Sweltering in the Negev

I left my comfy cabin at the Negev Camel Ranch early in the morning the get a start on the day before the sun started to bake everything.

My first line of business was to drive through the Maktesh HaGodal Crater. I was the only one out at this early hour (I've mentioned how Israelis are not exactly early risers). The crater was beautiful in the earlier morning light.
I was stopped about half way through by a camel jam.

My first sightseeing stop was at Shivta, which I covered in the Desert Cities of the Negev post. Heading south, I came to Sde Boker, the desert city best known for being the last home of Israel's first Prime Minister and founding father, David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was a remarkable man. He was born in Poland, and became enamored with Zionism at an early age. He was responsible for helping establish the state of Israel and defeating the Arab armies that attacked Israel when statehood was declared. He had an amazing intellect, and was able to anaylize things from viewpoints other than his own. A good example was his response to a question about the Arabs being angry at and refusing to recognize Israel.

"Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country ... There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it is simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army."
Ben Gurion believed that Israel should concentrate on settling the Negev, that way it would offer the least displacement of Israel's Arab population. He set an example by settling on the kibbutz in Sde Boker.
Ben Gurion's cottage, a humble six room building, has been maintained as it was when he died in 1973.
Of particular interest is Ben Gurion's study and library. Containing thousand of scholarly volumes and pictures of him with other world leaders, the room remains a testament to the search for knowledge that he held so dear.
His bedroom is also as he left it- complete with his slippers sitting next to his bed.
Ben Gurion and his wife, Paula, are buried on a hillside a few miles down the road on a hillside overlooking the beautiful Valley of Zin.

The Valley of Zin

Ibex at Ben Gurion's Grave park

The site is now preserved by the Israeli National Parks.

From the Ben Gurion's graves I drove downhill then south for a couple miles to the trailhead at Ein Avdat National Park. Ein Avdat preserves a pool of cold water in the middle of a baking canyon in the middle of the Negev, so to say the area comes as a surprise to travelers is an understatement.

As the title of this post states, the day was hot, really hot. Up on the top of the hill by the Ben Gurion's graves, the temperature gauge in my car read 42 Celsius, which converts to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. I hadn't intended to hike a great deal of Ein Avdat for this reason.

I set off down the trail with four liters of water hoping I could at least make it the kilometer to the pool of water. It took about 20 minutes of hiking next to the small stream and dry river bed through the water carved canyon to make it to the pool.

Under most circumstances, the pool at Ein Avdat would be no big deal. The fact that it is located where it is makes it quite remarkable.

The pool is fed through the aforementioned stream, but also through many underground channels in the surrounding rock of the canyon walls. I followed the path a narrow set of stairs carved into the canyon walls for a view from above of the pool.

I continued on for a little bit, following the stream until the heat started getting to me. I knew I had to turn back, but before I did I was able to get some more photos of the greenery surrounding the stream. The pools have obviously existed here for quite a while, since archeological evidence shows that people have been living in or near the canyon for tens of thousands of years. I was really pleased that I wasn't scared off by the heat, since Ein Avdat was one of my most pleasant surprises on the whole trip.

As pleased as I was with Ein Avdat, the heat had zapped my energy. I stopped a few more miles down the road to explore Avdat (one of the Desert Cities of the Negev, see related post). Half an hour into my visit to Avdat, I developed a raging headache I could only attribute to the sun and heat. I had reserved a tent at an offbeat facility near the town of Mitzpe Ramon, a half an hour down the road, on the edge of the Ramon Crater, on of the largest craters in the world. With the headache still in full gear, I intended to crash in the tent for a few hours and explore the crater around sunset or in the morning. Upon arriving at my lodging, I realized this plan wasn't going to happen. The tents were not what I had expected, they were canvas covered domes that were open on a few sides. They were located in the baking desert east of the town, and since there was no wind, the tent was easily over 110 degrees inside. That, coupled with the shabby and dirty appearance of the facility as a whole convinced me I needed another plan. I called a few other hotels in town, finding them either booked, out of my price range or closed for sabbath, I decided to have a quick look at the crater from it's elevated viewpoint and then head toward Eilat, some two and a half hours south.

The crater was facinating, and under different circumstances I might have enjoyed exploring it some more. As it was, I contented myself with a quick look around the visitor's center and then taking some photos from the viewpoint.

Being around 4 p.m., I started out toward Eilat. With the air conditioning blaring and the sun starting to wain, my headache subsided to a tolerable level. I arrived in Eilat around 7 p.m. and located my hotel, which I had paid a little extra to book until 7 p.m. the following night, since the next day was Saturday (Shabat, or the Sabbath) when everything would be closed. Extremely happy to be in a dark room with air conditioning, I pulled the shades and went to be without dinner, happy to have reached Israel's southern end a couple of days early. I intended to use the extra days to recharge my batteries for the final two adventures of the trip- Petra, Jordan and the climb up Mount Sinai in Egypt. First I had a couple of days to kill in Eilat, which I will cover in my next post.