Pictures of Mitzpe Romon Crater

Pictures of Mitzpe Romon Crater (See post titled "Ben Gurion's home, Avdat, Mitzpe Romon Crater)...

Ben Gurion's home, Avdat, Mitzpe Romon Crater

Monday, November 3rd, was our last full day with our rental car. Once again, we headed out about 8:30 am, heading south on Highway 40, the highway that winds its way through the desert from Be'er Sheva to Eilat on the southern coast. Highway 90 (See Dead Sea and Masada Post) is straighter, but that requires driving 1 hour east before turning south, and we weren't going all the way to Eilat anyway, just about half way, to Mitzpe Romon. First, we stopped after about 60 km. at Ben Gurion's home in Sde Boker. It is here that he "retired" to this kibbutz in the middle of the Negev desert. Even at nearly 80 years old in 1963, he insisted on working beside the laborers for 4 hours every morning. David Ben Gurion is the namesake of Ben Gurion University, among other things. He was both Israel's first prime minister, and also Defense Minister, serving from 1949-1953, and after a 2 year self-imposed sabbatical to recuperate from the stress of the job, came back, serving for another 8 years, from 1955-1963. He died at the age of 87 in 1973. His dream was that Israel's future lies in the Negev, which covers 2/3 or more of Israel's land area, yet comprises less than 10% of Israel's population. His read voraciously, as his library on his homestead demonstrates. He and his wife also lived very modestly. No pictures were allowed inside the house, unfortunately, so I can't show what it looked like. There was a living room, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, only one of which had a bathtub, and his library/office. He and his wife slept in separate rooms. His will decreed that the house remain exactly as he had left it, but Israel has added an adjacent museum, and, further away, a very small gift shop and wine tasting room. Surrounding the homestead is the active Kibbutz.

Next, we stopped at Ben Gurion and his wife's tomb, less than 5 km. further south, which afforded magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, as well as numerous ibexes, antelope-like animals. Then, we continued another 20 km. or so to Avdat National Park, the ancient Nabotean town, taken over in the 3rd century CE by the Romans, and repopulated briefly by the Byzantines from the 5th-7th centuries. It is an amazing site, one of several inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site which mark the ancient Spice Route from Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea at Gaza. It includes ruins of 2 Byzantine era churches, which have been determined to have been monostaries as well, a Roman fortress, remains of foundations of houses, a Roman watch tower, and several caves, as well as a burial ground, and the ruins of a Roman villa. Seeing everything requires the better part of a day. We were there about 2 hours.

Finally, we drove another 20 km. or so south to the Crater at Mitzpe Romon. This crater is an ancient inland sea, now dry, that is some 35 km. long by 25 km. wide. I imagine it is similar to the Grand Canyon, though I've never been there. An excellent Visitors Center offers outstanding views of the crater, as well as displays and a short film in English. After leaving the Visitors Center, we drove another 5 km. down into the crater and climbed up for another vantage point from the Carpenter's Trail, so named because the stones sort of look like 2x4 pieces of wood sticking straight up. Dawn's goal was to watch the sun setting, which we achieved, setting out for our return trip to Be'er Sheva at 5 pm, which was now 100 km. to the north and a 1 hr. 15 minute drive back.

Back in Be'er Sheva, we enjoyed excellent hamburgers at an American style hamburger place at BIG, the local strip mall of gigantic proportions. (Black's Burgers is not fast food, but premium burgers, a little like Fuddrucker's, but without the do-it-yourself toppings. We had a choice of 5 or so sauces to put on our burgers (ketchup, mustard, BBQ, Thousand Island, Chipotle), and added fried onions to our burgers as well as the standard fixins. No cheeseburgers, of course, though! I had a spinach-walnut-beef burger called a Green Burger. Huge!