As part of the Fulbright excursion, we took a jeep ride through the Negev desert, guided by Bedouins. We will never again look at a desert landscape and think that it is barren. The Bedouins make use of EVERYTHING in the desert. They can find water in the most inhospitable environment and they make use of every plant and animal. They even use animal scat as fuel for fires (it is so dry in the desert that the poop is dehydrated and has no odor.) Our driver’s name was Jabber. He did not speak any English, but he was so passionate about the desert and the Bedouin way of life, that he had no difficulty communicating with us (it also helped that we had someone to translate his Hebrew.) Even if we hadn’t had a translator we would have understood most of what he was saying because he was so animated (while he was driving!) The photos below pretty much say it all.
View from a mountain top overlooking the Dead Sea. Just a few minutes ago we were driving on that road down there. Now we are on top getting ready to head into the desert.
Another view from the top, about to enter the Negev desert. Below you can see I-90, a major N/S road through Israel and the West Bank.
Getting ready to head into the desert. One jeep was open-air, two were covered and one was air-conditioned. We rode in one of the covered jeeps – the best choice in our opinion. Riding in the open would have been too hot and sunny, and riding in an air-conditioned jeep would have prevented us from hearing and smelling the desert.
Our driver. He was very smart and a lot of fun. The more we egged him on the more he gave us some thrill rides, i.e. up a steep mountain and stopping just before we headed down the other side!
Desert landscape – early morning sun.
More of the Negev. A few hours later. Early afternoon lighting.
The Fulbright group.
Some of the driving was not for the faint of heart. But the views were amazing – unlike anything we had ever seen before. A small number of folks were afraid of heights or had motion-sickness and I don’t think they had as good a time as the rest of us.
Water cisterns built by the Bedouin. The hole under the cistern taps into a natural spring and the trough on the top traps rainwater for herds of goats and sheep.
Lunch stop!
The black ridge that runs through the middle of this photo is a shale deposit. We saw many shale fields in the Negev. Likely oil underneath the ground.
One of our guides showing us how you can use a plant to wash your hands.
On the way out of the desert and back down to the Dead Sea, we saw this wild male Ibex goat.
A Dead Sea sink hole. There are thousands of them along the banks and they are very dangerous. The sink holes have formed because Israel and Jordan are diverting water that used to flow into the Dead Sea from the Jordan river. As the Dead Sea recedes, rainwater washes down from the surrounding mountains and dissolves the age-old salt and mineral deposits that line the banks. This opens up large underground caves which are dangerous because in many places the earth still looks normal on top until some unsuspecting hiker steps on it or drives over it.