Playing in the Dunes

So I left off with us arriving at the cliff face where we found an overhang and then hung out for the afternoon. It was beastly hot. The camels kept lieing down on their sides and Yaeli would have to yell at them and click her tongue to makethem sit up. We could not afford to have them lie on our gallons of water and burst the containers open (gasoline containers). There is no doubt how quickly you would die out in the desert without water. An extreme wind was blowing all the time. Anyone who has lived in a desert knows the wind is not your friend as it is really contributing to your dehydration rate. It feels marvellous but it becomes dangerous over time.

Camels eat hay and peanuts. It costs about 11 shekels (about three cents) for a pound of peanuts and this is a food they love. Their hump is their fat storage. When they gain weight the hump grows, when they lose weight the hump shrinks and Yael told us that you can almost see it changing on a day to day basis. Babies have no hump. Poor old Hashem, the four year old, only had a huge mound of unruly fur rather than a hump.

Anyway, I digress as usual. Up to the ledge we went. Yael started a fire with dried brush. We all cut vegetales and arranged them on a platter. Beng made our tahini with tahini paste, water, garlic and lemon -- delicious (ground sesame paste plus flavouring). We ate some orange slices and salted almonds. Yael made pita from scratch and cooked it on an overturned pot on the fire.

Yael is a camel fanatic. She spent a year living and travelling with the Bedouins to learn all she can about camels. She has accompanied many archaeologists on their digs in the region. It is always fantastic to experience someone else's passion firsthand. She wishes there was a university of camel...and is sad that due to wars, borders, Israeli laws re children attending school, etc. that Bedouins are losing their way of life. We see this everywhere in the world don't we and it is always sad.

The meal she prepared was fabulous. We were tired and thirsty and this light meal really hit hte spot. She entertained us with Old Testament stories, Bedouin myths and fables, and desert lore. She is soft spoken and very entertaining. She wears a scarf in the desert as Bedouins do and showed us how to tie it for men and for women. It is used to keep dust out of the face and eyes, to lift things out of the fire, to strain water when water is found in the desert (using just a corner of the scarf), used as a rope if a rope breaks, etc. Get this...the name for it is SHASHA....which in Arabic means big white screen (as in screen at the movie theatre) and/or the scarf that they wrap around their head (yes kafiyah is another name and probably more familiar to you). We had been told that Shasha meant popcorn thrown at babies during their bris (circumcision).......but that word actually is 'shashe'...live and learn, eh! Both Shasha and Shashe are Arabic words.

We lay out under that overhang in the shade and breeze for over four hours. We had to allow the heat of the day to pass by. The camels dozed, we dozed. Ashleigh slept so long that at one point she sat up and said, "is it still the same day?"...and then promptly returned to sleep.

By 6:30 we packed up and walked another 1 1/2 hours to the sand dunes where we would spend the night. These dunes are exceedingly difficult to climb and Yael challenged us to race to the top. I'm in pretty good shape but my hamstrings were screaming as were my lungs as I got to the top. When we arrived on top the girls all sat laughing and talking and sharing gossip and the men continued down the other side and explored all over. Jack was down below with the camels taking photos. Yael ran down to begin the fire for supper and the rest of us slowly made our way down...except Ashleigh rolled all the way down like a 5 year old laughing all the way. She regretted it a bit when she felt the sand she had gathered in every part of her body and clothing. Benj sat up there a long time meditating and enjoying the peace, quiet and beauty that surrounds you in the desert. ((truly the sound of silence...I have to repeat this because I thought I had heard silence before. I always think Telluride is silent but it is not. Tiny creeks are running and leaves are rustling...it is never 100% quiet but (except for explosions) the desert is.

Yael made the most fantastic dinner. She cooked lentils and yams and other vegetables and then ripped up the leftover pita from lunch to sop up the juices. We passed around a communal bowl with some water to wash our hands and were instructed to eat only with our right hand -- we all know why that is the case so I won't go into it here. Everyone has their own section of the pan to eat from. You don't go dipping in all over the place when everyone is eating with their fingers. Ashleigh ate a bit, declared it delicious but didn't eat much. Only later did she confide that she couldn't eat out of the pan as the camels get the leftover gooey meals in it...their peels and rinds are just tossed to them but left over mushy stuff (like our leftover supper) goes to them in the pans we ate from (we only wash them out with sand and a bit of water and the idea of eating from them grossed her out.) But....none of us got sick and we were passing around water bottles non stop, eating from the strangely washed dishes, etc. and all was well. (campers in Canada certainly clean with sand and water too but usually they have a little more water than we did. Not a drop can afford to be wasted in the desert.) Camels are great as they eat every single leftover except for protein....I think they missed one hard boiled egg we had at breakfast and a tiny bit of Bedouin cheese.

The supper fire became the evening campfire but most of us were too tired. We crawled into sleeping bags on our carpet, no tent, and were disappointed there were so few stars. Every single one of us woke later in the night and the sky was flooded with stars and the milky way...bonus! Jack swore he didn't sleep and we swear he did...in fact I hit Abe so many times for snoring that finally he lost his good will and told me it wasn't him and that it was his father. I did not hit his father. There are MOSQUITOES in the desert...damn it!

