The Negev + Camera Party

Weird storm clouds over the Negev?

On Friday ten people went into the Negev.  Udi, Alon, and I were in one car.  In the second car was one of Udi's best friends - Tal, and her daughter, Tara (13), Tal's Norweigan boyfriend, Niels, and his two daughters, Maria (14) and Johanna (9).  In the last car was Roni, a good friend of Udi's and my parents, and his girlfriend Elin.  These ten brave souls had lunch in a Bedouin restaurant (Bedouin pita, labane, and za'atar with chile - BEST EVER??), then drove a bit longer to park off the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with a single path mark leading into a ravine where they would be climbing/hiking for the next three hours.

I love the Negev so much.  It's a rocky, barren, empty, mountainous, beautiful place.  When we got there, it was raining (??) but it's Desert rain - even when it touches you it feels absurdly dry.  Regardless, the rain cooled off the desert quite a bit, so it was actually cold while we climbed/camped.  Also, I am a mountain goat.  I can climb any rocky Negev mountain, and I love to do so.  Johanna, who understands English but was too shy to speak it was also a goat - she and I wordlessly bonded as we climbed ahead of the group a good fifteen minutes.

We walk to the ravine.

Doesn't it kind of look like they're all sitting in a mouth?  I climbed up the other side of the ravine to get this picture.

After our hike, we drove to find a campsite.  When I say campsite, I mean a place where there weren't any people and that was relatively flat.  We easily procured this place a good five minute drive beyond the road.  In the distance, we could see the skyline of the nearest town, Arad.  We set up our tents and started the fire.  The wind was kind enough to die down for a couple hours just as we were making/eating dinner, and then it picked up again as we had cake for dessert.  Dessert in the desert.  It was awesome.  Food kind of tastes better when you can't see it (dinner was rice and cooked cabbage, slightly sandy salad, and charred potatoes.  Love it).

While Tara, Johanna, Maria, and I gathered around the fire to warm us up (SO COLD in the desert after the sun sets!!), the three of them taught me some Norweigan (Tara was born in Norway but speaks Hebrew at home with her mother).  It turns out that Norweigan, Swedish, and Danish (so basically, the Scandanavian languages) are all very similar to each other, it's just that they pronounce their words much differently.  To say "what is your name" and "my name is" in Norweigan is practically saying the same thing in Danish, just pronouncing it differently.  I realized as we were talking (in English - Maria and Johanna didn't know Hebrew) that I really didn't know a whole lot about the Scandanavian countries, and I'd like to know more.

Our campsite.  (My own personal tent is the second to the left - the orange one.)

When everyone finally settled into bed around midnight, I curled up in my sleeping bag, listening to the wind rage around us.  It occured to me that even though the Negev is so big and empty, it's emptiness cradles you and comforts you.  I found myself startled at the sound of a car or a barking dog, sounds that would comfort me were I in the city.  You're covered in dust head to toe, but for some reason you've never felt cleaner.

Some camels and their Bedouin herder wandered across our campsite...or their desert...

Tal and the Bedouin herder

After watery coffee and the last of the carrot cake for breakfast this morning, we packed up camp and headed to our second hike of the trip.  This hiking spot was much more touristy and it was PACKED.  The point of this hike was to visit some of the natural pools that occur in the caves and gorges and ravines of the mountains in the Negev.

 The water was EXTREMELY cold.  Today was much hotter than yesterday, though, so it felt really great.  We spent a good hour in one area of the natural pools.  There was a spot where you could climb up and sit above the pool.  After I got my feet wet, I climbed back up and took pictures of the desert around me.  I like the feeling of being physically active, the kind of aches that you get in your legs and arms from climbing as your body groans, satisfied, at being used.

Tara and Maria climb down to our perch.

I'm standing (black shirt and blue shorts) as Niels helps Tara, Johanna, and Maria down into the pool.  Alon is taking the picture from up above at our group's perch.

A little later in our hike, on the path that leads down to the most beautiful spot in the world.

We ate a bit by the first pools and then continued our hike, which included climbing up and then down a huge mountain into a gorge where the most beautiful pool was crowded full of people.  Just before the pool, for some reason, a huge group of families on day trips decided to sit down and eat?  This resulted in our climbing down from the mountain, hot and sweaty only to the smell of garbage and stinky children.  All of the kids were crying, too.  We took off our shoes and socks and waded through a tiny miny pool (and when I say tiny I mean the water went up to your chest) to where the gorge opened up to this beautiful, beautiful, deep pool of cold water.  On the other side of the pool the smooth, white rock dropped off into an enormous cliff, about half the length of the cliff pictured above.  It was like an infinity pool only it was real and not infinity, but it was the same feeling.  Less people were crowded around this pool, because it was much deeper and just beyond it it was much more dangerous.  Out of our group, Roni, Udi, Alon, and I were the only ones who went to this spot.  I think it is probably the most beautiful place in the world.  Even though all my clothes were wet, I was freezing and sweltering at the same time, dust was caked in my hair, and I was hungry, I couldn't help but feel completely at peace.  The same feeling had come over me when I woke up that morning, and I promptly scribbled some thoughts into the journal I carry around with me everywhere.  Here's a snippet:

You fell asleep in a beautiful, silent, windy emptiness.  You wake up and the desert is transformed - the sun has scoured all cracks and corners and blasted them with light.  Where the wind made your sleep almost unbearably cold, now it's pleasantly cool, like a crisp September morning in Columbus, Ohio.  Even though you're full of sand and every part of your body aches from the hike and the night before, with the sun awake happy people who have flourished in the desert, who have awoken wiht the sun and twinkled in its' rays.  And though you should be crabby (you'd like some plumbing and perhaps a back massage), you're not, because the nature (or lack thereof) of the desert and the happy contentedness of your fellow campers ensures that you're not only happy, you're at peace.

After our second hike, we changed into dry clothes and then drove to a park in Arad, one of the most confusing cities I have seen since I've been here.  It's smack dab in the middle of one of the driest deserts ever, but it's blooming with flowers.  I assume there's under-ground irrigation, because otherwise I can't fathom how there is an abundance of trees and colorful flowers in almost every garden.  I digress.  In the park, we laid out any remaining food from the night before (there was a lot of it) and gorged ourselves, which felt really great after two very good physical excursions.  We sat and ate and talked and then rested and had our last cup of watery coffee before saying our goodbyes and making our separate ways - one car to Pardes Hana (I'll be seeing them later this week), one car to a hotel near the Dead Sea, and one car back to Ramat Gan, where I am now showered and un-dusty.  I know I'm leaving in two weeks and I'm very happy about seeing my family and friends again and about graduating and finishing up this wonderful Walkabout process, but that morning as we drove away from our campsite, I realized that the parts of Israel that I connect with most are the parts where I feel most like myself.