Golden light flooded the Jordan River Valley, reflecting off the oily-looking waters of the Dead Sea and rousing me from my slumber. It was deadly quiet in the campground when I shuffled off to the showers, leaving Andy dreaming of hyraxes and agoutis. I was surprised to find Rodent drying himself off with a sarong there. I'd expected him to have found some very \"natural\" place to pitch his tent as he had told us the night before. In fact he'd met his friend the lifeguard of Ein Gedi and crashed in his trailer home on the beach that night. He asked to ride with us that day and we agreed to meet after breakfast.
I couldn't help but wonder what a day with our armored friend would be like. When Andy arose, we closed up camp, went for another swim and headed for breaky. Somehow on the way to the miserable camp restaurant he got me to admit that I actually like camping. The Dead Sea waters must have somehow made me delirious. Whatever I liked about camping was soon forgotten when we reached the canteen. It was a sad affair filled with not-so-refined Eastern European travelers and their screaming offspring. On top of it all the cuisine was just a bit below my standards (that is saying something after nine months on the road....) While we were eating, another cyclist arrived, headed directly for the WC and began bathing himself.
A few minutes later we were exchanging stories with him and poking at our nearly inedible breakfast. He'd already ridden three hours this morning though it was still before 9 a.m. Ben the Brit told us of his honeymoon cycling trip and how it might have been a mistake. We procrastinated for a long time before leaving, both finding Ben entertaining and dreading leaving because we both had the sniffles. Once on the road the warm sun baked us and the wind shoved our tired butts along. Places to stop are few and far between in this inhospitable desert. We finally came upon a truck stop around lunch time and helped ourselves to yet another roadside falafel.
Though our appearance must have been horrific, we served some purpose for our fellow diners. Our sweat and dirt caked bodies drew the thousands of desert flies to us and away from their food. One of the other patrons was a weird and scary looking paramilitary dude with a sidearm and fatigues. He strutted around nervously in his uniform that bore no markings of the Israeli military or police. Riding another 30 kilometers or so with the wind at our back we enjoyed the ever dramatic desert scenery until the weather began to change. Andy was eager to ride onward, but I sensed that this would be more than the average shower.
We managed to make it to another roadside canteen just in time to watch the air turn to liquid, the roads to streams and the desert to mud. We were advised to wait it out and offered a night's shelter at the local moshav (a close cousin to a kibbutz). The rain brought others seeking shelter. The restaurant filled slowly with moist hippies who had been hanging in a wadi celebrating a Rainbow Gathering. We shared dates and stories with them while waiting for the rain to pass listening to the \"Hair\" soundtrack. Just a few moments into the storm the roof of the restaurant gave way and water started to steam into the lounge.
Employees frantically re-purposed trash cans into buckets, moved merchandise and squeegeed the floor. Ehudi, our young host (who we knicknamed agouti) and general manager of the place, was busily arranging our evening while we sipped coffee. He'd found a place for our bikes and arranged for a ride to the moshav. On the way to our little apartment Agouti explained that a moshav differed from a kibbutz in that everyone has their individual businesses and derives some of their own revenue from them as well as contributing to the benefit of the larger community. It is more of a socialist as opposed to a communist arrangement.
Most of the families also benefit from the assistance of Thai workers who are paid 1020 shekels each month in addition to room and board. There was a little confusion that evening when it came time to pay. First, we'd thought that the price quoted was for the two of us to stay in the room together. It turned out that they expected us to pay 85 shekels each. That seemed exorbitant. Second, though we'd been told that we'd be alone in the room, our host told us that a woman and her two children would share the little place. We were less enthusiastic about the evening now and took corrective measures.
We bargained our host down further, but still had to deal with our roommates which would prove to be a daunting task. She stormed into the kitchen, said nary a word to us and made us feel generally unwelcome. Until she needed a favor she said nothing and did not even introduce herself until I interrupted her request to borrow shampoo. Fortunately we slept soundly after her children stopped crying and dreamed of a sunny day on the road.