We started out day walking past the tamarisk tree to the ruins of Tel Beersheva.

In the Bible, the site of Beersheva is about shepherds and sheep in the book of Genesis. On cue, a shepherd walked by with his sheep.

In the distant desert, a man and a horse amidst the camels.

Inside the front gate of Tel Beersheba, the ruins of a tripartite building, a structure that’s known from other sites around Israel and may denote important border trading sites.

We paid our respects at the grave of Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, who asked to be buried in the desert.

Then we walked into the dramatic landscape of the Desert of Zin.

First stop: the waterfall

Then up the canyon wall.

And up further.

and further

Til we reached the top.

Nearby is Avdat, the remains of a Roman/Byzantine city.

The Byzantine church of St. Theodorous at Avdat.

The desert fortress of Arad.

Inside the fortress of Arad, the remains of a temple that give us a rough idea of what the temple in Jerusalem looked like.

At the end of the day, we approached our oasis, Kfar Hanokdim, where we will stay the night.

Everyone gets a chance to ride a camel into the desert.

My brother Jim & I astride Esmerelda.

Our sleeping accommodations, inside our king size tent.

Dinner is bedouin style.

We learned what the bedouin lifestyle is like from a bedouin woman.

I took a walk at midnight and saw a desert fox that looked like this.