How do you organize hiking through the desert?. With this question I tortured my brain for days in Eilat ...The good thing is that it is winter [during the day it is approximately 20 C, but at night it cools down to five degrees or even zero degrees!].
I needed two liters of water [instead of the five liters recommended in the guidebook] for one day, but I had to carry water for at least three days which makes six liters [six kilograms] plus food for five days [five kgs]. Israel is a small country but not for a hiker!.
It is a raw, rough environment the Negev desert. To me it looked like the moon, with absolutely no vegetation, but if you look good you can spot bushes, small acacia trees in the wadis [or Nahal in hebrew].
The fact that I had to carry the food and the water spoiled a bit the joy of the hiking: the Shvil is climbing-descending-climbing all the time and especially in the Negev you had to watch all the time where to put your feed and most of the times even stop and to think in which way to pass a barrier [I am talking about climbing, ascending, descending from cliffs or rocks, wadis or canyons]...
It makes you slow and together with a hot day you go too fast through your water. I managed to do with two liters a day which is not much. Plus given the fact that the trail doesn`t go into a straight line but makes now and then huge de-tours just to show the hiker a particular canyon, wadi or cliff made me now and then skip a part of the trail and take the road. Maybe it is because of my pilgrim mentality [you have a goal, and you take the easiest way to get there] or that I am on such a long trip but it irritated me that I had to take all the time de-tours through difficult terrain.
The Israeli`s text cabin drivers, or friends to cache [hide] water and food in the desert, but I don`t like that, I want to carry everything, I don`t want to be dependent on other people.
Apart from the impressive desert landscape I find it pure magic that people manage to live in such an environment, do agricultural or even export products like milk, honey, wine [!]. In Mitspe Ramon I stayed in a `desert-eco-lodge` for a couple of days just to wait for a fierce storm to pass by.
Imagine hiking in the desert and suddenly the wind becomes icy, it starts to rain [!], and with great force!. I just arrived at the huge Ramon crater, at Mitspe Ramon before the [storm] hell broke loose.
The owner, Ziv, told me about the winery. I was full with questions, like: - where does the water come from, - how can you - for god`s sake- crop grapes in the desert?, - where does the carper fish come from? [I was invited to have lunch with them, and we ate a delicious fish], - is rainwater used for agricultural?.
In the Negev the `drip` system is used: just enough -controlled-water drops for the roots of all vegetation: palm trees, dade trees, grapes, eucalyptus trees, olive trees ...A lot of vegetation can grow on water with a pretty high salt level. That is how they do it: the salty water from the Negev is mixed with the sweet water from the see of Galilee which makes it good enough to do agriculture.
There is a lot of [water] technology in the Negev anyway. Sometimes I passed a Kibbutz which was like an oasis. All the kibbutzes have huge, double fences around them, usually under current. I don`t understand it, I know people want to be secure but how can you live in such a prison like environment. Apparently the Kibbutzniks can. A kibbuts to me does look like a complete autonomous place anyway, it seems they have everything: water, electricity, food, luxury goods, cars, beautiful houses ...
For a hiker like me it is annoying. Imagine arriving at a Kibbutz, walking around it [the fence], looking for the entrance ... One time I was invited inside a Kibbutz, Yovotna, by a trail angel. Trail angels are people living close by the trail. They offer shelter, a shower, and sometimes they have a hiker`s room with a kitchen, or a tent [In Arad I slept in a Bedouin tent]. But mostly I camped out. This country is ideal for camping, it is allowed almost everywhere the only thing is that now, in February it cools down so you need a good sleeping bag.
I passed a desert Ashram [a meditation place where you can stay, follow a yoga course, find peace etc.], or a place called Shaharut, on the top of a bare rock mountain. Imagine a couple of houses where people live who seek silence [I slept there in a wagon just besides camels] and each house has its private oasis [trees] around it.
