns. The rich have cars, the poor hitch-hike and the soldiers use buses. A friend of mine doing her stint in the army once got picked up by the military police when hitch-hiking, the reasoning being hitch-hiking soliders are easy targets for anti-Israel types. Doesn't stop soldiers hitching, of course, but that might explain why everyone on the bus was enlisted.
We met Assaf and Hadar at their place on midreshet Ben Gurion, a university dedicated to desert and environmental studies, a kibbutz and a memorial for their much-loved Prime Minister. I'd been here before in 2005, on my last visit to Israel. They insisted we take their bed and they the couch, despite our protests. Assaf never stopped yoga-ing, climbing and chin-upping, a really healthy and active guy.
Couchsurfing requests sent and replies received we set off to the bus station. Not a hundred metres out the door we're hailed by a guy with a van who's going to the border and will take us there for about the same price as the bus. Bargain!
Tons of deserted beach resorts, from the grand to the straw huts. Israeli tourists must be thin on the ground.
The Egyptian border was slow, lazy and almost unmanned, you could walk straight through and some people did, only to realise they needed exit stamps and come back looking for some staff. The Israeli side was as organised as you'd expect with lots of questions for us, but friendly enough. We shared a taxi with a bossy Canadian woman and a very upright Japanese guy who was studying kosher food.
No-one wanted Egyptian pounds, everyone being worried that the Egyptian economy could crash at any time, so we got a crap 2:1 rate for shekels in order to pay the taxi driver, who kindly left the meter running while we ran around looking for a decent exchange rate.
'Welcome to Israel', with the taxi driver before the
bossy Canadian turned him into a tetchy bastard.
The only other people on the bus were teenage soldiers with their big guns. The rich have cars, the poor hitch-hike and the soldiers use buses. A friend of mine doing her stint in the army once got picked up by the military police when hitch-hiking, the reasoning being hitch-hiking soliders are easy targets for anti-Israel types. Doesn't stop soldiers hitching, of course, but that might explain why everyone on the bus was enlisted.
The view from the bus stop when we got off wasn't very promising.
We met Assaf and Hadar at their place on midreshet Ben Gurion, a university dedicated to desert and environmental studies, a kibbutz and a memorial for their much-loved Prime Minister. I'd been here before in 2005, on my last visit to Israel. They insisted we take their bed and they the couch, despite our protests. Assaf never stopped yoga-ing, climbing and chin-upping, a really healthy and active guy.
Hadar, Assaf and friend. Love the way people just drop by
unannounced and stay for dinner. Nice community.
Ben Gurion's memorial, with the desert views he loved.
The Ein Avdat national park starts at the end of that valley.
About a 3km walk.
Ein Avdat begins.
About a 3km walk.
Lots of brash young Americans being guided around the park so we overheard one talk about erosion and a later one about the presence of tropical trees indicating a much greener period in a previous age.
Interesting strata.
View from one of the caves that Byzantine
monks lived in, hauling up water from below.
These guys are the Israel Nature and Parks Authority's
symbol and mascot.
From Ein Avdat we walked along a dry riverbed all the way to Avdat, another national park but this one a historic city on the incense route from South Arabia to the Mediterranean, Petra to Gaza. This place had a little visitor centre with an introductory video and kind lady who was very concerned about our water intake. Actually everyone we met in Israel seemed concerned about our water intake, I suppose dehydrated tourists are a regular problem. Anyway, Avdat, an important stopping point for the incense trade from the 7th century BCE (or BC, take your pick) up until the Romans started using sea routes in the 1st century (CE/AD) to bypass the ridiculous number of middlemen taking their cut from every caravan. Agriculture and wine pressing took over from trade until an earthquake trashed the place in the 7th century.
On the approach to Avdat.
The 3rd century CE bathhouse was quite advanced,
with ceramic heating tubes under the floor.
The rebuilt arches were a nice touch. The caves behind here
refreshingly cool.
I think our camera must have died around here, because we don't have any pictures of the city itself. Nice place though, as this image of the temple complex shows.
We were totally knackered after all that hiking so we hitched back to the midreshet. Hozumi's first time hitching so she was very nervous, but we were picked up by a just-married woman in a beat-up car who's husband was bedridden on their honeymoon. Hozumi was very relieved.
The party that evening demonstrated that post-graduate parties in the middle of the desert aren't that much different from undergraduate parties in Coventry, there's just less puke.
Hiking the next day was really weird. I'd done the hike 6 years ago, but even while we were walking it I couldn't remember anything of the 8 hour long slog through the mountains. Only three images, like photos, were burnt into my brain and the rest I'd edited out completely. I'm guessing that that was because those three images were photos I'd taken and I only remembered them because of the visual reinforcement.
The first image was of the initial ascent from the valley.
The second was this beautiful white wave-form rock face.
The third was about 90 degrees to the right of this, of a ledge
from which guys were jumping into the pool.
The last two sites were pretty much the only reason to make the hike, so that could be another reason for my selective memory. No, that's not entirely fair, there were some other views to be had:
The spring was deep and freezing. Very refreshing.
I can't believe I forgot to mention Assaf and Hadar's cooking. It was fantastic, and just what we needed to keep us going for the long hikes.
A wonderful return to a wonderful place, and a great introduction to Israel.
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