BARREN GROUND - a trek in the Western Sinai E-Tih desert, the “Desert of Getting Lost” (Copy)

note: the photographs in this chapter are not from the E-Tih desert but from the Negev in Israel

BARREN GROUND - a trek in the E-Tih desert in western Sinai, the “Desert of Getting Lost”

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To the Bedouin, who know it intimately, the hamada desert is probably not an amorphous space – there are clear directions and goals, there is an intricate web of well-traveled trails crisscrossing the plains, like veins running through the body. There are camel paths, pilgrimage routes, trade routes of caravans carrying spices and turquoise. They follow ways that are laid down by the landscape – from water source to water source, seeking out the milder slopes, bypassing a waterfall, crossing at the lowest place between high peaks - a mountain pass. These desert dwellers seem to be attuned to the large expanses of seeming emptiness, while noticing the wealth of nuances along the way that are invisible to those of us who are not from the desert.

 Khader, our Bedouin guide, or dalil, an old, wrinkled man with a glassy eye and a perennial cough, certainly knows where he is taking us, even if it appears to me that we are walking through an unending expanse of nothingness.

 After about ten exceedingly long kilometers, he resolutely makes a turn to the left in the middle of nowhere, and we find ourselves descending into a wadi that has not been visible before. It is another hot, dry day and again the body is threatening to defeat the spirit.

 We eat our lunch at the foot of a dry waterfall with scant shade at its base, the basins of its large pools empty and uninspiring, then continue on another long, hot walk, when the view suddenly opens up and in the hazy distance lies the broad riverbed of Wadi Abu Gjada, carved deeply into the highland plains. Its dark, rugged banks, silhouetted in the late hours of the day, are finally beginning to lift my spirit, after the oppressive trudging through the brown, fiery landscape. Another hot day is redeemed at the scattered light of dusk.

FEAR OF THE FALL

6.  FEAR OF THE FALL

     a hike to the Barak gorge in Israel’s Negev Desert

note: the photographs in this chapter are from different hikes in the deserts of Israel

And now it is my turn to lose that carefree attitude once more. In front of me is the descent into the Barak gorge – a path snaking its way down to the very bottom of the waterfall from which we had just peered down. I must gather myself together, shift into the gear of self-reliance. I must convince myself that I can trust my own body, that I am agile and well-coordinated. That, through the years, I have become an experienced hiker, that I have good boots with gripping soles and there is no reason in the world why I should fall. I tell myself that this path is sufficiently wide and well-trodden, unlike the crumbling hill we had surmounted earlier, that there will be no tricky spots ahead, because it is a marked and thus officially endorsed trail. It has stood the test of many hikers before me. So why should I, of all people, be the one to fall?

Still, it is good to have Ellen nearby. Precisely because she does not take charge of me that I am able to reassemble the shards of my self-confidence. Earlier, in my outburst of panic, I had blindly entrusted my safety to Avi, relinquishing all responsibility for myself. Going down with Ellen - a woman - I start to rely on my own inner resources.

INSCRIBED IN THE BODY - a hike in the Mountains of Eilat (Copy)

5. INSCRIBED IN THE BODY

    a hike in the mountains of Eilat  

note: the photographs in this chapter are from a different hike in the Eilat Mountains, several years later

 Slowly, I find my way through the gorge, brushing off the sand from the grainy walls with dimpled textures, as if formed by fingers imprinting themselves into soft clay. It is still not quite light, I am barely awake, and I am tunneling through the narrow passage without having to make an effort. My movements are practically dictated by the protrusions and curving spaces and I find myself returning to forgotten modes of locomotion I outgrew long ago – the instinct to crawl, or to slither on my belly, like a snake.

 Before long, I am thrust into a dreamlike state, as if hovering underwater, with the warm liquid substance enveloping my skin, buzzing in my ears, cutting me off from the world above. I am cuddling up in the hollows, hugged by the rounded bellies of soft, powdery rock that stir up sensations from a distant past.