Beersheva

Pesach Break served as a time to travel, since I don't really have any other chances to do it before I leave Israel. I've already posted about my trip to Tzfat; my second trip was only a day trip, but in some ways it seemed even bigger.

I wanted to go to Beersheva for what seemed like the coolest shuk in the entire country:

On the south side of Beersheba, in Elat Road (Derekh Elat), the Bedouin market is held every Thursday. It is frequented by Bedouin from far and wide, and its colorful bustle of activity attracts many tourists. The main wares of interest to visitors are carpets, finely embroidered cushions and camel saddles, copperware and numerous other craft products; the local people, on the other hand, come to buy articles of clothing, domestic requisites, skins and also live goats and hens. (from this site)

Other descriptions mention the sale of camels and sheep, which I just think is cool. I mean, it's not like I'm going to buy a camel and bring him home with me, but I've never seen a place where they're sold before. There's also a place near Beersheva where you can ride camels, so it seemed like the ideal trip--that is, until my usual travel luck took over.

Lynley and I got up early on Thursday, ate some matzah for breakfast, and headed to the Central Bus Station for the hour and a half ride to Beersheva. We made it there by 10 and walked to where the Bedouin Market was supposed to be, only there wasn't really a market. Instead there was this city festival thing with exhibitions, food vendors, music, and kids' crafts, which wasn't quite what we'd come to see (and also not particularly up and running at 10:30am). There was one Bedouin guy who set up shop--a tent and a bunch of stuff spread out--but that was it.

(Photo courtesy of Lynley)

One tip about Bedouin markets: never ask the price of something that you have no intention of purchasing. Curiosity may not kill you, but it will sic a very persistent salesperson on you who won't leave you alone until you either buy something or walk away--and in my case walking away wasn't an option, as Lynley was partaking in some hooka and pretending to be a dragon:

Actually, smoking hooka in a Bedouin tent might not be such a good idea either. Bedouin salespeople can be very creepy. The same guy who pushed me to buy also insisted on sitting down next to us and attempting to persuade Lynley to marry him for a full five minutes, or until we left--and I'm pretty sure he was serious.

Apparently Lynley has "magical eyes," though he'd used that line on me not five minutes before as a bargaining tool. (Bedouin markets also mean haggling. Bigtime. I paid 1/3 of the originally offered price for what I bought, and I still think I was probably ripped off.)

After we left the Bedouin Market--what there was of it--we headed down to the Beersheva Visitor's Center, which is located near Abraham's Well. This is where we discovered that Beersheva really isn't a tourist place. The visitor's center was just a small room with a few pamphlets, all in Hebrew except for one random pamphlet in French. The only English in the entire place was a misspelled sign next to Abraham's Well, which you have to pay 5NIS to see:

In actuality that's not really Abraham's well but rather a Turkish one, and there are no signs of explanation anywhere other than the Biblical verses. How was the well discovered? When? What's the wooden thing for and how does it work? No explanations anywhere. A bit disappointing.

After visiting the really unhelpful visitor's center we headed for lunch in the old city. Beersheva is supposed to be "the heart of the Negev," and if Beersheva is the heart of the Negev, the old city should reasonably be the heart of the heart--which is the case in both Jerusalem and Tzfat, the other Israeli cities I know that have old cities. Wrong! The old city of Beersheva was like a ghost town. Most of the restaurants were closed for Pesach, the buildings were run-down and graffitied, and the only people we saw were a few blue-collar workers, one of whom seemed to be chasing after us screaming but was really trying to get the attention of someone in a car. It was really sketchy, and we abandoned it for the mall food court very quickly.

After lunch we set out for the Negev Camel Ranch, or in other words, Cameland. I always love it when the bus drops you off by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, but luckily there was a map on the Camel Ranch website that I'd copied down and a nice big sign once we'd walked 100 meters down the road. Of course, from there it was a loooooong walk to the ranch because this is Israel, and this is the desert. But when we reached it--there were camels! Lots of camels! And these pictures are only the ones they don't take out on rides for tourists!

After waiting for about an hour--the day was full of waiting, since we were also crowded out of our first bus for Cameland--we ended up with a private camel tour just for the two of us. This is where I learned that camels are really slow and desert looks like desert looks like desert. However, I definitely got to ride a camel. That was completely worth the trip.

After riding camels it was time to go back to Jerusalem, since it was already 5pm. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, our bus stop was out in the middle of nowhere, on the side of the road, without any signs whatsoever:

Also, the bus back to Beersheva only runs every hour and a half. This left Lynley and me by the side of the road for an hour, watching cars go by. We weren't necessarily trying to hitchhike back, but we wouldn't have minded it, and it's funny what drivers do when they see people standing by the side of the road. We got a lot of people putting their hands up like "What am I supposed to do?" and some people honking at us. The entire time we didn't even see a taxi pass and the bus was 20 minutes late, so we had this plan of walking to Dimona--the nearest town, about 5 minutes drive away--if the bus didn't show. While the bus did finally show, it was only after a car pulled over and a really nice couple offered to give us a lift to Beersheva. We took it. It sure beat walking to Dimona. From Beersheva it was an easy ride back to Jerusalem and the Kfar, though I didn't get back until after 9pm. Then it was pretty much bedtime. Tourism is exhausting, especially when it involves hour-long camel rides.