More pictures of a day of adventure

And the day continues



That is where I just rappelled! It was Sababa! ( awesome in Hebrew)


An ibex at the bottom of the cliff


Looking for sand dunes. That's our car in the backround. We know they are here somewhere .....


Dunes!


Rolling....


Rolling


Jeff rolling


Arrived at rock canyon


A trio


Whoa!


Suck it in


Almost there


Family photo

A day of Adventure !

Today was a day packed with an adrenaline rush! We started the day off rappelling off the side of the Ramon Crater. It was so much fun( actually a mixture of sheer terror and exhilaration )that I did it twice. After this morning jolt( better than coffee) we headed further into the Negev desert to the Kassui sand dunes where after a longer than expected hike off the main road we rolled down huge sand dunes like we were kids again. Needless to say ,when we were done rolling , we had sand everywhere,even where the sun doesn't shine. But we got our second adrenaline fix for the day. Continuing deeper into the desert, we came to Red Rock Canyon where we went on the best hike of the trip so far. We slid down narrow passages,climbed steep rocky canyon walls with huge cliffs only inches away from us.It was not only fun ,but beautiful as well with a new adventure at each turn.Rebecca said she felt like she was 10 years old playing on the rocks, sliding down slippery slides made of rock. It really was great.Again, a beautiful day with lots of adventure in the land of milk and honey.


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Getting geared up for rappellin


Learning the ropes...haha...I made a funny!


Here I go -first time








This is great!








Am I down yet?

Gamla

Today we started off with a new guide,Sara. She is a medical researcher in the endocrinology dept. She has worked on some chemotherapy including some estrogen blockers in various cancers. We tried not to talk shop. She has also been an archeologist and knows every flower and plant that grows in Israel and what it is used for.She knows her country inside out and is a fabulous guide in contrast to the one we had before .We went to Gamla in the Golan heights for some hiking .We started out hiking to a beautiful waterfall, one of the largest in Israel.The day is beautiful, sunny and about 70 degrees, great hiking weather.She pointed out a lot of new vegetation coming out after a dry summer and some fires last summer.We also went to the vulture observatory .Here in the Gamla they take care of sick vultures, mostly by poison used by farmers to try to protect their cattle and other animals from wolves and other animals in the wild.The vultures get accidentally poisoned when they eat the dead animals.The people who work at the Gamla in cooperation with Tel Aviv University have a rehab area here to take care of these sick vultures . The Gamla has the largest number of vultures in the whole middle east and they try to protect these birds from extinction.They collect the eggs laid by the females and keep them in a hatchery until they hatch since so few eggs can survive predators. They keep the babies in cages in Gamla for 3 years teaching them how to eat, then let them go. We saw several flying in the sky, but I couldn't get them on my camera, however Jeff did. The whole vulture drama was really interesting. We then hiked down another very steep and rocky path towards the ruins of the old village of Gamla which was destroyed in a very bloody battle with the Romans. The hike was 2 hours there and 2 back,but as sundown is at 4:30, we rsn out of daylight to complete the whole trip.Hiking all day was a lot of fun. We then drove through the Golan which belonged to Syria until 1967 a and they tried to reclaim it from the Israelis in 1973, but failed in a massive tank battle with leftover mines in the area . We were warned to stay on the hiking paths as last year a little boy lost his leg when he stepped on one of those old mines. After a great day full of information and great hiking we drove to Jerusalem to our next hotel, the beautiful and grand Dan Jerusalem on Mount Scopous. the 2 hour car ride was filled with political talk between Jeff and Sara.Fortunately they had similar views on Israeli politics in contrast to the last guide was a sharp contrast to Jeff's views.
It was a great day!






View of Gamla








The flower from this makes coumarin


Waterfall





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The Negev part 3

More pictures of the Negev Desert....



Going into the



tent for a bedouin lunch . These people wander the desert known for their hospitality. They also have multiple wives. This is another group from New York


Iyum


Rebecca looks happy, it's lunchtime


Here we go....


This was the camel behind me....he eventually chomped on my arm


several times


Our shadow on the camel


View from the camel ride






That's him again!

Location:דרך פעמי השלום,Eilat,Israel

The Negev part 2

More pictures of the Negev desert.....


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Hiking in Ein Advat..great hat


Canyons








Can't resist


Up we go


The top


Israeli school kids





Snake cave
See more pictures part 3

Into the Negev

We. Left Jerusalem early this morning and headed south into the Negev desert.Our first stop was at the caves of Bar Kochba in Hibreit Midras.These are caves that were manmade to hide out In. there are literally hundreds of caves, some you can crawl in , others are much to dangerous. We were told to stay on the path in case of unseen holes or caves. After hiking around here for an hour or so,and went further into the desert to a the beautiful Ein Avdat, a amazing series of canyons and pools. The hiking was amazing up stone and rock walls with really steep and scary cliffs. We saw some israeli school kids on a field trip. they were so full of excitement over some goats roaming the cliffs.After hiking here we went to experience a Bedouin lunch. These are nomads that live and eat in tents.We also went on a camel ride. It was fun but the camel behind me decided my arm looked tasty and started chomping on it. It hurt, but no injury.Another great day in the land of milk and honey.




The caves


-this is a carob tree


It is the male tree( obviously)


This is the female carob tress that bears the seeds


Carob fruit and seed. The seed is equal to one carat. They use to weight gold by weighing it with the seeds as the measurement


More caves





This cave had these holes dug out for pigeons. They were used for their eggs, poop( for fertilizer) and as food- pigeons are kosher!


A type of finch at the entrance to Ein Avdat

See more pictures on The Negev part 2