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
For the last twenty years, the mere mention of Mitzpe Revivim would send me into a fit of mild depression. Not that the place in itself was depressing, as a matter of fact, quite the opposite, but because it was always closed.
Har Karkom is a mystery. While it makes no doubt it was a major paleolithic worship place,
some believe it to be the Mountain of God, one of about 12 contendants to the title of Mount Sinai.
Ein Zik is an oasis located in a horseshoe valley surrounded on three sides by towering cliffs. Rainwater runs down and through the cliffs and is trapped in this basin close to the surface, a large, soggy underground lake (the technical name for this is ‘layer spring’). The Israel trail goes through it.
Ein Yorkeam is a very easily accessible water spring situated right at the exit of the Big Crater of Yeruham. A 20 minutes drive from the guesthouse. The place is charming
Important update: before you venture to Mount Ramon, check that road 171 is open. Due to some flood damages; it was closed to civilian circulation in October 2022 and no date for reopen has been announced as far as I know. But repairs are scheduled.
Like the Albert Promenade and the Sculpture Park, this excursion to Mount Ramon and the Karnei Ramon viewpoint allows you to look down into the immense geological phenomenon which is the Ramon Makhteshm but this time, from the other extremity.
Anne and Pascal are a French couple, she is a psychologist, he a doctor, they have three teenage children and their lives are fairly intense as you can imagine.
The two of them have been coming to us every year for the past four years as a total escape. They stay on average for five nights, they come at different seasons, they are infinitely curious, they explore, they are delightful and we get on well with them. But when I received an email from Anne telling me that they had decided to come for ten days with the children in July, I almost panicked.
It is just that the bloggers have found new toys!
Annual June renovation job: the South African room is having a face lift. Like the others it will very soon have a kitchenette, bigger terrasse and a livingroom/sleeping area for children.
Har Avnon is a short stopover on your drive from our guesthouse to the Dead Sea. It is a lookout that allows you to see the Big Crater – recently renamed Yeruham Crater – (which you are about to cross) in its entirety. Of course it’s not actually a crater but you already know that.
To get to it,
Ezra Orion was a controversial Israeli artist. In 1988, at a meeting at NASA headquarters in Washington, he proposed erecting a line of stones on Mars using a space vehicle.