I cannot leave out that we heard constant explosions all day long from bomb and grenade training somewhere in the desert. There was an Israeli military base somewhere in the desert and we could hear things all day long and well into the night. Yael is so innured to this that even when we pointed out an explosion she could not hear it. My niece, Yael, tells me that since everyone serve in the military and deals with arms training that a lot of hearing has been lost so maybe this was the problem for our guide Yael. I don't know but what started out as unnerving became very normal after a while. Camels don't flinch a bit if a helicopter flies by or a bomb goes off.

We woke up to a breakfast of hard boiled eggs, tuna, and a hard Bedouin cheese made of salt and goat's milk -- delicious actually. It is made and then lasts a year! It gives you the salt you need to help you retain the water you drink. It is much more effective and I'm sure healthier than Gatorade. I can test to its effectiveness as usually I have to pee constantly on a hike and this cheese did its job and kept me well hydrated. Where can I get some here?

Yael told us how camels are castrated by the Bedouins. Being males Benj and Abe didn't hear the story correctly and were cringing at what they thought occurred. They THOUGHT Yael said that they tie the camel's balls to a fence and then make the camel run.....well, we laughed and laughed and laughed at this. Yael said it was a new version of tieing your loose tooth to a door.

Our second day was beginning to heat up so we had to move on. We sunscreened, brushed teeth, packed, refilled water bottles, rolled up our carpet from the desert floor, packed the camels and headed off. It quickly became brutally hot, even hotter than the day before. There was nothing for it but to continue on. Jack rode the camel today at Yaeli's instruction. By 1 p.m. we stopped and set up our Bedouin tarp for shade and two of us promptly fell asleep. No one could eat as it was too hot. Abe dribbled water on my face and neck and arms and the breeze dried me off and cooled me down. I then did the same to Ashleigh. We were both finding the heat debilitating. The evaporation of the water revived us.

We only had two hours left of trekking but we had to wait for the heat to die down. Yael told us more bible stories. We headed back to the khan. I had a coke and an ice cream (I don't even like ice cream but it was delicious)....every one had their drink of choice and a cold drink was pure heaven. Several of us hopped in showers and changed our clothes (that would be the women) and off we headed to Eilat -- a seaside resort with a gorgeous coral reef.

We got stopped at a border patrol. One side of the road was Israel and the other was the Sinai (bordered with a fence and barbed wire) belonging to Egypt. Then we went through another border patrol. This is not scarey just good security. Soon we were in the midst of wonderful black mountains...they towered beside us and we drove through them (not up and around as you would in Colorado.). They were mesmerising after the gold colour of the desert. As we came to Eilat we could see Jordan across the Red Sea. WE started saying we've been to the Med, the Dead, the Red and the Negev....(and Benj had canyoneered in the Golan Heights so he'd been to all corners of the country in our two week stay). Egypt and Jordan get along politically with Israel so there is no stress being so near a border.

I don't care if you are Jewish, Christian, non religious, a crazy adventurer or usually a couch potato.....try to find a way to get to Israel and see the holy sites, swim in the waters of the Seas, and journey through the desert. It is the most amazing experience. You will not feel in any danger at all and it is the experience of a life time. Israelis are extremely argumentative (two Jews three opinions) but extremely friendly and welcoming. It is sad that people do not go to Israeli except on some sort of pilgrimage. There is so much more there.

We ended our holiday with 1 1/2 days in Eilate, a resort town with lots of shopping for Ashleigh. Our hotel was top notch. We took Jack out for wild culinary experiences (for him!)....Asian food with chopsticks one night and fabulous Italian the next (definitely not kosher in either place.)

We snorkelled (I found it rather claustrophobic but Abe and Benj got me out to the coral reef eventually) and we watched dolphins in the wild. We came to the conclusion that Ashleigh is the only girl to actually camel trek Prada in the desert and swim in D & G in the Red Sea!

All in all....it was a wonderful holiday. Now we are back in Texas and Yael, our niece, is here with us. We head off to Telluride on Wednesday to introduce her to a completely different world than any she has known before. She has NEVER felt cold....I think it has been 36 degrees recently in the evening. She's in for a surprise.

Forgot one little detail. Security at the airport in Israel is extreme for obvious reasons. As you drive in to the airport you are stopped by a guard and while you are stopped you are on top of either a computer or a mirror or somthing so they can see underneath your car. Also we THINK you are supposed to open your windows so they can see all passengers. We say think as we did NOT do this. We thought we had been given the all clear to drive on and we did. Ashleigh heard the guy knock on our back window and call out....suddenly a soldier with a machine gun was standing in front of our car with his gun at waist height motioning for us to stop. We sure as hell stopped! Seeing Abe he spoke in Hebrew (useless) and we had to say English please. He wanted Ashleigh's window down so he could see who was in the passenger seat. We complied. Other than that they do scan luggage thoroughly and really look at your face, your passport, and have a pretty good chat with you while you are in line to have luggage scanned. They are nice but are very obviously not your friend. It is impressive and we could learn a lot from their techniques. They don't waste time on putting stuff in plastic bags, taking off your shoes....they know what to look for and they do it well. You feel secure.

This is truly the end of our trip. So sad. Great memories. Fabulous photos too.