The Desert Rocks

This December my aim was to escape the winter and head to the desert. Warm days, sand, Bedouins, and llamas! What’s not to like?

I’ll tell you what - 

cold nights. 

That’s what. 

Cold nights, and those most dreadful of creatures...

Hippies! 

Okay okay, I’m kidding. I like to poke fun at them, but they’re not so bad. Even if I don’t agree with dreadlocks as a fashion statement. We just don’t relate to the world in the same way. That being said, one thing that the hippie community embraces is a fondness for nature and life outside of big cities. This is something I’ve come to appreciate more while travelling. My time hiking around the Israeli Negev has given me an understanding of why the desert is so attractive to many. And while you will see some of the gorgeous scenery in this post, you will have to imagine for yourself the quiet and stillness of the landscapes.

Anyway, besides the chilly nights and chilled out zen heads, the Israeli Negev desert is stunning. An Australian Jew I met at the hostel and I went hiking one day and trekked through the Ramon crater, which is a crater made by water and not asteroids. (We can tell it was once filled with water by the mass amount of seashells found all over the place.) One day while I was relaxing on a rock and baking in the sun like a lizard, I noticed a couple dozen tiny seashells near me. My first thought was that someone (one of those damn hippies I was telling you about) must have left them there after braiding them into her dreadlocks. But no, there were hundreds of them, some even embedded into the rocks. I have no picture of that, so here’s a picture of the sunrise over the crater instead:

The crater boasts several different colours of sand, which we were sceptical and laughing about, but much to our surprise we came across red, yellow, purple and even green sand.

As you can see, I picked up a very proper Bedouin shawl which I was very happy to wear while trekking through the desert. It helped me feel like I belonged in a science fiction flick. Behold!

Speaking of science fiction, let’s go through some pictures of an even more sci-fi appropriate place. This will require me to share stories in reverse chronological order.  First I will tell you very briefly that Mitzpe Ramon is a quiet town, with one or two pubs, a military training base nearby, (which meant there were many jets and helicopters in the air) and that I had some interesting talks with a Chabadnik there. But that’s really all there is to say.

So let’s begin our trip back in time with the red sands of Wadi Rum, an expansive desert in the nation of Jordan.

The rocks here are made of Sandstone, which is easily damaged by rains and running water, giving them their unique look. These sandy places have at one time or another been flooded, as the name implies. A ‘wadi’ is a patch of desert that gets flash flooded during the winter rains. I think it’s been a very long time since Wadi Rum has been drenched, but the desert region in Israel and Jordan is filled with active wadis. 

How the sandstone manages to get cut into bridge formations like the one above is a mystery. As it happens, the desert is full of mystery. Like, the mystery of Petra, or the mystery of why I thought it wouldn’t be cold here in the winter! (??)

The night before the above photo was taken my friends and I stayed in a Bedouin camp, and it was a very chilly night. Our taxi dropped us off  in the empty village where the tourist entrance is, where we were picked up by a 17 year old kid in a busted truck that he had to hotwire to turn on. Watching him drive through the open desert in the pitch dark was very impressive, so I asked him if he knew the way so well that he would be able to find his way to the camp without any lights, at which point he said “Like this?” and shut the headlights off while he kept the truck at full speed. This scared the pants off of one of our group, but I was very entertained.

It was a cool experience. But like I mentioned, cold. I felt the need to wear two pairs of socks the next morning, and working up the nerve to get up and use the bathroom when nature began to work it’s cruel cycle of mandatory fluid expulsion was a serious inward struggle.

But the bedouins were nice, and I got to ride a camel the next morning. Yay camels!

Next we’re going to continue our trip back in time by another day or two, and visit a place steeped in mystery and wonder. A place thousands of years back in time, built by a race that left no writings or explanations. A place only recently uncovered; a place named after the rocks where it was found; a place called Petra.

The plan for this Jordanian excursion all revolved around the end of my 3 month Israeli tourist visa. My Israeli visa expired during the 8 days of Hanukkah, so it was time for me to leave the country and hope that the Israeli border guards would be decent enough to allow me back in for a few months. (More on that later). Along with me I brought two Israeli citizens, both messianic Jews with American passports, one of which was born in Israel and as a result was unable to conceal her identity. She told all of our guides and taxi drivers that she was American, but they could see right through it.  It wasn’t a problem as no one was intending to harm her, however, that didn’t help her nerves. She’s only returned to Israel in the last year, and when she left the country a couple of decades ago the Israelis still viewed Jordanians as the enemy. So for her this was an adventure in hostile territory. For me as a Canadian, I received a friendly welcome everywhere we went. I was always the forerunner of our group, so that when anyone asked where we were from the first answer they would get is “Canada!”

