Month: December 2018

Even in the “empty” desert, we found something interesting every day. The last two days are no exception. Camels, tanks, border crossings, fences… Here are some signs we saw:

You can see the tanks lined up way over on the far right side. It certainly was strange to ride past rows of tanks. There were bunkers and checkpoints and always the firing range markers alongside the road. And barbed wire…

It wasn’t all military though. The first three stages of the Giro D’Italia came through here.

Here’s a typical rest stop for our trip, with my new friends Rich and Jill.

And we pass Bedouin or nomadic encampments from time to time. Here are some goats being herded. I think the donkey is helping.

Plenty of stunning scenery.

For a long stretch, maybe 25km, we rode along the Egyptian border with its high fence. Apparently this was built ~5 years ago to keep out the Eritreans who were streaming across the border by the hundreds.

And we were warned often:

Day before yesterday we visited a castle on a hill overlooking the incense route, also called the spice route, that went through the Negev Desert and finished at Gaza. Here’s wikipedia: Avdat is the site of a ruined Nabataean city in the Negev desert in southern Israel. It was the most important city on the Incense Route after Petra, between the 1st century BCE and the 7th century CE.

The ruins are visible for miles. It seemed to be in very good condition, so I wanted to see it..The road up was hard, but the site was amazing. There were the ruins of a Roman villa at one end, with a great view.

Further up on the top of the hill was a large compound with well preserved walls, columns, and arches. 365° views, plenty of rooms, even a wine press.

And we ended the day high up on another hill, at Mitzpe Roman. The views here are what you see if you look down into the vast valley. You can see the road we took out of town dropping down into the valley.

The desert can be so beautiful!

We’ve climbed up out of the Dead Sea depths, a ~3,000 foot climb. We’re at a small desert town that’s growing fast enough to get designated as a city soon. Lots of Orthodox Jews here. As a result, all the restaurants here have a tiny washbasin right in main room, even the small falafel cafe in town. This allows for ritual washing before eating.

We stayed in a simple but very delightful hostel in a “moshav,” which is an agricultural cooperative. There were some old wooden doors scattered around the place.

Efforts have been made to invest in the area, and lots of donations have come from Australia.

The day was all desert, dry, empty, lovely in an awesome way. The road for the steep climb was closed because some of it is in bad shape and maybe also because it runs through long stretches of military land.

Our hotel is a socialized experiment. It’s a lovely place, with desert style architecture, but the cool thing is that all its profits go into Yerucham’s educational system.

Must go to breakfast… Enjoy!

Today we got back on our bikes and rode along the Dead Sea all day. The wind came from the north, so we had a little push all day. What a wonderful change from the awful head wind we had leaving Jerusalem.

A few km from the kibbutz, we arrived at the deepest place on earth. At 418 meters below sea level, we were at 1370ft below. Yowza!

The ride was along a busy road, with lots of trucks heading south to Eilat or to the large mineral-extraction plant.

Coming along the Dead Sea was pretty cool. The terrain is much like Death Valley, with strange shapes and salt ponds everywhere. The water was an unnatural light blue and the clouds were impressive.

This next sign led to a couple new discoveries: apparently there are many thousands of Thai workers in this area. Who knew?! Often many people will come over from the same village. They have 5-year work permits and go back to Thailand when they finish. (Tip: the fourth language in the sign of Thai).

The other discovery was that Israel placed many land mines along the Jordanian border during the early conflicts. Already not good, but in addition, the flash floods that happen here every year have moved the mines around, so nobody is quite sure where they are now.

We saw some awesome scenery. Check out these shots…

And just when you think the desert is barren and empty, you come across botanical field stations where they have intensive lush vegetable growing. They dig wells here that go down a mile.

This place was an eye-opener for me. Who knew you could grow tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers on such upright trellis? They export $125,000,000 worth of peppers to Europe! And who knew you could grow strawberries overhead in coconut husks? OMG!!

And they grow hyssop, oregano, safe, and other herbs on the columns holding up the roof.

And just to wrap up, we cycled the last five kilometers at the sun went down. Lovely light…

Hanukkah started tonight. Our guides, Amir and his brother Asaf, told us the story. After the Jews revolt against the Syrian Seleucid kingdom succeeded, they needed to cleanse and rededicate the Second Temple, which had been violated by the Syrians. They needed to burn the menorah candles for many days, but they only had enough oil for one day. A miraculous thing happened and the menorah candles burned for eight days. Our bike group had our own portable hanukkah candles in a short cardboard stand. Here’s Asaf telling the story.

Today was a rest day, which I really needed. I don’t know if I’m still fighting my cold or if the killer head winds yesterday just took too much out of me.

We had a short pre-breakfast jaunt and saw some teenage Ibex.

Little did we know that we’d see a fully grown one on the kibbutz lawn when we got back.

A delightful breakfast (I counted 60 different dishes of food available for us!!) followed by a trip down the road to the remote mountain palace/fortress of Masada, built by King Herod in the early years Common Era. This is where the last group of Jews held out against the Romans in 73 CE. The Romans laid siege, but the 960 Jews decided that they would rather kill themselves than surrender. When the tide of battle went against them, the men killed their wives and children, and then each other. When the Romans finally entered the fortress, they found everyone dead except for a couple women and five children who had hidden.

The site was forgotten for centuries, but someone read the Josephus history in the mid-1860s and began to excavate. Much of the site was found intact. Fancy bathrooms with heated floors and mosaics.

Here’s a model of the northern palace:

And here’s our “history lite” talk:

This place was huge. It covered the whole top of this hill, sort of like a butte. And here’s a shot of most of the group as we sat outside the synagogue.

In the afternoon, I wandered over to the kibbutz spa. It’s a lovely place, with an indoor pool full of extremely salty Dead Sea water where you bob like a cork and a beautiful outdoor pool with great views.

That’s all folks… Off to bed!

Jerusalem 2 Petra, another bicycleadventureclub.org expedition. Already very memorable!

After several days of warm sunshine, w managed to arrange our departure in a rain storm. Sheesh… We had a 17km downhill out of Jerusalem, and we did it wet. Ah well… The desert dried us off soon enough.

We passed a great road sign and then arrived at sea level.

Then we dropped down to the Dead Sea itself, down -394 meters (-1,300 ft) below sea level. OMG.

We rode along the Dead Sea for a few hours, into a strong head wind. Very hard riding. My legs are dead.

With various scenic moments…

Then we arrived (finally! This ride was hard!) at Wadi David where we had lunch. This place is mentioned in the bible. Apparently King David came here before he was king.

It’s a very beautiful place. I wandered up a deep ravine alongside a lively ample stream.

It was a gorgeous place. Several waterfalls, stream flowing past the path, cool and green.

And the big double waterfalls:

It was quite delicious. Cool, shady, lush, surrounded by steep bare rock.

More photos than usual, but too amazing to hold back. Enjoy!