The Negev Desert

We stayed two nights at the Ben Gurion Field School for Desert Studies. In his final days, Ben Gurion lived on a nearby kibbutz. Saturday night we saw his and his wife’s tombs. Sunday we hiked up a canyon onto a plateau (yay, elevation!), visited Nabatean ruins, heard from a solar energy research institute, and saw fish aquaculture (growing fish in the desert). I’ll discuss the solar energy and fish aquaculture in a forthcoming section of my Issues in Development essay. For now, though…YAY FOR RUINS! It was massively awesome. The city we visited was one of the way stations on the ancient Spice Route. We saw pagan temples that had been converted to Christian sanctuaries, tunnels, guard towers, caves for goods storage, and several houses. Roman, Byzantine, and ancient architecture…and everywhere in between! Because of its location on the Spice Route, Avdat was influenced by pretty much everyone. I had a wonderful time climbing all over the place in the desert. : )