A Week in the Desert (POSTED FROM THE KIBBUTZ!!!!!)

Hey Everyone,

Last time I checked in with you all, I was preparing to leave Jerusalem, something that I never thought would actually happen. We spent a week in the south of Israel, and that is what I am going to talk about now. 

On Thursday (a week from today), we woke up at the crack of dawn, prayed, and headed off to the area around Ein Gedi (a beautiful spring next to the Dead Sea) and did a hike down there. The hike was uneventful, but pretty anyways. Here is a picture.

 

From there, we drove over to a Bedouin tent where the group spent the night. When I say that we went to Bedouin tent, I am misleading you heavily, because all of these Bedouin tents are set up for tourists who want to get the ‘real Bedouin experience.’ Since Bedouins now live in villages and no longer wander (at least in the south of Israel), that experience isn’t really possible. It was a fun night anyways. It started off with us taking a camel ride. Though I thought it was quite fun, the boys among us did not stop complaining for the most part since apparently it was not very comfortable for them. My partner and I named our rebelious camel ‘Uncle Buck’ since he was constantly trying to buck us off his back. It was terrifying, but quite amusing. Say hi to Uncle Buck.

After our camel ride, we had a delicious dinner, a fun bonfire, and then we went to sleep. The highlight of my night was the walk a friend and I took out of the tent area and down the road a ways in order to look at the beautiful stars. It was a cloudless and clear night, and as we were lying on the desert ground, we saw a comet that appeared to move in slow motion across the sky. It was AMAZING!  

The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast, and got ready for another hike. I don't remember what it was called, but it was a really pretty hike somewhere in the desert in the south.  It involved a lot of climbing over rocks and there were a few places with ropes and ladders, so it was really fun. Here is a picture, but to be honest, to you, it's going to look virtually the same as the pictures from every other desert hike I've showed you pictures from. 

After the hike, we went to Kibbutz Ketora in the beautiful Arava valley. People assume that everything in the south of Israel is a part of the Negev desert, but the Arava valley is actually the desert that is parallel to the negev desert. The kibbutz is incredibly close to the borders of both Egypt and Jordan.I'll take this time to mention that despite the events going on in Egypt right now, life in Israel has continued normally as though nothing is going on.

When we got there, it was roughly an hour before Shabbat began, so we had a mad scramble to get showered, dressed, and out the door. To say the least, getting four girls showered and dressed up in an hour is a virtually impossible task. We (mostly) succeeded though, and after a tour of the kibbutz, services, and a really good dinner, I went to bed, completely exhausted.

On Saturday, we woke up, went to services, and then took a walk to the Kibbutz's date tree grove. They have about 2,000 date palms (if I remember the number correctly) surrounded by a large number of donkeys which eat the dead leaves and fertilize the area (in addition to runoff from the cow area). After lunch and a series of games of the incredible game Set with a friend of mine, we did havdallah and then set off for what would become one of the most awkward (yet awesome) activities I have ever participated in: Shitsu Wholistic Massages at Kibbutz Lotan, a neighboring Kibbutz.

It was a roughly 45 minute long partner massage activity in which, without warning, we were instructed to massage people in ways that really seemed to invade all of our privacy. While it was entertaining to watch a group of 18 year olds pretend to take the activity seriously, it was frustrating since when taken seriously, this type of massage can actually be very relaxing (once you get over the initial awkwardness). When we got back to our Kibbutz, the game of soccer between a group of Nativers and some teens from the Kibbutz was still going, so I jumped in and played a bit. We got demolished, but it was fun to get back on the field anyways. The game ended at roughly 11:30 when the sprinklers went off.

