2024 Update: The flour caves are now virtually impossible to visit without a guide basically for safety reasons. Contact me at Travel.by.Petal on Instagram if you’d like me to put you in touch with a good guide. The Flour Caves are part of an underground canyon in southern Israel, not far from the Dead Sea. The Flour got their name from the fine white dust covering the surface like flour. Unfortunately, the Flour Caves are permanently closed due to the danger of collapse. However, you can make a trip to Nachal Perazim where the entrance to the caves used to be. This is a stunning location perfect for an adventurous hike, cycle or desert jeep tour.
Road Trip to Southern Israel
There are two major road trips worth taking in Israel, one north to the Lebanese border and one south to the Red Sea. On the trip south there are plenty of stops to make along the way. One of the most unusual places to stop on-route to Eilat is at Nahal Perazim, best known for the “Flour Caves”.
Traveling south from Jerusalem on route 90, the green hills of Judea turn to brown and yellow desert. Drive on route 90, (Arava Highway), parallel to the Dead Sea until about 500m past the Zohar Junction. Then turn onto a dirt road marked in red, into the flat desert towards Wadi Heimar. You will feel like you are driving across the moon! The dry, flat expanse is beyond one’s imagination. You won’t see the Flour Caves in the distance as they are underground. To be more precise the Flour Caves are part of an underground canyon.
Hike or Cycle into the Desert
You’ll be driving, walking, or cycling across white marl earth. Along the way, you’ll pass a rock that looks like a giant mushroom. Turning right you’ll reach Nachal Perazim, a dry riverbed that bends and twists along a magnificent desert landscape. long the way is the former entrance to the Flour Caves.
Nachal Perazim
On the high walls of the gorge you can see lines of different shades of color, these indicate the water levels of previous centuries. The Flour Caves, which once welcomed explorers with flashlights, were hollowed out of limestone eroded by the streams of water (Nahal Pratzim) which once flowed through the wadi.
The white dust of the chalk (marl) from the limestone leaves you ghostlike from head to toe. When it was possible to enter the Flour Caves a passage took you underground and surfaced at a different point in the wadi. Do not park your car close to the former Flour Cave entrance, or above the caves as there is a chance that it could collapse. The Flour Caves are estimated to be 18,000 years old. For more avid climbers/walkers, there is a blue and black route marked which will lead you from the cave to the flat Amaiz Plain up Mount Sodom which is 98% salt and on to Wadi Sdom.
Where:
Wadi Nahal Perazim. South of the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, west of Mt. Sedom.
Wadi Nahal Perazim. South of the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, west of Mt. Sedom.
Getting there: By car from the Arava Highway, between kilometers 193 and 194, turn onto a dirt road, which leads to the Amiaz Plain, there are signs to Nachal Perazim or the Flour Cave. By jeep via Nachal Zohar.
If you don’t want to go it alone, try any one of the local tour companies in the area. This will save you time and the anxiety of perhaps getting lost in this great expanse of frizzling heat.
When: Not in winter, as there can be flash floods. In the early summer or late summer, and best not at midday, to avoid the heat. Try timing your visit so you can see a unique desert sunset.
I enjoyed reading your piece and it provided me with a lot of value.I’ve heard of other caves in Israel but not these ones.