As is already known to all my close and distant friends, relatives, and the rare visitors of this blog, which is gradually degenerating into fragmented chunks with photos of pizza, not so long ago I had the rare opportunity, joy, and rarity to visit the Middle Eastern region, and not just any region, but one of the most interesting ones – Eretz Yisrael. The Land of Israel, flowing with milk and honey – as it's called in the Bible.
This region doesn't entirely coincide with the territory of the State of Israel, yet it is indeed its spiritual and cultural heir, though to what extent is an open question.
The plan to visit Israel was born spontaneously: my mom's friend paid a visit to Latvia and invited us over, and a little later, random poking around on skyscanner.net brought a catch in the form of a Vilnius - Tel Aviv flight W6 8094 by Wizz Air. Beggars can't be choosers, even though flying out of Vilnius is slightly less convenient, and the low-cost carrier Wizz Air has nowadays reached such a low point that they even want money for a large cabin bag.
Impulsively and without thinking it through, I smashed the "Stock up" button, and suddenly the question on the agenda was what exactly I'd be doing in the holy land, where I'd live, and what I'd eat, considering I don't suffer from an excess of funds. The plan ripened long and hard, almost like for 40 days and forty nights my exhausted brain led itself through the desert, until an epiphany struck it – there, into the desert, is exactly where one must head, for that is the promised velo-land!
The ticket itself cost about 110 lats ($220), and with luggage and a bicycle – a whole 200 ($400). Which is actually not bad at all, considering that with our native Air Baltic it would have set me back at least three hundred.
I think I mentioned a bicycle – yes, your ears aren't deceiving you, the iron horse that had been through Iceland and Croatia set off on yet another grueling journey right alongside me.
And so, the coveted electrons in the airport's communication systems reliably secure me a seat on board, but will I find a place for myself upon arrival? After all, one doesn't just want the roof of a kibbutz over one's head, and some matzah, but to satisfy the other needs of Maslyakov's hierarchy as well, and most of all – the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual ones. Impulsive searches for a destination brought me the knowledge that Israel is a small country, about 20 thousand square kilometers, which is three times smaller than Latvia. Furthermore, a third of it is occupied by the Negev desert, and there's no reason to stick your nose in there. However, that's for a normal person; for a bicycle tourist with a radical disposition, namely a thrill-seeker, it's the perfect place. The tubes of the internet revealed to me that cycling worship is on the rise in the country, the Negev is the very place for lovers of tight spandex, and that finally settled the Jewish question for me.
What kind of cliches and stereotypes were swirling like whirlpools in the dark well of my consciousness before I stepped onto the land saturated with history and high-tech? I assumed that highly religious Jews had flocked there from all over the world to revive the dream of their own state, surrounded by hostile Arabs, against whom a strong and modern army is needed, and that in the country, besides fighter jets and Uzi submachine guns, they also made the Intel mobile processor and generally pushed the concept of multi-core processing, economical in clock speed and power consumption, to the masses.
I guessed that the cities were filled with colorful, motley masses from all over the globe, crowds of Hasidic Jews with sidelocks, and office workers in kippahs. The women are all, without fail, sultry, dark-haired, and swarthy, like on the cover of the guidebook "Israel. A Window to the World," which suddenly turned up on my shelf for the occasion.
In the process of absorbing information streams, it also became clear that Shabbat, meaning total rest, when you can't do anything but relax, actually starts on Friday evening, and doesn't just happen on Saturday, as I had previously fancied. I managed to figure out that no transport operates during this time, and shops are quite often shuttered too. I also suspected that the country wasn't exactly cheap, since you can't grow a Garden of Eden in the middle of the desert on the cheap.
How is a humble provincial programmer supposed to survive in such a place? With the help of friends, of which you can create an infinite number if you properly apply the virtual lever in the form of hospitality networks https://couchsurfing.com and https://warmshowers.org.
The work kicked into high gear!
Cities in the Negev desert – check
Shared interests – check
Cycling enthusiasts – check
Living in a private house for the convenience of dragging the latter inside – check
The fishing rod has been cast, we await a catch in the sandy southern sea, but it's always better to have a plan B to save the situation, so I grabbed a tent and a sleeping bag with me anyway.
Kind souls and a place to sleep were found, but not for all the days. "I'll act according to the situation, improvise, and adapt flexibly," I decided, and didn't bother stressing over it in advance. As we'll see later on, I did exactly the right thing.
I already foresee questions from the audience: but how did you decide to do this, all by your lonesome, eh?
The answer is this: I had always traveled with someone, and had organized things myself only for Iceland, really. It's believed that going solo is more boring and harder, there's no one's vest to cry and wipe your snot on . This summer I was at a Vipassana course, and there a girl replied to my similar maxims: so go take a trip alone, see what it's like. And true enough, I thought, any experience is just an experience. This goes to show that I did actually find something useful, or at least relatable to me, in Eastern philosophies.
People told me: "but it's dangerous alone", they scared me with the Druze, who would supposedly strip me bare and leave me to walk naked through the desert (it's a nation, sort of like gypsies), I scared myself with the fact that the Israeli military machine conducts tests almost all over the Negev, and a rocket will drop on my head. To all such fabrications, I can nowadays boldly reply to the residents of Latvia: as history shows, it's far more dangerous to stay in Latvia and go to supermarkets. Yet another reason, by the way, to buy your groceries at the market (in addition to the fact that at a supermarket you'll certainly grab too much, that is, you'll purchase something expensive and unnecessary).
The result of all these anxieties and vicissitudes – maps in the phone, bike in a box, passport in the pocket, money in euros, things in the Ortlieb bags, kissed my wife goodbye, and poof, I was gone.