On Sunday morning, we took a beautiful hike behind the kibbutz. It had a crazy uphill, but it led to some beautiful views. NOTE: If these pictures don't appear in the email version, click this link and read it from the actual blog site. http://www.beccarosenthal.blogspot.com/

 

Before I say what we actually did there, I'm going to mention that on our schedule, it said that we were going to be 'frolicking' in the dunes. To say the least, that's what we did. After getting lost on our way there (since every mountain in the desert looks the same and we hiked up one too early) we arrived at a massive dune with the softest sand I have ever encountered in my life. Though I had been there once before (when I was in Israel in 2008), it was incredibly fun. We spent a good two hours frolicking, wrestling [friendlily (I think that's a word) of course], running, rolling, burying ourselves, and having a general fun time. After leaving the dunes, we were surprised by a massive bonfire complete with my guitar (which I had put in a Kibbutznik's car without knowing why I was putting it there, s'mores, and a beautiful desert sunset. When we got back from the dunes, we had a BBQ dinner at Ketora's pub, and had another very low key night. Here are some pictures from the dunes and the sunset. Unfortunately, I didn't get any at the bonfire.

The next morning, we packed up and left Ketora en route to a beautiful hike in the Eilat mountains. Though I could say that it looked like every other hike in the desert, realistically, it was a little bit different. Instead of the mountains being primarily limestone, the mountains were mostly granite, so the color was a bit darker. The hike provided us with a view overlooking the city of Eilat, the Red Sea, the Jordanian City of Akoba (with its MASSIVE Jordanian flag blowing in the breeze), part of the Egyptian Sinai Desert and a lot of haze that blocked the view of Saudi Arabia. We also saw some marks left by Nativers before us. Here are some pictures from the hike.

You can see how the granite and limestone mix within the mountain range. It's quite beautiful.

That evening, we took a boat ride around the gulf of Eilat. It turned into an epic Bar-Mitzvah-like dance party where everyone acted like a total fool. We watched the sunset from the boat, saw a few dolphins, and enjoyed a glorious sea breeze. After the ride, we were given some money for dinner and free time in Eilat to explore the coastal (tourist) city, especially the boardwalk.

The next morning at the crack of dawn, I woke up to hike Har Shlomo, a mountain in the Eilat Mountains that was to be the most difficult hike of Southern Tiyul. As we hiked up the peaks of the mountains playing every trail game you can imagine (Geography, Ghost, Contact, and more), we felt as though we were in the Lord of teh Rings movies hiking up Mount Doom. Eventually, though, we did reach the top of the mountain. The view was out of control all the way up the mountain and from the top.

All of the kibutzniks who did the hard hike of the day.

After a delicious post-hike-lunch, we got ready to go to the beach in Eilat where Nativ had set up for us to enjoy some water sports in the Red Sea: tubing, paddle boating, kayaking and Banana Boating. While it was by no means a beautiful day for water sports as it was foggy and cold, we had a total blast playing in the very salty warm water. We then had dinner back at the hotel and a free night in Eilat. 

What made this night significant was that it was our last night together as a 91person program (or at least last one for a long time) as the next day we were splitting up into our three groups. It was a very fun night. It started off with a friend and I getting ear piercings (because we had been talking about it for a long time), and ended with me and two of my best friends standing in the wake on the shore with our feet in the sea talking about life. It was a great way to both end the tiyul and end our time all together.

Wednesday morning was weird. We packed up and gathered in the lobby as a group of 91. While we all knew that eventually we would be splitting up and that eventually we would be volenteering in really cool other places, very few of us actually internalized that this would all mean leaving some of our closest friends behind in other places. It was a very intense and huggy half hour as we all said our "See you later" goodbyes, and then we were all on three seperate busses.

One bus drove about two hours to Yerucham.

One bus drove about 7 hours to Karmiel

My bus landed about 3 hours later at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, the place that I will be calling home for the next four months.

I'm going to save talking about the first few days on the kibbutz to my next post as this one has taken me a total of three days to write, but until then, have a great Shabbat, and be aware that I have a lot more time this semester to talk, email, skype, and generally communicate with people (though who knows what that's going to mean for blogging).

Shabbat Shalom,

Becca