The first trip I took was south, to the desert. One of my fellow Fulbrighters in Jerusalem, Dan, arranged a trip with some of his fellow graduate students at Hebrew University to go on a trip to the Makhtesh Ramon. Using the backgrounds of the various group members, most of whom are biblical studies/history Master's students, we rented two cars, piled the nine of us into them and began our three day trip south. Pictures are here.
The first stop was Tel Tsafit, an archeological site that believed by many people to be the ancient city of Gath. Subsequently, it was razed and rebuild a few times over, creating various layers of structures from various time periods. I won't pretend to remember (or to have originally understood) everything they explained to us, but it was very interesting to see how buildings had been built on the ruins of other buildings, and how various bits of pottery could be identified by the type and style of glazing on them.
After a few hours hiking around the archeological sites, we piled back into the cars and headed south to the Makhtesh. One of the intersting things about Israel is the diversity of the landscape here. We went from Tel Tsafit, which was green and lush with forests, to the Makhtesh, which is a full-on desert, in about two hours. The Makhtesh Ramon was, waaaaaaaay back in the day, an ocean; now it's a giant "crater", approximately 40km long and 2-10 km wide.
We made a quick stop at the visitors center to see the view from the overlook (which was obscured by haziness), stocked up on some supplies at the grocery store, and then headed into the makhtesh to find a suitable camping site. After a bit of hunting, we ended up camping (open air, thank you) in an abandoned quarry. We used some of the discarded stones to make a firepit, and bedded down in an old creek bed. As it wasn't the rainy season, or even close to the rainy season, we weren't worried about being swept away; they don't recommend hiking in many places in the makhtesh if there's a chance of rain, as flash floods can by very...flashy.
The next morning saw us waking early and, after a quick breakfast and packing up our things, heading out into the desert for a hike. The original plan had been to look for an ancient wall that had significance I've since forgotten. A wrong turn, though, took us on a multi-hour hike that we were going to do anyway, up a mountain/hill.
The view from the top was amazing, a panaramic scene of desert and geological structures thousands of years in the making. The path we used was also somewhat popular and we ran into some other hiking groups atop our mountain perch, other adventurers who were hiking the Israel National Trail.
After a rest, some water and some lunch, we headed back down the trail to the cars and headed onto a few more sites. Thankfully, these were less physically exhausting. The first was to the Carpentry, where sand had been heated and melted in such a way that it created natural-forming, black prisms. Apparently it's the only place in the world where this has happened. We then checked out a geological park, where various rocks from various time periods could be seen in stratums. Then it was a trek into town for a nice lunch at a local place, some collecting of firewood from a nearby campground, and a return to camp to relax, make dinner, and bed down for the night.
The next morning saw us packing things up and heading out of the makhtesh, north to Tel Arad. Again, I won't go into the history of the site because a) that's what Wikipedia is for, and b) I'd probably get it wrong anyway. Suffice to say, the site has two main parts. One is the city of Arad, which at one point had a palace and neighborhoods and such. The other part is the Citadel, a temple which sits high upon the hill. This is where Yahweh and his consort received offerings and sacrifices. We may or may not have danced on the alter. I remain mum.
After a lunch in the shade, we began the final trek back to Jerusalem via the shores of the Dead Sea. It's a lot smaller than I thought it was, especially at certain points. Apparently after the rainy season the water level is higher than it is now and this, combined with the already low levels due to global warming, makes the shores of Jordan seem quite close. Up the coast and through a check-point put us back in Jerusalem, where a sherut ride returned me to Tel Aviv and to my dorm for a much needed shower.
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