Day Twenty Five

Morning comes after a cold night and there is frost in the tent. This means it will be a lil before we can head out. The tent needs to dry out. As soon as the sunrises it will take less then a half hour. I make some coffee and do some yoga to get the day started right. After breakfast I pack up and we head out. It’s about a five kilometer hike until we reach the base of the Karboloet. Karbololet in Hebrew is the top of a roosters head. This red up and down thing-a-ma-jig. Its an appropriate name, for that is what this hike is all about. The Karbolet is the outer rim of Machtesh HaGadol. When we first arrive we see what we think is a short cut, we climb up the outer crust of the machtesh only to find a dead end and a waste of 45 min and a lot of energy, but it was fun. I recommend just staying on the trail! The hike leads us into a deep ravine filled with swimming holes and we take a quick dip in one of them. We hike all the way up until we arrive at the edge of the crater, its literally a few hundred meters down on either side of the ridge and the wind is blowing strong. We stop for a break and enjoy the view. David is the perfect guy to hike with. He understands the beauty of being alone in the desert and to walk with G-d. We split up for the day to meet back up at night camp. I go first as I am a faster hiker. The trail is just breath taking but as the hours go by and the kilometers stack up I get tired and find myself cursing the mountain every time I get down on hogback, just to find there is another one to ascend! This happens about seven or eight times!! At the end of the hike I arrive to a phosphate factory were you can re-up with water from the faucets there. I was beat down by the days hike. I had blisters all over my feet and my whole body was in pain. Just then I meet a man by the name of Yitzy who invites me into the factory for some coffee. We get to talking and the next thing I know he’s cooking me up a steak. Awesome. I ask to use the facilities shower and enjoy my first hot shower in two weeks! I leave refreshed and full just in time to meet up with David, who I saved some steak for. We hitchhike a few kilometers with a Bedouin to a place were one of David’s friends company is providing food for a 100+ high school kids out in nature. I eat even more food and drink a few glasses of wine that was there for the staff that they offered me. Needless to say I slept great that night.