Israel on a bike in February - Part 3 - Days 8-13

Bike trip to Israel 7-25 February 2015. Part 3. Days 8-13.

Part 1
Part 2

Day 8. February 15. Hatseva, 110 kilometers, Yotvata

We reached Hatseva last night and looked for the camping where Shkedi's owner told us his brother would let us put our tent. After riding around and asking around for a while we stopped at a local hostel where we found a family having dinner. No sight of staff. After looking around we finally found this hostel's owner. Another nice and helpful person, somehow he understood what place we were looking for, turns out he knew the brother and called him. He then explained us how we can reach this place and showed us on a map the exact location which we needed to get to. He also kindly allowed us to use his kitchen and rest before heading to that campsite.

After having cooked dinner (hummus, as usual, peppers, something else (most likely some pasta)) we took a table outside. Suddenly the brother appears! He was worried we wouldn't find his place and decided to ride on his e-bike to get us. After finishing dinner we rode together to his campsite.

Nice of him to come get us! It was impossible to find this place on our own in the dark. We biked by some more pepper greenhouses and finally we were there. He doesn't advertise it much yet, so now he hosts only Israelis, and there were no visitors that day. He offered us not to set up our tent but instead take one of the huts. Still my travel buddy put up the tent inside the hut for some additional warmth while I just slept on the bed near the heater. Before bed we had a nice long hot shower.

Early in the morning we were on the road again. My companion has been having troubles with his knees for a while at that point (in the first few days while were a bigger group he and another guy were always biking till the very end of steep hills all heroic, putting to much strain on their knees - don't do this, or you'll end up out of service for a while). Today he was feeling better and we agreed to bike a longer distance. I expected to do at least 80 kilometers daily to see if I'm capable of it, train etc. As this didn't happen I wanted to do a longer distance at least once. Plan was to reach Yotvata, which is 110 kilometers away. 

The road was very flat and we rode fast easily, with some wind blowing in our backs helping us more. This was pretty enjoyable. Still, going up and down hills is more exciting, flatness can get a bit boring.

Isn't that cute, putting up these decorations on a pile of sand (rocks?). While it can be argued that this might be dangerous, distracting drivers... it's much better than billboards.

Passing by more creative decorations

Finally we reached Yotvata. Well, the name of the place we reached was Yotvata Park  and we expected a nice park there. No park. We set up camp in the outskirts among some trees. Suddenly some army guys appeared from the dark. O, no! They are going to tell us to leave. But they didn't.

Instead they asked what we were doing there. We are travelling by bikes, camping, you know. After hearing that they wished us good night and told us to let them know if we need anything by flashing lights next time they come around. Nice altruists yet again. You guys want some food or water, they asked. My buddy said that some water would be nice, and they returned with some. They even gave him some candy.

Day 9. February 16. Eilat and our first couchsurfing with a positive guy named Liran.

In the morning after having breakfast and some sunbathing we were on our way to Eilat. We planned to stop by Timna park (going to try to get in for free :) This park wasn't too appealing to us to pay for entrance something like 50 shekels. It was basically just a bunch of various rocks, which we saw enough of by then.

Beautiful sites along the way. The road goes alongside Jordan border and it was notable how different mountains were on different sides of the road.

Park Timna turned out to be quite a boring place from what we've seen in the booklet at the entrance. Not willing to pay or seeing various rocks and feeling lazy to try to get in for free (we were told later that one could easily enter after counters close at around 4 p.m. and even spend the night) we decided to continue our ride to Eilat.

Soon we reached it. Resort town. Hotels and the Red Sea. We arranged to surf a local guy's couch for three nights, changing our routines a bit and taking a rest from camping. Liran, our host, was a hotel manager and he was working late that night. We ate in a cafe near the beach and took some sun beds afterwards, getting pretty sleepy and taking out our sleeping bags later (it was still quite chilly at night). I even took a nap for a couple hours.

Liran appeared as promised around 1 a.m., took our bags and we rode uphill alongside his car to his apartment (thoughtful of him to take our bags: this hill was very steep, and our condition at that point wasn't the best for biking up with all our gear). He turned out to be a very nice positive person, which of course was to be expected based on his Couchsurfing reviews.

