The day started at a relatively reasonable 8:30am. We packed up the jeep, jumped in, and drove down to Masada via Arad. We drove the long way because there was an entrance to some sort of pulley system, and we had a HUGE antenna that we had to retrieve from the top of the mountain. (This was the quick errand.) It was so Israeli when we pulled right up to the pulley system, parked our car, and took a quick hike up the mountain to one of Israel's key tourist attractions. In so many other scenarios, going to Masada would be a big deal or even an all day adventure. We simply climbed up the mountain, climbed some more onto the historical ruins, disassembled our antenna, sent it down the pulley system, hiked down, and left. Rather anticlimactic, but still breathtaking, if you ask me (pictures of the ordeal below).
Our next stop was Sde Boker, a kibbutz and research site in the Negev. We dropped off the antenna which had been strapped to the roof for our drive from Masada over an hour away, and then we continued on our way. Our way, though happened to be off-roading on a road that is only accessible by jeep. People pay hundreds of shekels to go off-roading in the Negev, and we did it as part of our research. I even got to drive a bit (though I did opt out of most of the off-road driving). At various points along the jeep "road", we stopped to listen/look for vultures. The technology on the vulture project is the same as that of the stork project: pingers, antennas, etc. We found a few, downloaded some data, and observed a bit with telescopes and binoculars, but the ultimate goal of the outing was to find a GPS tracker (half the size of my palm) and a harness (some black rope) that had fallen off of a vulture. We had it's general location from a text that the device sent (like in the stork project, the GPS trackers send texts a couple times a day), and using a GPS navigation system, a topography map, and some common sense we set off to look for it.
We had just pulled over (not that there was really much of a road to pull off of) to begin our hike into the desert to find the transmitter when a worker from the Nature Protection Society stopped us. Apparently there is a new law that you can't hike more than 25 meters (don't quote me on that distance) from the marked trail. Our lab has special permission to go beyond this limit, but the worker still needed to check. After a quick phone call we were in the clear with the warning that we had to vacate the park/nature preserve an hour before sunset.
We began walking over hills and into ridges, zigging and zagging our way towards a peak about 800m away. The transmitter was supposed to be somewhere 100m above us, and the peak seemed to fit the GPS coordinates and elevation data reasonably well. We came to a good vantage point and all sat down, one with a telescope, one with the pinger, an antenna, and a map and two with binoculars. We sat in the dessert heat for a while (34+ degrees) searching high and low, scanning for anything that looked to be out of place. The sun began to set behind the peak giving us a nice break from the heat. After about an hour of looking with no luck, we hiked back to the jeep and began our bumpy drive out. The vulture team plans to head back with climbing gear and other supplies to try again. The sun was quickly setting but we didn't think much of it until we got to the exit of the park.
There, waiting for us, was the park ranger who we spoke with before. He began to yell at us about how we didn't make it out of the park in time, and we explained that we tried our hardest but didn't realize how far we had hiked. He wasn't letting up, so someone in our group got out of the jeep and walked over to his pick-up. It was so Israeli when things were suddenly fine after just a few minutes of calm chatter and name dropping. Protectia is an amazing thing. The ranger was not happy, but we got by without a fine. We finished our field day with a sunset picnic and then headed back north to Jerusalem. I got in a fair share of driving, and I am also starting to know my way around Israel a bit more. Also no complaints about a bit of a tan and a day of fresh air!
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