In the evening at Leon’s Café I managed to secure a sleeping place in the Wadi. This is a usually dry riverbed and if not, you’d better run for your life. We slept under only the tent shell. When I woke in the morning, some more people had come in for the night, one of whom was Carol, a Jewish girl from New York. When she told me she was looking for work in a kibbutz and had heard there might be an opportunity in Ein Geddi, we decided to go and have a look together.

We left northward shortly afterwards, through the desert again for Ber-sheva and from there towards the Dead Sea. At the fake salt pillar of Lot’s wife there was a Tourist Stop where we ate that evening and next decided to spend the night. The Stop was not set up for this, but by utmost exception we were allowed to sleep in the shed. Hardly had we laid ourselves down when the landlord sneaked in and demanded to be compensated in the flesh. I was not too courageous, but a little while later we walked down the road again and improvised our way through the night.

Next stop was Masada. Here a community of Jews initially successfully defended itself on the top of a mountain against the Romans. When their resistance was finally broken, they collectively committed suicide, more than a thousand people. Their residences and defences and the like are still on view. We learned the hard way, climbing an age-old footpath, not entirely without hazard. Nowadays the scale of the event is minimised by an easy access tourist-friendly shuttle track.

Finally we arrived in Ein Geddi, actually there were two, the kibbutz and the old village. Along the latter a brook runs which, at that time, was regarded as the only river in Israel. The water was crystal-clear and very drinkable. It came down in cascades and formed basins in which one could have a generous bath and dissolve salt and dust until deep in one’s pores.

Because our kibbutz contact was not present we could not spend the night there. Therefore we went to sleep on a sandy beach near one of the basins. In the dead of night I woke up and a bit further down saw the silhouettes of two people coming down a rock face. I sensed that it would be unwise to address them and continued my sleep of the Innocent. The next day we heard that a mine had been laid further down the road and that the tourist kiosk had been blown up.

That day we could not go to the kibbutz either, but in the evening we decided not to sleep on the sandy beach, but in a less remote bus wreck. That was a horror because it turned out to be swarming with mosquitoes. After my first sleep I ran out of the bus in desperation. Something rustled in the bushes and out came an Israeli soldier who stuck the barrel of his Uzi in my stomach. We looked at each other and he must have seen the forgiveness in my eyes but he did not pull the trigger.

To be continued: ‘Ball Game’