Wednesday - at Mizpeh Ramon in the middle of the Negev desert

On Wednesday morning, we woke up at our youth hostel in Mizpeh Ramon to a light drizzle which later turned into a significant rain.   More on this later.  The most important relevant fact is that most of the region was rained on yesterday and this morning, causing many of the best hiking trails to be slippery and dangerous.  So we greatly reduced our hiking today, and after breakfast, left for the Visitors' Center.

Mizpeh Ramon has a Visitors' Center which focuses on two important themes.

The first is the late astronaut Ilan Ramon.  I have been unable to establish any relationship between the city of Mizpeh Ramon, and the astronaut Ilan Ramon, other than their name.  Ilan Ramon grew up near Tel Aviv with a different last name; when he joined the Israeli Air Force, he changed his name to sound more Israeli.   That said, the people of Mizpeh Ramon appear to have adopted him as a native son.

Ilan Ramon is important because he was the first Israeli astronaut.  While he was not an observant Jew, he chose to become observant while on the Space Shuttle Columbia.  He ate kosher food  and observed the Sabbath (not easy when sundown happens every hour and a half rather than once per day).  He died with six other astronauts when the Columbia burned up in re-entry.



We then learned about the Makhtesh Ramon.  Like the Large Makhtesh which we saw yesterday as we hiked up and down the Big Fin, it was created in a unique geological way over a period of about 200 million years.  The result is an exposed wall of sedimentary rock of different types from different eras.  We can see green layers which clearly contain copper, red layers which probably contain iron, and others.  The geologic movements of continental plates pushed the layers up, down, and sideways.  Over time, erosion washed out some of soft sandstone containing the bottom layer, causing a collapse in the middle of the mountain and exposing its walls.

 

Having seen several presentations about the geologic formations, we set out to explore Makhtesh Ramon the best that we could.   Here are some pictures showing the beautiful sights:

Our driver Hani

 


Having explored the parts of the Makhtesh nearby we continued through the desert.  And it started raining again.   Then it REALLY started raining again.  We came to a place where a few other cars had stopped.  A waterfall was developing.   While we were there, it became more powerful.  Look at the pictures below - and consider that the average YEARLY rainfall for this area is somewhere around 3-6 inches.  Several of us hiked a few dozen meters up to get closer to the waterfall.  The selfie is not a great picture - but I can't resist sharing it.

  






There were Israeli soldiers and tour guides also stopped along with us.  Many of them used the same words - "this is the opportunity of a lifetime".

We left the waterfall and continued into the desert.   At one point, a local ranger advised us that the road was closed ahead due to expected flooding.   We continued on a different route, and found the flooding anyway.   Hani was awesome in driving around and through puddles and getting us back onto a main road.

We got out of the rain and back into the real desert.   Our next stop as a wall with Ammonite fossils.  Ammonites were a marine life form that existed some time during the Devonian and Cretaceous eras (thanks Wikipedia!) ending 66 million years ago.  So the Negev hasn't always been a desert!  The name is because the horn-shaped fossils somewhat resemble the rams' horns worn by the Egyptian god Ammon.  The visible fossils are embedded in a cliff.  Our guide Asaf told us that there used to be more fossils in the wall; but tourists may have taken some home.
 

Our hikers had fun also, inspecting the local plant life:
  

Our last stop was an unusual rock formation called "HaMinsara", or "the Carpentry Shop".  Near the top of a hill are numerous rocks that look like they were created in a carpentry shop.   Some are in the shape of a brick or a piece of lumber.   Others look like tiling on a mosaic floor - except that at the edge of the "mosaic" you can see that the tiles are many inches or even feet tall.  The rocks are sandstone which melted and then cooled during geologic processes forming the quartzite prisms which can be seen today.
 

 



Other than touring Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, this was our first day without a difficult hike.  The rain made it far too treacherous to try hiking up or down the steep trails we've done for most of the trip.   However, seeing this rain in the Negev Desert made it well worth it!  We have seen a phenomenon which may not be repeated for many years, even decades.