People like Canadians. It’s great.

I have debated how many photos to share, and I don’t want to share too many because I hope that you, dear reader, will have the chance to go there yourself and I wouldn’t want to ruin the amazement and surprise of just how expansive the ruins are! But be prepared for a spoiler if you’re going to watch the upcoming video.

This place is amazing. We spent two awesome days hiking around the city, drinking tea in caves with Bedouin ladies and buying ancient coins that are uncovered by the rain. A lot of the clothes and art they sell are actually really cool, and if/when you go, bring extra money to buy things. I may have to return, and will be sure to do so if/when I do.

Speaking of caves, my travelling companions and I looked up some options for accommodations, and spent a night out in the middle of nowhere sleeping in a pitch black cave with a friendly Bedouin. He drove us out to the middle of nowhere in the dark, and when we got there the only bathroom outside the cave was the great outdoors itself. He cooked fish and veggies over an open flame and served us endless tea. I highly recommend it.

After the Jordanian adventure it was time to go back over the border. My Israeli friends were very excited, but I was apprehensive. Upon reaching the service window I handed my passport to the woman behind the glass, and she became concerned very quickly. She read in her computer that I had been in the country for three months already, which is all that a tourist visa allows. She asked me what I’d been doing, and I told her all the places I’d been and people I stayed with. She wasn’t happy with that, as I think she guessed I’d been volunteering, which is kind of a grey area when it comes to being allowed or not. My understanding is that you’re allowed to do it, but you’re not really advised to say you’re doing it.

She asked if I had a flight home, and when I told her it was 3 months away her eyes went wide and she became more than a little perturbed. She called her manager and told me very sternly that I needed to sit down and await their decision.

So I sat.

Not more than 20 minutes passed before her manager came out and handed me my passport and a renewed visa, valid until the day of my flight. Hallelujah!

She told me that I’m not allowed to do what I just did, i.e. travel to Jordan for a few days and re-enter, and that I needed to talk with the minister of foreign affairs (or something like that) to request a visa extension. However, because I had a flight booked, they decided to be nice and allow me to stay.

The funny thing is that they never asked to check my flight tickets. My flight home is booked out of Berlin, not Israel, as I didn’t want to book a flight I may have to cancel in case they wouldn’t let me back in! 

So back in the land, we all breathed a sigh of relief and joy at the continuation of all our adventures here, and celebrated with a swim in the Red Sea by the shores of Eilat.

Now let me clarify the timeline. First I went to Petra, then Wadi Rum, then Mitzpe Ramon, then back to Eilat.

Eilat has great hiking, and the fish and coral in the sea are really cool, but the city itself isn’t too special. Imagine if Russia and America had a baby and raised it in the desert. 

That’s Eilat.

The upcoming pictures are from a place called the Red Canyon. These awesome rocky hills are right on the border with Egypt. 

After this I bid goodbye to south and headed all the way up north to the Golan Heights. Long trip! I had to take a day off in Nazareth for the Christmas parade, which was ridiculous. 

Within the parade they had about 7 or 8 marching bands with bagpipes (because nothing says Christmas like bagpipes, right?) Everyone there dresses up like Santa Claus. Moms, kids, teens, and of course the performers. Another weird thing is that Spider-man has a big presence. Spider-Man balloons were all over the place, and part of the parade had a section of Cartoon characters including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, Spongebob Squarepants, Spider-man (who walked around giving everyone high-fives) and Pikatchu, just to name a few. Then they decided to end the parade by shooting fireworks off of a church!

Amazing, no?

There was a little bit of Jesus in there, but at one point Joseph there picked up a baby santa from the crowd and gave it to Mary, to complete the hilarity of traditions crossing over into each other.





Anyway, back to the North.

The Golan was very chill, and there was another Hippie running the hostel I stayed at. Funny enough, he had just been in Mitzpe Ramon! I stayed there for a couple nights and got to hike around a little bit. The terrain is almost reminiscent of Scotland or Ireland, in that it’s so green and rocky. 

One day while following a trail, I came across this sign in the middle of my path:

Being brave, I decided to take a risk and walk into whatever “dander” was awaiting me (which turned out to be none). That being said, I could hear the military firing in the distance the whole time I walked, which was admittedly a little unnerving.

In the evening, the firing became louder, like cannon fire. I was to find out the next day that Israel had bombed Syria. I thought they would do that with planes, but if so, what then did I hear?

Either way, that makes 2 out of 2 times that I’ve been in the Golan heights and heard bombs. (Last time we could hear the war going on in Syria from our lookout point in Israel).

So the next morning off to Jericho I went! To begin my adventures on the other side of the wall, from where I now type this to you.

More on that to come.