Hitching to Nuweiba, Israel

Negev Desert

I hitched from Eilat to Nuweiba, a Bedouin settlement in the Negev Desert 250 km south of Eilat. 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 basked on a large rock as I looked over the Gulf of Aqaba. With few cars going by, I thought I'd have a longer wait for a ride, but I didn't.    

A white pick-up with three young Palestinian dudes in western clothes pulled over. One hopped out of the back and smiling, held the door open for me to climb in. '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 rattle, peered into the window. He jerked open the door and without a 'howdy doody' or 'thanks for the 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 echoing 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 the 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. I passed 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 suffering a sunburn from the fires of hell and carrying a knapsack 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.'  He laughed and said he was on his way to Jerusalem the next day. And that was it for the place, other than the Bedouin village he pointed to beyond the dunes, which he said we had to watch out for, '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. We laughed and called it a campsite for the united nations. It was a lazy five days. We swam, chatted, lounged, napped, sunbathed, scoured wood for fire, walked the beach and climbed the dunes overlooking the Bedouin camp with its goats and sheep wandering over the parched ground.The Israeli security forces never mingled with the Bedouins or with us. 

At sunset each night, on a small kiln, Bedouin women prepared pita, hummus, chicken and mutton from a gazebo set up close to the Gulf. Bedouin children with runny noses and tangled hair ran around roughhousing and shrieking and begging for shekels. After, 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 day and 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 at, but the dark figure of a Bedouin in his traditional robes holding the flap of my tent open, crouched, watching me sleep. I sensed he had been there a while. Without missing a beat, I politely asked him. 'Can I help you?' in a loud enough voice to create a rustle and a stir amongst the sleeping bags alongside my tent. As silently as he had come, the fellow rose to his feet and turned around, a silhouette stark against the moonlight as he floated back up the windswept dunes, his galabiya and kufiya fluttering behind him in the desert breeze.  

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

'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 Bedouin village.