Tobia Ziklik

Our plan for day three in Israel was to make our way south from Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat, the southernmost point in Israel, with one stop at Timna Park, where we would spend a handful of hours hiking.

We started out early, driving through Makhtesh Ramon (the crater). We noticed that the only thing creating any sense of shade for miles upon miles was a solitary cloud in the sky. Arnon said that if he were stuck in the crater for some unknown reason, he would simply follow the cloud all day long so as not to roast.

Outside the crater, we drove along the Arabah road, which stretches from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. Other than mountain ranges, medjool date farms and tanks, there wasn’t much to see, and yet it was a beautiful drive, as I imagine is the case with most drives across the desert.

Eventually we reached Yotvata, a dairy maintained by a local kibbutz of the same name. Arnon has been telling me for years about the amazing chocolate milk he had as a little boy when his family took an organized bus trip to the “middle of nowhere”. Well, we had reached the “middle of nowhere” and eagerly downed our pouches (yes, pouches!) of cold chocolate milk. Delicious!

As we enjoyed our milk, we watched people from an Indian tour group hug the large statues of dairy cows that are on display around Yotvata. It was quite amusing.

A short while after getting back on the road, we came across Hai-Bar Yotvata Nature Reserve. I had heard about it some years ago but didn’t realize it was in this area, so we decided to stop and take a look.

Hai-Bar Yotvata Nature Reserve was established in the 1960’s in order to restore animals that had become extinct in the area. The animals are first brought to the reserve, where the abundance of Acacia trees makes the desert setting a little more hospitable, with hopes of later releasing them in the Ramon crater.

The reserve consists of three areas: the predators center, the desert night life exhibition hall, and the open area. In the predators center, we saw several types of desert foxes that weigh less than one kilogram when fully grown. They were adorable, unlike the vultures we saw resting by large clumps of decomposing meat.

I couldn’t bear to be in the night life exhibition hall for more than a couple of minutes because it was dark minus the greenish tint of night vision lighting, humid, and the undefinable sounds of unseen creatures combined with the fluttering of bat wings made me nervous.

In the open area, where you can drive around and look at the animals but you have to remain in your car, we saw African wild asses, onagers, addaxes, scimitar horned oryxes, white oryxes, and territorial ostriches that blocked our path and tried to peck at Arnon but pecked the car window instead.

Not too long after we left the nature reserve, we reached Timna Park, located in the middle of the Red Sea Desert. Thanks to tectonic plate activity tens of millions of years ago, the landscape is a beautiful mix of jagged granite peaks, sculpted sandstone ranging from white to red and even purple in color, rock formations striped with magma, and heavily textured stone that almost resembles wood. It’s really amazing what wind, humidity and erosion can create. Even the rock formation that looks like a sphinx is nature’s handiwork.

The area encompassed by Timna Park is also considered the birthplace of the human technological revolution because it was here that copper began to be used in daily life. Ancient Egyptians established a complex mining operation here between the 14th and 12th centuries BCE, but the earliest mines in the area date back more than 6000 years. You can still see the 10,000 or so mine shafts as well as the remains of underground copper ore smelting furnaces.

One of the things that I really liked but Arnon thought was ridiculous were the rock drawings along a ravine dating back 6000 years. One in particular featured five simple lines representing an ostrich, suggesting that ostriches were once native to this area. That was my favorite, but the most famous carving in the area is called “Chariots” and features armed Egyptians riding ox-drawn chariots.

The highlight of Timna Park is a red sandstone formation called Solomon’s Pillars (named after the biblical king), which aren’t actually pillars but pillar-shaped ridges created by water erosion. The pillars are massive and intimidating, but not as intimidating as the suspicious looking man laying at the foot of the pillars who watched our every move.

To continue our sightseeing (and also get away from the stranger), we climbed up a path through the pillars and ended at a flat face of the rock. Engraved on the rock is a depiction of King Ramses III, who ruled during the first half of the 12th century BCE, making an offering to Hathor, an Egyptian goddess who was the patroness of miners. At the foot of the rock carving are the remains of the Shrine of Hathor or Egyptian Miner’s Temple for Hathor, constructed during the reign of Seti I at the end of the 14th century BCE.

After many hours hiking in the dreadful heat, we had a late lunch at a restaurant in the park where the food tasted better than it would have if we weren’t exhausted and dehydrated.

Not long after we left Timna Park we reached Eilat and our hotel by a lagoon. We took a late-night stroll along the promenade where the heat caused us to sweat as though we were in a sauna.

