Mitzpe Ramon

Well first off, I admit should have brought a second camera with us!! I missed out on taking soooo many pic - esp of the girls. We have a second camera - its tempermental about working LOL but it would have been better than nothing...

We took a trip south into the Negev desert. The trip was planned as a group mountain bike trip to go through the Mitzpe Ramon crater and hit a couple other sites along the way. WOW It was amazing :-) Beautiful countryside and, in Sebastian's words the ride was "epic" on Sunday LOL I did not ride since we had the kids with us and the terrain is definitely NOT charriot-friendly for riding. But we had a great time too. Pretty much everyone how came down did so as a family so there were a lot of other people and kids around :) We ended up going to the Ein Avdat National Park on Saturday which is an oasis at the bottom of a canyon. You can walk the 200 or so meters to the end of it fairly easily. The kids did great!! Ty stayed out of the water (mostly lol) and carried Alex in the bjorn..yeah I got my workout in!

After a sleepless night (thanks Alexandra!)the next day was the Ramon crater. A huge crater created by water. Yup, water. It is amazing. If I recall it is 40 kms long, from 2 to 10 wide and 500 meters deep. Not the Sahara sand like desert - more interesting I think with different kinds of rocks, sands, etc. we dropped off some of the bikers at the bottom in a campground that also had a large Bedouin tent so 6 moms and 11 kids descended on the 2 guys at the tent for tea :-) DELICIOUS!!!

We then walked part of the crater rim by the visitors center where the views are spectacular. The kids were more interested in the rocks on the ground beside us lol ..and decidedly more interested in the playground that we had parked our cars beside :) they played a bit and after grabbign a bite to eat at the center half of us went to the Alpaca farm. Yes you read correctly (yet another example of needing the camera!!!!!) It was an alpaca farm that also had llamas, goats, chickens, donkeys, horses and one camel. Oh and black & white sheepherding dogs that
were earning their keep as llamas would follow us looking for the little bags of food they knew we had :-P Ahhh it was fun. By the time we were done the riders were back at the hotel and we it was hometime. Great weekend!