Day 29: Tuesday, May 20, Tel Arad and the Negev

Watching the sun rise over the Dead Sea, this time without several hundred American college students to ruin the peace and quiet.

Today we visited Tel Arad and wandered the Negev. First, however, I got up with a couple of others and watched the sun rise over a formation that looks like a mini Grand Canyon. I’m surprised that it doesn’t get any press, because I think it is a more interesting formation than Masada. I don’t know if it’s ancient or the result of some recent Dead Sea changes. It definitely has strata, and the way it flakes it definitely seems to have a high mineral content. (I thought rocks were really boring in middle school, which I now regret.)

The Bible talks a lot about "sitting in the gates" of a city. I decided to do just that.

It was then off to Arad. (“Tel” just means a hill with layers of ancient cities on it.) Arad was leveled by the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. More recently, Arad became a “development town” in the 1960’s. Development towns were originally set up as homes for Jews who emigrated. However, they didn’t integrate well with the rest of Israel, so Israel changed some incentives to give existing Jewish families incentives to move into these development towns. Arad was one of the first of these new development towns.

A shot of the strata from the morning's canyon. For comparison, that tall outcropping is probably forty feet tall.

We stopped at another wadi (spring) and hiked along it for a bit. The trees always grow over the water, so it is actually very nice to just walk in the shallow stream.

When we were done there we went to our “Bedouin camp” where we were to spend the night. I say that because I quickly realized this was a full-fledged tourist operation that happened to have camels and Bedouin running the show. [I was later told that it’s Israeli-owned and they just employ the guy.] I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but frankly I was a little disappointed. Bedouins these days rarely move around for reasons I already discussed, and most of their places are shacks of corrugated metal. This place had big tents laid out in the traditional fashion, with concentric circles of mats that were both chairs while you were awake and beds at night. Our tent could probably have slept 40 people. It had electricity, and right around the corner were the communal bathrooms/showers. It was like a hostel, except that each group had a massive tent instead of each person sleeping in their own room. We got a camel ride and then played some Frisbee and lazed around talking for the evening. I guess I had never paid attention to the way a camel walks, but I was fascinated by their feet – they splay out like gelatin pads when they walk on them in order to reduce the pressure and not sink into the sand.

For comparison, here is a real Bedouin dwelling we passed on the side of the road.

The whole place had a Disney air to it – the buildings were nice, and the dirt floors were only there to keep the atmosphere. The only very non-Bedouin thing was the “party tent” – a tent blaring techno music that was basically the club. Our bus driver was having a good time. He travels with us and brought a suitcase, but I’m not sure why. He hasn’t changed his jeans and only seems to have two shirts. You smell him every time you get onto the bus.

I did, however, really enjoy our host. He was Bedouin, but had gotten a degree in music at Tel Aviv University and had been to the U.S. three times. He spoke excellent English and explained about Bedouin customs for a bit and played some on a lute-like instrument. I would have loved to talk with him except that he had to make the rounds and talk to all of the tents. Apparently a lot of people come during the evening, then their group leaves at 3am to drive to/hike Masada as the sun rises.

We also got a new tour guide. I’ll wait and see how it works out, because he’s very different from our departing tour guide. He’s in his late 20’s as opposed to his mid 60’s, for one thing. Our other guide was incredibly knowledgeable, but he also didn’t “read people” very well and was oblivious to some unspoken group sentiments. Our new guide seems to be the opposite. I’ll call him Jethro, just because that was the first Hebrew name that popped into my head.

Jethro knew he wanted to make aliya (come to Israel) since he was in high school. He struck a deal with his dad that he could move over here once he graduated from college. He graduated from Columbia with an English major, if I remember correctly. I asked him why he moved here and he just said he felt like he was home here. He said NYC was all stressed, busy people who equate money with success. Here he can just be himself. “Himself” is a huge movie buff with a quick laugh. He generally echoed our previous guide on issues of Israeli/Palestinian relations, foreign policy, etc. However, he had a different approach that I can’t quite describe. Maybe it was the difference between a older man whose views had hardened versus a younger man with the same views, but who was more willing to listen to another side even if he still disagreed with them after the discussion.

I saw a field with what looked like cotton growing on dried plants. Turns out it was thousands of bleached-white snail shells. Check out this snail-covered dead grass.

He echoed one complaint that I have heard a lot: red tape. Israel’s bureaucracy is notorious for red tape. He told about having to get his name legally changed on his national ID because his mom’s maiden name on his card didn’t match that in some other database, and a bank wouldn’t give him a loan because of it.

He also said that there are two Talmuds, a Babylonian version and a Jerusalem version. They are pretty much the same, but most everyone uses the Babylonian one because it is more reader-friendly. I got the idea that the Jerusalem one is more terse and more open to interpretation, whereas the Babylonian one is a little more wordy but consequently easier to understand.