Camels and Cliffs

Torrents of ran poured down on us yesterday in Tel Aviv. Crossing the street we felt as though we were wading through the Jordan River to reach the Promised Land—we could see the other side but could we ever reach it? Certainly not with dry feet! The wind whipped the sheets of rain sideways, rendering our umbrella useless. We ducked into doorways and overhangs, scurrying out when there was a slight break and taking cover when the deluge became more intense-- a stark contrast to our desert trek a mere 24 hours earlier.

Adventures in Arava---From the Dead Sea to the Desert Heights

Wednesday afternoon we packed up our backpacks and headed to Jerusalem to join Lynn Glassman for the drive to the Negev. We met Lynn through our Chapel Hill friend, Barry Roberts (Lynn and Barry are longtime friends from high school and college). Lynn, her husband, Lee, and their two daughers moved to Jerusalem from Scranton Pennsylvania about 20 years ago when the girls were in their teens. Lee is a certified tour guide who leads groups all over Israel. Lynn, who also took the extensive two-year guide course, works as a volunteer lactation consultant at Sha’arei Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Lynn had invited us to join her for the Fifth Annual Hike for Hope to support Tzad Kadima (A Step Forward). Tzad Kadima is a program that works with children with cerebral palsy, and their families, to enhance their abilities and empower them to become independent and active participants in school, work, and life. They use a system that was developed by a Jewish physician in Hungary. Several years ago an Israeli family with an affected child learned about the program and moved to Hungary to experience it first hand. Encouraged by the results for their daughter, they convinced the government to send ten Israeli soldiers to Hungary to learn the method and bring it back to Israel. Five years ago that couple teamed up with a friend, an Anglo-Israeli tour guide, to organize the fundraising hikes that have been taking place annually. Those who participate include parents or relatives of children who have benefited from the program, along with friends who pledge money and get others to contribute to the organization. We were impressed with the moving testimony of a mother whose son has been able to study and travel extensively on his own as a result of his participation in the program. We also saw a video featuring a young man in his twenties who is currently studying to become a social worker. With the support of Tzad Kadima, he overcame many challenges to gain an education and complete his military service. A boy of about 9 or10 shared his experiences with us when the staff and a group of the kids joined for dinner at the Hatzeva Field School where we spent the night. The challenges these kids face put into perspective the rigors of the six hour hike we took the next day!

Before we hit the road, Lee Glassman explained a bit about the geology of the area we were going to explore, the Arava region south of the Dead Sea, and the vast expanses of the Negev rising dramatically above. The Dead Sea was created by activity in the Syrian-African seismic rift causing the eastern plate (the land on the Jordanian side) to move to the north while the western side (Israel) moves south. Ions ago as the plates moved away from each other steep, sheer cliffs were formed. Below them, at a depth lower than sea level, an opening was created that allowed water to flow in, forming the Dead Sea. The sea has shrunk a good deal in the last 100 years, as we saw from a signpost by the road, and the evaporation continues at a steady pace. Another unusual feature in this area, also created in the aftermath of earthquake activity, is the machktesh (there is no English equivalent for this word). A machktesh looks like a crater but is actually the result of continual erosion of the soft inner layers of a fissure, leaving the harder layers of rock on the outer edges to form steep, jagged fins. There are three of these in the area, the Large Machtesh, the Small or Hatzera Machtesh and, further west, Machtesh Be’eri. On the first days’ hike, which we missed, the group climbed in part of the Large Mahktesh. From what we heard it was a beautiful if somewhat grueling 23 kilometer expedition.

On our way down to our base at Hatzeva Field School, we made a few brief stops. At the sea level marker we paid a visit to Lynn’s bedouin friend Aesof and his camel Shushu, both charming. Aesof,who speaks Arabic, Hebrew and English, lives with his two wives and six children (three per wife) ages 15 to infant. He is looking for a way to his oldest son to get a good education but the taxi to Jerusalem is expensive. He earns money by giving camel rides (with photo opportunities) to tourists and selling jewelry and knickknacks made by his family. We arrived at the Dead Sea around sunset. The glow from the setting sun reflected on the Jordanian hills turning them a soft pink against the silvery-blue sheen of the water---beautiful. Lynn pulled over to the side of the road across from what looked like a tall mound of stone rubble. This unmarked, unpreserved site is what remains of a port consisting of three boat slips and two deep cisterns built by Alexander Sannai (not sure of the spelling) in 160 BCE. He used the facility to lift his boats out of the harsh, salt-laden water when they were not in use so that they would not rot. He used the boats initially for pleasure and later for commerce. How all this is known, I’m not sure. Despite the “forbidden” sign we scrambled after Lynn up the stones for a good view of the DEEP cisterns (no guard rails, plenty of loose rocks). A small taste of the climb to come the following day. Then it was on to Ein Gedi. The path to the springs closes at dusk to allow the animals to come down to the watering hole undisturbed. We were, however, able to drive a short ways in and spotted a few ibex (small deer-like animals) and hyrax (look like fat rabbits or guinea pigs but are actually the closest living relative to the elephant!). Finally, just as dinner was being served, we pulled into the field school at Hatzeva. Used for programs for school kids, the facility has basic rooms (ours had two singles and a bunk bed and a small bathroom), basketball court, a dining hall and a space for gatherings. After a good meal of spring chicken and the usual array of vegetables/salads/flat breads, tahini, and so on followed by cookies and spiced sweet tea with mint, we gathered for introductions, a brief presentation about Tzad Kadima (described above) and a description of the next day’s plan—including a 5:15 a.m. wake-up call!!!!!! For those who know my habits, you can imagine how excited I was about this. So, after star-gazing with Lynn and a hiker who is an amateur astronomer, we headed inside for an early bedtime. At least that’s what we hoped. Unfortunately, the school is very close to highway 90. All night the road was busy with noisy trucks, probably carrying some of the produce grown in the region (this area grows 75% of the produce that is exported from Israel). The lack of sound insulation and the glow from the outside lights left on all night made for a less than restful night, not to mention that Lew and I kept waking each other up with our own sounds and trips to the bathroom. So, with two solid hours of sleep, I was ready for anything, including a six hour hike.

