Hitching to Nuweiba, Israel

Negev Desert

I hitched from Eilat to Nuweiba, a bedouin settlement 250 km south of Eilat in the Negev Desert. I left early from the hostel as I didn't want to be wandering alone in the desert if it took too long to get a ride.  

But for the scorpions, spiders and Bedouins, it's a dry, empty terrain in the Negev, overseen by endless blue sky. I felt joy out there alone with not a care in the world and basking on a large rock and squinting at the sparkling Gulf of Aqaba in the distance, I waited for a ride. With few cars going by I thought I'd have a wait. But not for long.    

A white pick-up truck with three young Palestinian dudes in western clothes pulled over. One hopped out of the back and smiling, held the door open for me. 'Welcome,' he said. I peered in and said hello to the other two and with no weird murder vibes emanating from the truck, I threw my bag onto the seat and hopped aboard. 

But just as we were pulling away, there was a sharp rap on the front passenger window and a gnome, a grizzled, unshaven man from whom a 4-year-old could steal his lollipop and rattle, peered into the windown man from whom a 4-year old could steal his lollipop and rattle, peered into the window. He  jerked open the door and without a 'howdy doody' or 'can I have a ride' scrambled into the front seat and slammed the door.  He stared forward and said nothing. The boys turned to me. Together? I shrugged. 'I don't know the guy.'  He appeared out of nowhere and I mean nowhere because when I was waiting for a ride there was nothing out there but the road, the brush, the mountains, the rocks and if you were scared of being alone, your dying screams across the Gulf of Aqaba. We shrugged and pulled out again and the boys stumbled around in the truck with their butchered English and I responded, but the little grizzle remained silent, leading me to believe that as well as being mute, he might have been deaf, too.

The guys finally turned in at a gravel road and pointed up a dirt road, asking if I'd like to have chai in their village and meet their family, but I declined. I needed to get going and I wasn't about to wrestle with my tent stakes and have a fencing match at the end of that road. You never know. The gnome jumped out from the front seat and strode off and I waved goodbye as the lads drove off in a cloud of dust. But in the time it took me to dig out my hat, drink some water, straighten out my bag and throw it over my shoulder, the trickster had disappeared. Where did he go? I stood looking around, gobsmacked with his disappearance. There was nothing in front of me, nor behind. Who was he? Where was he? And I asked myself that question all the way down to Nuweiba because I never saw him again.

I arrived at a worn wooden sign carved with NUWEIBA and trudged down the dusty road towards the Gulf. It was a military camp of sorts and by the amount of good-looking men lolling around with rifles, I knew I'd made the right choice to come down. Security forces. A fellow with a sunburn from the fires of hell was on the road and introduced himself as Myers from Chicago. A few travellers were camping out by the shore. Why didn't I come down and join them?  I said sure, 'as long as I don't have to watch you do anymore sunbathing.'  And that was it for the place, other than the Bedouin village beyond the dunes, which Myers pointed out and warned we had to watch for them, 'cause they 'come around at night and steal people's shit.' 

When I saw the beach it didn't occur to me I'd be sleeping on the beach, but that's travelling off the beaten path, you never know what's going to be there, especially when you have no plan. And there was no one there but us - Greta from Denmark, Kerry from Australia, Peter from Switzerland, Kenny from New York, Myers from Chicago and Ouzi from Israel. It was a lazy five days.

We swam, chatted, lounged and napped, sunbathed, scoured wood for fire, walked the beach and climbed the dunes overlooking the Bedouin camp and their goats and sheep.The Israeli security forces never mingled with the Bedouins or with us. 

At night, on a small kiln, Bedouin women prepared pita, hummus, chicken and mutton from a little kiosk in a gazebo set up close the the gulf. Bedouin children with runny noses and tangled hair ran around shrieking and begging for shekels. At night, the others spread their sleeping bags around the campfire, but I had a little orange pup tent which I set up a little ways off. For protection from the wind off the Gulf, I aimed the tent door at the dunes.  

It was a full moon that week and one night after our talk died down, we curled up and went to sleep around the dying embers of the fire. Hours later, all was silent with everyone asleep when suddenly I woke and sat up and looked straight out the door of my tent to the windswept dunes beyond. Yet it wasn't the dunes I was looking into, but the penetrating eyes of a Bedouin in his traditional robes holding the flap of my tent open, crouched, watching me sleep. I knew he'd been there for a while. Without time for fear, I politely asked him. 'Can I help you?' in a loud enough voice to wake the others. There was a rustling and stirring from the sleeping bags. And as quietly as he had coe, the fellow slowly rose to his feet, turned around and drifted back up towards the dunes, his galabiya and kufiya fluttering behind hi in the desert breeze. 

'Wha was that?' said Kenny.  'What's going on? Who was that?' He was up on his elbows as Kerry sat up and rubbed the sand out of her eyes. They all got out of their sleeping bags and check their bags and clothing.

'I think he was checking us out, to make sure we were asleep,' I said. 'I don't know how I woke up. He sure didn't make any noise.' 

'Good thing you did.' But I knew why I woke up. It's my sixth sense. We stood at the ashes of the fire pit and watched as the ghostly figure disappeared over the dunes back to his tiny village.