Having devoured a fair bit of supplies from Vartan's fridge (sorry, buddy, after thirty kilometers my appetite is like a lion's), I slowly got ready, loaded the bags onto my steel horse, put the keys on the table, and set off towards my main goal - Makhtesh Ramon.
Makhtesh means "crater", but not one created by a meteorite impact or a volcanic eruption, as usual, but an erosional one, washed out by that very flash flood – a wadi. Considering that the dimensions of the Ramon crater are 8 by 40 kilometers, that must have been quite a flood! A titan must have taken a leak.
However, I hadn't reached the crater yet, nor was I rushing to it - my goal for today was the small (5000 people) tourist town of Mitzpe Ramon, which is located nearby. The interesting things there are the largest astronomical observatory in Israel, and an alpaca farm, which I'll talk about later.
In total, I rode 76 kilometers that day with an elevation gain of over a kilometer. Not bad, considering that more than half the journey was done with the bags.
As you remember, we've already seen similar sculptures
A new subspecies of bus stop, the holes have gotten bigger in size. Way bigger
Sometimes you ride in a karst gorge
I wasn't lazy and turned off to the observation deck
I had to climb about 100 meters in elevation, but it was worth it!
Beautiful and interesting (if you know Hebrew)
I decided I was pretty fed up with asphalt, and it was high time for an adventure
I headed right along the sand, especially since there was a sign by the road saying "ancient cisterns". While I lingered, some pros on fancy road bikes flew past and shouted asking if I needed help.
Here they are, the cisterns, hollowed right out of the rock
They're growing strains with high THC content experimental weeds, please don't trample
Oh, the horror – a water obstacle! As usual in Israel, to avoid it, you just need to step aside a couple of meters
The road is not bad, seen worse
Turns out, I charged right through the exact same dangerous firing zone. Achtung!
A little donkey peacefully grazes near the towers of a correctional facility
Another subspecies of bus stop, surrounded for some reason by danger signs on all sides
Decided to master the newfangled genre – the selfie
Evening is falling, my strength has ebbed – the sixtieth kilometer, after all
Evening falls, it's getting cold. The road goes uphill, and I'm already at an altitude of 800 meters
An airfield under construction
It was getting dark when I rode up to the right street. My host, a guy named Igal, was getting ready for an evening jog, which he went ahead with after letting me inside. As it turned out, he lives in a huge garage, or rather a whole complex of garages, which you could even call hangars – they're just that massive. Igal's friend later told me that the owner planned to make a school in the hangars for children with developmental delays, but the project is still in progress, and until then he let his buddies live here. It ended up being almost a squat – amenities are sparse, holes in the walls, the shower is in the next-door garage, dust and torn walls everywhere, but in return, there's a constant stream of different new crowds, fun, and nobody sweats over anything. Friends of friends of my friends, surfers, and all that stuff.
You can tell right away, he's one of us
My sleeping spot
The “Living room”
In the main room, it's quite comfortable – a bunch of armchairs and sofas. It gets chilly in the evening, though, because the wind blows through, and there is no heating. I hadn't brought a warm sweater with me (although I thought I had), but Igal's friend named Yehuda lent me a jacket. This name reminded me of some interesting facts.
Our hometown of Daugavpils is connected to Israel in a curious way. First of all, the most famous person hailing from Daugavpils – one of the most expensive artists in the world, Mark Rothko, is Jewish by nationality. Many people know this, good thing they recently splashed out on a huge Rothko Center, complete with a couple of originals.
But here's a much lesser-known fact, yet no less interesting – in Dinaburg lived and studied Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the man thanks to whom Hebrew was revived and moved from the status of dead exotic languages into the practical realm. His motto was: "Ivri, daber ivrit!" Hebrew !עברי, דבר עברית ("Jew, speak Hebrew!").
In 1908 he wrote in the newspaper "HaZvi":
For any endeavor, only one wise and energetic person is needed, ready to put all their effort into it, and the endeavor will move forward, despite any obstacles... For every innovation, for every, even the smallest step on the path of progress, a pioneer who knows no retreat is necessary.
Golden words!
Another angle, with my bike
The shower is in the adjacent garage, which also serves as a storage for all sorts of stuff
The shower is here, it's electric
The inner courtyard between the adjacent garages is enclosed by a fence
Igal didn't really speak English, though from his heated discussions with Yuda (Yehuda), I figured out that he's quite the extrovert. As it turned out, they are both originally from Jerusalem, and in Mitzpe Ramon, Igal works on a farm. Yuda, meanwhile, is studying at university to be an engineer – he proudly showed me how he is learning to program in C. He writes the programs with a pen in a checkered notebook, and only then transfers them to the computer; it's funny, but solid. The guys and I chatted a bit about tourism, which they aren't strangers to, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other hot topics. Yuda, by the way, knows Arabic. Why? "A useful skill in Israel."
I must say that in all the dwellings I had the honor to visit, they gave me not only the Wi-Fi password without any fuss, but also offered me the use of the computer as I saw fit. And the fridge too. A shortage of food products wasn't observed among the hosts either; rather, an excess of them was discovered, so I didn't hesitate to annihilate the extra organics using my teeth and stomach. Naturally, I offered my food resources as well, but they didn't interest the local population. That is, apart from the Latvian sprats, which I brought on purpose as a gift and left for Nathan and Vartan). I try to unload at least a tiny souvenir onto each host, just to slightly increase the amount of good and cooperation in the world.