Negev my Negev

Yo, what's up? For this leg of our trip we be taken it south, to the Negev desert, where we be sporting sunglasses and funny hats. The word Negev could use verbification in my opinion. Where is Negevize, Negevate, for example? The Negev is where it's at, the hotness, the coldness, the dryness. There be dead seas, mountains, craters that aren't craters, and food that make you the happiest eaters alive. We hope you enjoy. The actors this time around are Nadav, Aaron, Chaim, and our ever-energetic tour guide Devora. Notably absent is Anya, who is spending time in Russian with her relatives.



All travelers need food, and in our case we need Jachnun. We stop at a family restaurant in a small village off the highway for this traditional Yemenite dish. Shunning the more modern Israeli cafe food, we follow a series of hand written signs for many kilometers, and eat the most delicious meal ever prepared for any king, ceo, or traveler. It is, as I make sure everyone understands, the happiest day of my life.



This is the cutest restaurant in the world. Click through for more pictures of what it looks like, and the happy eaters contained.



We go next to Mitzpe Ramon, where we crash at Nadav's aunt's house. Here are our intrepid explorers daring the mild desert climate for a photograph at an important geological site. A site of geopolitical geological importance. That's right, here we are at the Ramon Crater. As should be obvious to any skilled observer of tourist photographs, it's not a crater at all, it's a maktesh, or an erosion cirque. The thing is so big you wouldn't even know you were in it, since it just kind of goes off the horizon in multiple directions.



There's all this cool desert art sculpture near Mitzpe. It's like burning man, but without the burning, the man, or the people. Just the desert and the art. Aaron and Nadav are pictured here doing their part in the fight against gravity.



Not far away is Ben-Gurion's grave, the first prime minister of Israel. The architecture is interesting, and it overlooks a magnificent desert vista. It feels like you are being swept by a stream down into this location, and everything is the height of a man, making you feel neither small or large. Ben-Gurion has some interesting history with the Negev you can read about if you follow the link.



We drive from Mitzpe to the Dead Sea. I share the driving. Incredible how quickly my inner Israeli driver shows himself. We drop off Devora for a job interview, and say goodbye to her for now.



Our room in the field school in En Gedi.



An important part of any Israel trip is hiking up Masada, where a bunch of Israelites killed themselves around 66 BC. They called themselves Zealots, and defended a desert fortress built on a mountain top from the Romans for a siege which lasted many months. It is from them that we get the words zealot and zeal. Zeal is truly a terrific word!



I run into a few of these animals on the way up. One of them, with big horns, waits in my path. Thinking back to a monkey troop Yotam and I once encountered in Malaysia, I decide it's best to not get in its way. I wait a while, then make some noise, he runs off, and nobody is gored. Pictured above is one of the fairer sex.



The American team, represented by Nadav, Aaron, and Chaim (above) reaches the top of Masada first, before sunrise. A formative experience in Chaim's earlier years creates a deep need to get up at 4am and be the first to the top on this day. A team of Russian climbers poses a slight challenge, but is easily overcome when they take a wrong turn.



Here is the world's earliest known photograph. It was uncovered in the Dead Sea Negatives, and is reproduced here for all the world to see. In it, you can clearly see a Roman siege tower which was rolled up an earthen ramp (up the side of a tall mountain), attacking the fortress. The next day, the Romans knock, but nobody answers. Everyone here is dead via a complicated form of suicide, except a few people who tell the story. Two women of above average intelligence, according to Josephus Flavius, and some children.



Yours truly in the hot bath room. I can never say no to a sauna. A set of baths up here? Yes, the fortress is huge, and my small camera can barely suggest how massive this mountain is. There are multiple palaces up here, baths, a large set of water cisterns. Next door is the frigidarium, but this picture was taken in the hotatorium.



We go next to En Gedi, an oasis in the middle of this desert. It's hard to believe that all you can see in every direction is totally and completely dry, and yet you have these waterfalls and lush growth. Complete with animatronic looking mammals. We figure they just move slow, since they are more like lizards in habitat.



We don some sun screen in the parking lot, much to the delight of some college age tourists, and show some skin. The water is cold, and it's not a particularly hot day. But, this is a fashion magazine, after all, and we can't bare to disappoint our readers.



I climb over for a photo op with the waterfall, but the climbing photos are totally cooler than the product.



Here are the desert gentlemen, in a hot & salty picture, by request, at the world famous Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is very salty, and actually has bacteria living in it, so it isn't totally dead. It's so salty you float with no effort. You can stand in the water and just bob there. On your back. On your front. In a box. With a fish, on a dish, with a mouse. It's fun you see, you should try it sometime, and be like us & me!