Mitzpe Ramon

As our time here in Israel comes closer to an end, Zach and I want to see as much of the country as possible.  We have been fortunate to be able to see many parts of it but the one place we feel we haven't explored yet is the desert.  So a few days ago we took a trip down to see the Makhtesh crater in Mitzpe Ramon, in the Negev desert.  

~Here begins a long aside about the crazy bus adventure we had.....

Since you are not allowed to drive on a foreign driver's licence after being in the country for more than a year (and since it costs a crazy amount of money to get an Israeli licence) we have resigned ourselves to taking buses and trains everywhere.  Luckily the country is quite small so it is relatively easy to get anywhere you want to go on a bus similar to a greyhound bus.  Getting to Mitzpe Ramon is pretty easy from Tel Aviv - you just take the train down to Beersheva (1 1/2 hours) then jump on a bus next to the station and take it for another 1 1/2 hours into town.  One of the stories we kept hearing from people who had visited Israel a while ago was how crazy it can be to take a bus.  Everyone tells you about how you have to push and shove or get left behind.  I have to admit that I thought this was nonsense because we take the bus all the time in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and it is exactly the same as Canada.  In fact, taking a bus as a student at Western was much more difficult many times (in terms of getting on a crowded bus) than I have ever seen it here.  That is, until this past Sunday.  

We scheduled our trip for Sunday - Tuesday to take advantage of weekday rates and avoid the hassles of no public transit over Shabbat (Sunday in Israel is the start of the work week).  However, we forgot that Sunday is the day that many soldiers return to their bases after having a weekend off, and there are a few bases along the route to Mitzpe Ramon.  Also, soldiers ride the bus for free.  All this being said, when we got to the bus stop in Beersheva, we were alarmed to see a giant group of teenagers and young adults waiting as a crowd for the bus.  At the central bus station in Jerusalem people more or less line up to get on the inter-city buses.  Not so in Beersheva.  It became pretty clear that if we wanted to get on the bus we were going to have to push.  I'm not sure I've ever been in such a forceful group of people all trying to get through one tiny bus door. The first bus pulled up as we were entering the bus station and we were pushed into the middle of the crowd- by the time that bus had filled and left we had managed to push ourselves into a great position for the next bus.  Somehow we managed to get on - luckily Zach is a head taller than almost all the soldiers, and I have no fear of using elbows and knees to stick near him.  I wish I had a picture of that adventure, but there is no time for pictures when a bus seat is at stake!  Someone even hung onto my backpack forming a sort of human chain with me and Zach to get carried along into the bus - it was madness.  

The crater in Mitzpe Ramon is called a "makhtesh" which is the Hebrew word because there are only 3 of these types of geological formations and they all occur in the Negev and Sinai.  A makhtesh is formed when a hard rock overlies soft rock like sandstone.  Water erodes and carries away the soft under layers and the hard rock crumbles and collapses forming a large crater. Makhtesh Ramon is 500m deep.  The town is on the top edge of the cliff and there are trails all along the edge and down into the crater itself.  It is the largest nature reserve in Israel.

There are military practice zones surrounding the area.  They recommend that you don't wander into one...

 While we were hiking we could hear the large booming sounds of tanks (I think!) firing.  It sounded like thunder!

The visitor's center is closed for renovations, so we looked up some hiking trails on the internet.  One from the edge of the crater appeared to be a really easy hike, and only a few km so we thought we'd start there and then continue on if we were up to it.  However, the hike ended up being almost 5 hours long (yay for estimating scale!), and wasn't necessarily what I would call "really easy" (climbing in and out of the crater again) - but it was incredible!  We came across this weird formation of rock along the side of a dry river bed.  This is me practicing camouflage.  Call me, Mossad.

There were these cute ibex everywhere along the top of the cliff.

Excited that we finished our hike before sunset and looking forward to soaking our feet in the hot tub!  At one point on the hike, we were down on the black hill (straight left from my knee) - it is left over basalt from an ancient volcano.

This is the top of that black hill:

We got up reeeally early to watch the sunrise over the makhtesh - it was incredibly beautiful. (photo credit, Zach)

Possibly my favourite.  Zach just missing the timer.