ramon crater

ramon crater
Originally uploaded by nostalgist

It is difficult to get a sense of the scale of the crater. There is something flattening in the view from the promenade at the rim - even before I took a photograph it already seemed miniaturized, condensed. I only began to get a sense of the immenseness of the crater when I walked around inside it. The sand is all different colors - ashy lavender, black, spots of deep red like blood stains. In the fifties, lots of people came to mine the crater -that parti-colored sand suggested all kinds of treasures - but they never found much, so it's been relatively undisturbed. To which Ben said, like a character in a Disney special, "But the crater is the treasure."

We've been watching the films at all of these different attractions - the crater, the tower of David museum in Jerusalem, the observatory at Eilat. The one in Eilat had moving chairs, like an amusement ride, and a sentimental story about illegal whaling in Africa which featured a strategically multi-racial cast of pirates in torn t-shirts. The film at the visitor's centre at Mitzpe Ramon talked about the early settlement of the area in the Nabatean period, and then by the Romans and Byzantine empire. Then the silhouette of a rider on a horse crossed the screen and a deep voice-over said, "This period of civilization ended with the coming of the Arab invaders." Fast forward to the Jewish state. Honestly. At that point I would have welcomed the pirates.