After eating a good breakfast, making our lunches and loading up our backpacks with two 1.5 liter bottles of water, we boarded the bus for the half hour ride to the trail head up Ma’aleh Akrabim (The Scorpion’s Ascent). And what a ride it is, definitely not for the faint of heart. The steep, switch- backed road, blazed during the mandate and expanded later by the IDF Engineering Corps, is supposedly two lane although it appears to be barely wider than the bus. The “guard rail” consists of oil drum barrels filled with ballast and spaced a few feet apart at the road’s edge, over which, should one miss the road, one would plunge several thousand feet. We were amazed to learn that this was once the only road from the western interior (Beersheva) down to the Dead Sea, linking Jerusalem to Eilat in the south. Descending this road at the end of the day was even more hair raising than the ascent. Kol HaKavod (all honor) to the bus driver for his skillful and safe management of this journey.

As we set off on the trail the weather was absolutely perfect-- a clear, sunny day, not a cloud in the brilliant blue sky, warm but not too hot. Although we consider ourselves to be in reasonable shape, we certainly haven’t been doing any significant hiking lately. So we were a little uncertain about how we would manage. The rest of the group members, with a few exceptions, were mainly in our age range and didn’t look any fitter. So we figured we could keep up. Also, after the first leg, there were going to be two alternative routes—the more challenging and less challenging—giving us some reassurance of making it back to the bus. The next six hours and 12 kilometers were amazing. We encountered unbelievable vistas, unusual rock formations, vast stretches of moon-like terrain, high cliffs with vertical strata and caves cut into the sides, several varieties of wild flowers, fascinating wadi beds and deep pools in green oases. Overhead in the distance floated a huge white surveillance blimp (definitely surreal). Much of the terrain reminded me of the southwestern US but thankfully without the high altitude, making the hiking less taxing. Along the way we scrambled up and down steep inclines, skirted the tops of ridges and tramped along the sides of a wadis, pausing for snacks at the most dramatic locations (the ruins of a Roman fort, the overlook of a vast canyon far below where two river beds come together, under a tree by the wadi, and by the side of an oasis where we came upon a young couple stripped down to their underwear (she very pregnant) and, with their dog cavorting around them, unselfconsciously sunning themselves on the rocks and periodically plunging into the cold pools of deep water. We chose the route that followed a wadi rather than the one that involved climbing up a steep rock face, partly via an iron ladder, and then following a narrow ridge where some iron hand rails are all that prevent falls over the sheer drop. On the alternative route we also enjoyed some opportunities to climb up some steep rock strewn ridges.

As we emerged from the trail to meet the bus, we paralleled a group of camels making their way through the desert in the near distance. The bus took us to another spot to meet up with the hikers who took the other route. Here we hiked in a short distance and scrambled down another rocky slope to a wadi oasis, the beauty of which was marred in one corner behind some rocks by ribbons of toilet paper. This area is more accessible to the road and hence more populated, especially by the school kids from all over the country who come on hiking expeditions to the area. We had seen 250 high school yeshiva students from up north camped out near the field school in Hatzeva. Unfortunately in this parking lot a large group of Haredi youth had left behind a big box filled with garbage that was being blown all around—amazingly inconsiderate and disrespectful. We tried to pick up what we could. Our final stop was an area similar to Death Valley with deposits of colored sand---yellow, red, bluish-white. Part of the group hung out here while others hiked for another forty-five minutes up the side of a fin on the machtesh. Guess which we elected to do. I have to say we did very well—no blisters and no major problems. Even without the benefit of my usual gym workouts, I was able to handle both the ascents and descents. Next time I might prepare with more quad work and go for the extra climbing!

Hiking side by side with one or another of the group members we had many opportunities over the course of six hours to get to know our new friends. They are mainly Anglo immigrants (US or British), who have been here for a long time. The work they do includes: high tech, tourism, business owners, research in the ministry of health, grant writing for nonprofits, translating, academics, yoga instructor, English tutoring, etc. Most live in Jerusalem although one of the hikers lives on Kibbutz Gesher (which also happens to be the home of our friend Gladys Siegel’s son and his family). Like me, he also happens to have a sibling who lives in New Mexico. We found amazing connections with other members of the group. Gary, a health economist, spent a year and a half in Chapel Hill where he received a doctorate in public health, worked with Pat (Berry) Fischer and was in a relationship with a current colleague of Lew. Although we never met there, Jeff and I both attended graduate school at Harvard during the early seventies (he in comparative literature; me in sociology) and were active in the graduate student strike. Weirder than that, his son now works in the Washington branch of a huge New York/International law firm in which Lew’s high school friend is a managing partner. Another hiker turned out to be the son of a high school teacher in Cleveland with whom Lew studied one summer.

We finished the day with a wonderful feast served Bedouin style in a tent. Then it was back to Jerusalem to catch the bus for the ride home to Tel Aviv. Altogether it was an outstanding experience and one we would not have had without the connection to Lynn and her persistent urging that we join her. Thank you Barry and thank you Lynn!