Hannuka isn’t just candles, dreidles and latkes – it’s also a week long school vacation. We started it with a day up in the Golan Heights, followed by a day in Tel Aviv. We’re trying to make plans for the rest of the holiday, wondering whether we’ll stay at home and try to work, or summon up our nerves and actually go out with the kids to visit the Dead Sea and Massada.
The weather forecast sent us out heading south. The storms and heavy rains meant the Dead Sea area was off (there’s a danger of flooding there), so we decided to go for the Negev Desert instead. Four days later we’re back with lots of wonderful memories and nice pictures to share.
First Day – Makhtesh Ramon
We headed out driving through road six for a couple of hours, then through Be’er Sheva all the way down to Mitzpe Ramon. The only town that resides by Makhtesh Ramon.
Makhtesh means crater, and the Ramon Crater is a unique geological phenomenon. Located about 80 kilometers south of Be’er Sheva, it was created by geological movements combined with natural erosion (no meteors in this story). It’s the largest of its kind, over 40 kilometers long and contains a huge variety of geological strata and formations.
First stop was at the gas station, where we noticed one of the tires got a huge bump and had to be replaced -
Right next to the gas station was the Ramon Visitors Center (hardly surprising, considering how tiny the town is), so this is where we went to next. It was a very hazy day outside – so the panoramic view from the center wasn’t available – and we settled for enjoying the exhibits and the movie.
The Visitors Center included a zoological center. We didn’t get to see its open area, and just visited the small animals area -
It was getting late and the haze made it look even darker, so we headed to the Be’erot campsite at the bottom of the crater, where we set up our tent. It’s a fairly basic campsite, where you can set your tent under a “roof” of dry palm branches, or like we did, in a large stone walled circle.
The campsite was not that crowded, but too noisy for us, as a large group of teenagers was there for the night as well. It had what we needed though – running water, hot showers and clean toilets, so we were happy. We brought a gas cooker with us, but it broke down so we had to cook our dinner on an open fire. I made noodles for the kids and a rice and chickpeas dish for us.
Day 2 – Eilat
We started our morning with a visit to Ein Saharonim. A nice little spot in Makhtesh Ramon that actually has some water puddles in the winter, so local wild animals can sometimes be seen there. We didn’t get to see any animals, but we did visit the ancient Roman campsite -
Our original plan was different, but we didn’t want to roam the desert with no spare tire, so we headed for the next big city – Eilat. On the way we stopped at Kibbutz Yotvata, the Israeli capital of chocolate milk. Dan was very impressed with their huge selection of flavored milk drinks and both boys enjoyed the cows.
Eilat is just half an hour away from Yotvata and once we reached it, we had a new tire within 30 minutes. We decided to make the most of it and visit the one attraction we (ok, the kids. Ok, and me.) wanted to see. So off we went to the underwater observatory for a few hours.
The feeding session was accompanied with setting up an underwater Hannukia/Menorah. The diver didn’t actually light up the candles, but the kids ad a blast watching the little candles get loose and float up, with the diver trying to grasp them and hook them back into the hannukia.
The kids loved the underwater observatory itself, where you can watch the surrounding reef.
And we also sailed in the glass boat, which didn’t exactly have a glass bottom like I thought it would. It’s more like its underwater part is shaped like a little narrow bus. The water was hazy due to high waves the previous day, but the sail itself was a lot of fun.
In the screening of the shark-themed we met a kid from Ron’s class. Turns out his family was doing a very similar trip to ours, so we decided to meet again the next day.
More about the rest of our trip in my next post!