One of the best things about Israeli hotels is the breakfast buffet, which in my experience is rivaled only in Vegas, and even then only in terms of selection size. Plus, breakfast in Israel is included when you book a room.

At our hotel in Tel Aviv, we filled our plates and sat out on the balcony, eager to enjoy our warm breakfast while looking out on the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, I was distracted by the noisy ladies at the table beside us complaining in Korean that everything they tasted was too salty. When I got up to get seconds, I overheard several men grumbling, also in Korean, that despite everything they’d heard about how amazing food in Israel is, they found everything, including the fruit, to be too salty. What was wrong with them? Too salty? Do these people not realize how incredibly salty Korean food is? If anything, you’d think they’d complain that the food was too bland.

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and headed south to the Negev. On a map, Israel resembles a diamond shape stretched lengthwise. The southern half of the diamond is the Negev, comprised of several deserts. Not too many people live there and it’s as hot as hell, but it’s wonderful to drive on its empty two-lane roads.

Our first stop was Be’er Sheva, to see Abraham’s Well, which is located in the courtyard of the local tourist office. It’s not much to look at but it is actually quite deep.

Then we went to Tel Be’er Sheva National Park to see the 3000-year old ruins of a planned city. It was cool to wear hard hats and walk down into the ancient cistern.

Our final stop in the area was the Air Force Museum in the neighboring town of Hatzerim. It was really noisy there because fighter pilots were training in the air above us.

Arnon had hoped to see his favorite plane from childhood, the Lavi, whose development he followed even while living in Switzerland, and sure enough, there it was near the F-16 fighter jets. He was ecstatic! I, too, was ecstatic, but about the coffee-flavored slushie we were sharing. Definitely the best I’ve ever had!

Following a scrumptious lunch of falafels in pita at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, we headed south to Sdeh Boker to see David Ben-Gurion’s desert home and to the edge of a canyon to see his final resting place.

Ben-Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel and seems to have deeply believed that developing the Negev was important to Israel’s ultimate survival. So he retired to a kibbutz in the middle of the desert to do whatever it is that former prime ministers do, and asked that his home in the kibbutz remain as he left it at the time of his death.

I always thought the residences in a kibbutz would be like cabins, but the ones in Ben-Gurion’s community were more like bunkers.

Ben-Gurion’s Memorial is located at the edge of a beautiful white-washed canyon. We saw dozens of ibexes roaming the memorial site, and even saw two of them slam their horns into each other, like you see on National Geographic. Arnon was hoping to see an extended battle, but fortunately the smaller ibex walked away. I find the sound of horns clashing to be unnerving.

On route to our final destination for the day, we passed by Avdat, the fourth-century BCE Nabatean city. It was perched high on a hill and closed to the public. Apparently, the film “Jesus Christ Superstar” was filmed there.

Some time in the late afternoon, we finally reached the tiny town of Mitzpe Ramon, situated at the edge of Makhtesh Ramon, the world’s largest crater. The crater is beautiful (my pictures do not do it justice) and the story of how it was formed is really interesting, but it’s really hot there. The townspeople were covered head to toe (it seems Mitzpe Ramon is an Orthodox town) and yet appeared to be dry, unlike me.

At the edge of Mitzpe Ramon is the largest alpaca and llama ranch outside of South America. I had always assumed that the words alpaca and llama could be used interchangeably, but I was wrong. Llamas are tall with serious dental issues, and alpacas are small, feisty and absolutely adorable.

We were allowed to feed the llamas but were warned to feed each one discreetly or risk being spat on by their irritated pen-mates. Despite his best efforts, Arnon got spit on. Yick!

The ranch also had donkeys, horses, camels and rams. You could ride most of the creatures (obviously not the tiny alpacas) but there was no way I was getting on any of those stinky creatures.

Tel Aviv at Night

Several months ago, Yaron and Inbar invited us to attend their September wedding in Israel, so we thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to see the places in the country we had missed on previous trips. We decided that it would be best to rent a car, since we both enjoy road trips.

We arrived in Israel on September 5th, picked up a car from Budget, and headed to Tel Aviv. I had obtained directions from Google Maps for the whole trip but they proved to be worthless, so we relied on a road map courtesy of Budget and my guide book to get us to where we needed. So old school.

Our hotel was located across the street from the beach and a short walk from the old port town of Jaffa. We took a long stroll in the evening along the promenade, hoping for some cool air to come across the Mediterranean Sea, but no such luck. Even at that late hour it was in the high 80’s, and combined with the humidity, I couldn’t help but drip sweat as I munched on my calzone dinner outside by the beach. Hopefully, no one could tell in the darkness.