A Local's Guide to the Negev Highlands.
The ultimate and complete guide for visitors to the Negev – everything you need to know to fully experience the Negev Highlands
I wrote a separate post about the Albert Promenade (the red line on the map), a scenic walk that runs the length of Mitzpe Ramon along the rim of the makhtesh, a one hour hike, and I mentioned in that post that this walk has an extension that leaves the town behind and runs through a sculpture park. I referred to it as the fifth stretch. Well, this is it (orange line on the map).
We see things we like, things that catch our fancy and sometimes we want to take them home with us. Our guestrooms are littered with them.
This is one of those hikes (like Sculpture Park, Ein Akev, Nahal Haverim or Har Tzaror) that don’t require a car. You leave the guesthouse, walk for 15 minutes to the start of Karkash and describe what is roughly a circle, it’s a one and a half hour excursion.
The fastest road to go from our guesthouse to the Dead Sea is via Yeruham and Dimona (in blue on the map). It will take you an hour and twenty minutes to reach Ein Bokek. A bit more if you are going to Ein Gedi or Massada. But fastest doesn’t always mean the most interesting.
From time immemorial, there was a demand in Europe for spices and precious items from the East. The only route (via Yemen) to Europe (via Gaza) was overland, across 2200 km of empty desert as there was no economic sea route.
Shivta is one of five ruins in Israel’s Negev desert [along with Mamshit, Avdat, Tel Nitzana and Halutza] that were built and inhabited by the Nabateans from 500 BCE to 700 CE. These cities grew in strength and prosperity over 1200 years, and then they died, all of them and all at around the same time.