Or Midreshet Ben Gurion, a university/ college founded by David Ben Gurion also located at an extremely raw, moon alike place. Thanks to the drip system there were trees, palm trees, a complete green environment, really impressive!. I stayed in an iglo- hiker`s room, with everything: a [warm] shower, beds, electricity, devices to cook .. I liked it so much I stayed there one extra day.
Apart from such places the desert is empty. The most difficult part of the trail was after the Midreshet, the mount Karbolet, or the hamakhtesh hakatan [the big crater]. The trail follows the top of the mountain range.
Imagine a huge saw-like mountain, shaped under an angle of about thirty degrees and in the form of an ellipse [the crater]. It took me half a day only to reach the start of the climb. The next day I started the ascend. I was fully loaded with water for three days and food for five days. The next day I had to follow a Wadi, a `climbing` canyon where you had to wade though pits full of rainwater, pass cliffs or rock walls. The rock wall was that steep that there were handles put in the rock. Step by step, carrying a load over twenty kilos, pulling yourself from handle to handle, thinking where to put your foot .... Quite strenuous!. But the reward was a breath taking view.
On the `mountain saddle` the mountain top ranges the path is like horizontal but you have to hike under an angle which doesn`t make it easy. The trail follows like half of the mountain range but I didn`t complete it because it was getting dark ... I went down into a wadi, and the following day I followed the food of the mountain range.
After the hamakhtesh hakatan the trail passed the hamakhtesh hagadol [the small crater], a crater that is perfectly geometrically shaped in a circle. Again you have to do a very steep descend [with metal handles and bars] to reach the bottom of the crater. The end of the day was at Mezad Tamar, a former roman stronghold.
The town of Arad is in fact the natural border between the raw Negev desert and the greener Judean `wilderness`. I was happy to arrive there, because there was more vegetation, greener ...On my way I passed Bedouin villages, a sort of shanty towns alongside the road. The Bedouin tents have disappeared unfortunately. I got lost in such a village twice but a friendly Bedouin showed me the way.
Suddenly a pine tree forest: the Yatir forest!. It is great to hike in such a forest, breathing in fresh cool air, and the pine trees smell nice!. The trail goes over an ancient roman road, `Caesar`s road`, built by emperor Hadrian to allow his legions to crush the kingdom of Judea. There is much history here anyway. You pass constantly ancient ruins from all times [pre-roman, roman, ottoman era], or `Tel``s, a table shaped like mountain, used as an outpost or to build a fortified town on top of it.
... remains of an ottoman bridge, c.a. 1917
You find also more recent history, traces of Israel`s `war of independence`/ battles against the hostile arab armies. I camped in a villa on top of a mountain [Beit Guvrin] where in 1947 Egyptian troops were stationed [with among them an illustrious figure: major Abd-el-Gamel Nasser, the 2nd Egyptian president!].
.jpg)
By reaching Jerusalem you hike in the mountains on terraces that date back to more then 6000 years ago!. Impressive indeed. For me it was nice to see that, the first time I saw terraces like that was in Colombia [la ciudad perdida] and Peru [Machhu Pichu].
At night I reached the hadasa Ein Kerim medical center, a huge hospital/ mall with even a hiker`s room!. I didn`t have a phone, I just asked a guy in front of the hospital if I could use his phone [he phoned]. The people here are very helpful anyway. Nobody had heard from this hiker`s room [the lady of information told me my question was the first question she had ever heard, and she has to answer lots of questions! haha] but finally [after 1,5 hour!] we [the guy named Ya`el with the phone accompanied my in the search for the place] found it hamdoelilah! And I was happy because during the night it got freaking cold brrrrr .....
The trail itself doesn`t go into Jerusalem, but there is a Jerusalem trail which leads you into the city but very bad indicated though. It is funny because you are guided passing christian monasteries like St. John in the desert, a Franciscaner convent, or `Maria`s well... I don`t have the desire to visit those places anymore. It is too touristic for me and I don`t like it ...
I am playing with the idea to complete the shvil to the north, the Golan, and then go southward, through the west bank cross the border with Jordan and hike my way thus south back to my bicycle, Eilat.
... mount zion, Jerusalem
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten