Day 12: From Mitzpe Ramon to Hava night camp - 6th April 2018

I set off from home early in the morning (around 5:30) to drive to Mitzpe Ramon. As it was the last day of Pesach, there was no public transport so driving was the only option. I parked and started walking at around 8am.

After leaving the town, the first part of the walk goes by the sculpture park. It looked like it has seen better days . . . but still some nice sculptures.

The path continued along the maktesh for a few more hours (17km in total!). At one point I took the old Israel trail for about 10 minutes before realizing my mistake and heading back. There were a few nice lookouts, including one with maps to help identify the features.

By the time I took the short detour to Meizad Mahmal (a small fortification) I was pretty hot and tired.  The fortress is at the top of a climb out of the Maktesh. As it was the middle of the day and already pretty hot, I was grateful for the few cm of shade granted by the wall to eat my lunch.

After some more walking, I reached Nahal Hava, a nice canyon, and a great change of scenery.

Unfortunately, there was only a little bit of water in the Hava pits, and from the look and smell not something to go swimming in.

I met a few people on the way also on the Israel trail, we walked also to another spring (Ein hava), but it was also dry. We made it to the very windy campground at a reasonable hour, after dinner I was exhausted and went to sleep fairly early.