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.

Dead Sea, Desert, Eilat.....bring if on!

Although Ashleigh hadn't felt well the night before, she woke up hale and hearty and off
we went for the next adventures. Jack showed up at our condo at 7 and we loaded the van.

By 8:30 a.m. we had driven past the turn for Ramallah (PLO headquarters) and Ash had
seen her first camel wandering in the desert. We stopped for breakfast in the middle of nowhere and Ashleigh kiindly pointed out the bug crawling on the pastries we were planning to buy.
We bought them; we ate them. What are you going to do?

We continued on about another hour and we could see the Dead Sea out the windows. It was a beautiful blue. We pulled up at the Ein Gedi Spa. For $400. (total) we could each have 1 1/2 hours of treatments...considering there were four of us wanting massages and some reflexology this was a great price. I saw Ashleigh come out of her massage and she looked like melted butter. Benj was thoroughly relaxed after his also. Let me say this that price was incredible because it included all of our massages, reflexology, use of the pool, an entire day in the mud of the Dead Sea if we wished as well as our float in the sea....absolutely incredible. We laughed and laughed as we floated in the Sea holding on to our toes with our fingers....you can't imagine what it is like to try and put your feet down on the bottom of the Sea and have them slowly just pop back up again. I've been twice now and each time has been fabulous. The first time, at a different part of the Sea, we could pick up salt by the handful but this time the salt was embedded into the seabed and was rippled from the waves. Ashleigh was enchanted by all of this. We had Jack take pictures of us with our hands covered in mud so that we could send a photo to David entitled "finger licking good", at as he had told us you NEVER put your fingers near your mouth in China as they are always dirty from just being out in the air. We spent 5 1/2 hours at the Dead Sea and it flashed by in what felt like seconds. So far we had had a perfect day.

We hopped back in the car and headed to the camel place, the Khan (inn in Arabic). Wow..the views were incredible. The place looked like an alternative lifestyle place. The power goes off at 11 and doesn't come back on until 7 or 8 the next morning. Although the main building was huge we were the only guests soyou can imagine what great treatment we got. Katherine was our hostess, originally from South Africa. We all instantly fell in love with her. She's off to Boulder to do some dance training shortly so we invited her to Telluride during her time off. I hope she comes. She came tothe Khan about two years ago and hasn't left as she loves the "silence in nature" that the Negev provides. She introduced us to Yaeli our guide for our camel trip.

We laid back on the Persian carpets...the entire place was covered in Persian carpets...and our pillows. Our meal came. Delicious as usual but also the food was "per usual"...by that I mean hummus, tahini, pita, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives. We ate tons and then the main meal came of chicken and vegetables. We received a cookie for desert along with "nana" which is spearmint tea or "mud" coffee....when you drink the coffee there is about 3/4 of an inch of thick grounds or mud in the bottom. We had toured around the property taking photos earlier and now we were exhausted. Everyone hit the hay and we all had great sleeps...except Ashleigh who was sure she heard a door banging all night long and so she never slept.

Oh I forgot...during dinner Jack asked all of us to talk about what makes us intrinsically ourselves. It was interesting as we went around the circle. We then progressed to our favourite childhood memories which was fun. We really enjoyed these discussions. Benj and Abe begged all of us not to feed the cat that was hanging around wanting our chicken; Jack couldn't help himself so he tossed the cat a bit of food and I like the resulting photo with the cat at my shoulder (thanks Jack!)

Breakfast the next morning was on the patio looking over a gigantic rift in the desert floor. Again it was pita, hummus, tahini, tuna (you see where I'm going with this....it is a healthy diet that repeats itself over and over and over again.) Ashleigh was really in the mood for something to chew but that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

By 9:20 we are in the back of the most ramshackle vehicle any of us have ever seen. The seats were all torn, foam was exposed and missing, the ceiling was ripped and Abe cautioned me not to lean on him too hard in case the back door flies open. The guy driving us down the mountain knewt he road and he FLEW down it at full speed. Ashleigh's head was whipping around like something from the exorcist and we are all laughing like maniacs with the exhilaration of it all (and perhaps laughter was better than screaming in terror.)

We arrive at the "barn"?....an open area with hay bales and three camels ready to be loaded.
We are introduced to Shariff, Hashem and Yorek and told not to put our hands near their mouths without Yael our guide. I don't think any of us EVER put our hands near their mouths.
Shariff starts to make camel noises....it is as though someone is gargling really loudly only the gargling is really their stomach preparing to regurgitate....I can't explain it better than that. We got a really good look at the horrible state of their teeth which were green and disgusting. I'm sure all camel's teeth are green and disgusting but this was a closeup view as the gargling and potential vomiting noise continued. Hmmmm....two days on this we were all thinking.

We decide who goes on what camel. Benj and Abe share one, Ashleigh and I share another, Hashem is too young to carry anyone so he has the really heavy stuff like the hundred gallons of water we are bringing into the Negev with us (not really 100 gallons but probably 50), the tent poles to hold up a huge tarp if we need shade, the pots, etc. Jack decides to start off walking. For anyone who does not know my father-in-law....he's amazing. He is 78 and he walked almost the entire first day! It was 100 degrees if not a bit more and he walked about 9 miles! I repeat, he is amazing. The hardest part about riding a camel is sitting on its back as it stands up and as it lies down. The actual riding isn't tough although the inner thigh gets one hell of a workout. Sam.....instead of bricks on our thighs to open up our hips...you should just get a few camels out back at the yoga studio and we can sit on them for an hour at a time. The hips will ultimately open. Ash cheated; she rested her legs on the pack (i did that the next day and it is much more comfortable.). Eventually you get used to the camel's gait and you don't hold on so tightly any more to the handhold in front of your saddle.

Jack led our camel. You need to keep your back to the camel at all times so that he can follow you. You can't veer to the right or left....which he did sometimes...but by and large Jack's leading went really well. We went down cliffs, through valleys, and up hills. Each camel can carry up to 300 kilos..which is a lot of weight (mult. by 2.2 if you don't know kilos).

At 1:30 Yael led us up to a cliff. We parked the camels. You can't just park a camel anywhere. There must be sand for them to kneel in. Once they knelt down she hobbled them by tieing
the top of their leg to the bottom part of the leg. In this way they can't stand up again. They lie there until they are told to get up again. Did you know camels ALWAYS sit down facing INTO the sun; in this way the most narrow part of their body is in the sun (quite smart I think.). They have an extra bone on their chest (exposed) that their chest rests on in the sand and then their legs are folded up under them keeping their belly off the sand which allows the wind to blow under their body keeping them cool. I find this all amazing.

More on what takes place on the cliff tomorrow. I'll keep you all hanging for now. I will say that my niece amazed me. She's a five star hotel girl and she actually slept on the cliff face with only a small carpet under her...and I mean SLEPT for about four hours. She really can hang with
outdoorsy types when she wants...she was fantastic. Let me add this.....there is nowhere to pee in the desert where you are not on view. There are no trees to hide behind. The bushes are about 4 inches high which makes sense when you realise they have not had rain in th Negev
for SEVEN years. When you think of it this way...Hashem the young camel is four and he has never seen or felt rain. By the way...camels sweat. Small drips of a black oil appeared on the backs of the necks and legs of the camels and this is their sweat....very cool to see.

Anyway, more on the cliff, cooking, camping out, and sand dunes tomorrow. Until then......
Adios.