Days 10-11. February 17-18. Staying in Eilat. Migdalor Beach. Cyclists from Saint-Petersburg.

We had a very nice sleep this night. Liran was very proud of his guest bed, praising it and telling us how it was "the best bed of Eilat". It was pretty great indeed, with some nice morning views of the mountains and the sea.

Our wonderful host motivated us to join his morning workout routine (you can see he doesn't skip it much). By the way, it seems like everyone in Israel takes care of their bodies: people on the streets all seem to be in a pretty good shape. I guess it's injected in people during their army service.

So he was off to work and we went exploring.

We went to look at different beaches (it's a resort city after all, what else is there to do?) to choose one for spending the next day on (weather was supposed to be pretty nice, and today it was a bit gloomy).

Here's the northern one.

I stayed there for some time while my companion went to take care of some personal business. And here's what I was looking at:

There were 15 cars at the peak of it! The fisherman gave them fish every several minutes or so, and he seemed to make sure that it's all fair and each one gets something. He soon finished and we talked for a while (even though I kind of frown upon catching fish as entertainment/sport... cats should get their own fish is they want it). It turned out this was his first time catching fish. Got this fishing rod just this morning, 50 shekels - 50 fish! I guess each cat got enough :)

My companion returned and we went to the south beach next, Migdalor. I read that you could freely set up tent there (in case we weren't able to arrange couchsurfing).

It's located about 10 kilometers awat from Eilar's town center. We arrived, set on the beach for a bit. Slava, my companion, went to look around and came back in a while saying: "Come. I met those Saint-Petersburg guys!" (interestingly, I told him on our way to Eilat at some point that I wouldn't be surprised if we met those guys (who came with us on the same plane) in Eilat).

We chatted, went to the beach and looked at the fish. Agreed to come back next day and swim and look at the fish again. On our way back to Eilar we decided to stay on that beach for the next two nights: waiting till 1 a.m. for our host to come from work was a bit hard for us, and also, why go back and forth?

Days 12-13. February 19-20. The Red Sea and weather's hostages.

In the morning we went to Migdalor again. Swam for a bit (water was still quite cold), looked at corals and fish. Everyong went up the rock, but I was a bit tired of all this rock scenery and decided to rest, have lunch and read. Reading turned out to be quite a good way to have some personal time on that trip. 

Next day our fellow countrymen were going back with an early morning bus (they were heading for a kibbutz where friend of one of them lived) and we planned to start a bit later and try to hitchhike to Jerusalem (I read that hitchhiking was very popular in Israel and this was supposed to be quite feasible - we saw many pickup trucks on the road, so why not try?)

I arranged a stay in Jerusalem with a guy from Couchsurfing before we left Saint-Petersburg (was looking for companions to go south with (as my first plan was to do it alone after we came back from the north) and he offered help if I need a place to stay or to leave my bike). We were supposed to come on 21st of February. But there were some bad news: it might have been imposisble to reach the city. They had unexpected amount of snow falling a few days prior, and roads were closed. We didn't quite get why the roads were closed there, and then someone told us that these weren't roads entering the city, but the highway going near the Dead Sea: the roads were flooded there. And most took this highway to reach Jerusalem. We hoped the situation got better now.

We left  Eilat, went about 30 kilometers and started trying to get a ride. No one seemed to care, but then after a while a pickup truck stopped. "Finally", we thought, but it turned out the man was picking up his daughter. They said that roads were closed and that there was no point to look for a ride today. We might try taking another route and reach Beer Sheva by bus, and then go from there. So they called the bus company and they said that there were no buses today.

So we decided to come back to Migdalor and try our luck next day. What didn't help is that it was sabbath that day (starting friday evening and ending saturday after dark, during which time everything is closed and no one works). I read that first buses after sabbath tend to be hard to get tickets for. Well, we'll see how it goes. We were hopeful that we would reach Jerusalem by the end of next day.

Part 4