I went on a 2 day hike in the Negev desert this weekend. It was tons of fun. We left Friday at 6amish and on the way down to the desert we stopped at the Arab market in Be'er Sheva. It was a pretty cool market. It felt a little awkward speaking Hebrew to the Arab shop keepers, but we managed. One of the Bedouin walking around offered to buy our women. He offered $10,000 a piece. I hope he was joking. Otherwise, he needs to adjust for inflation. I had the best laffa bread and cup of instant coffee I've had in Israel. The laffa was like eating a flat sheet of gummy dough. It was great with fresh hummus.
After the market, we got back in the bus and headed down south to the ancient city of Avdat. Avdat is an ancient Nabatean city out in the middle of the desert. You can hike around the ruins and get a great view of the desert. It was pretty cool, but I'm going to be honest, I didn't care at all what the tour guide had to say about the Nabateans.
After Avdat we headed to the town of Mitzpe Ramon, which like Be'er Sheva, is basically a random city in the middle of the desert. We hiked around the Mitzpe Ramon crater which is pretty cool. It is not a crater in the sense that it was hit by an asteroid. It's more like a canyon carved by water. Either way, it's neat. The desert is beautiful. After the hike, we went to a Bedouin campground and made camp for the night. We had a little Shabbat service and tons of food for dinner. Most people, including myself, tried to get to sleep early, however there were a bunch of kids staying the campground that were making lots of noise. It was hard to sleep.
We woke up around 6am, had breakfast, cleaned up, and loaded the busses. I had a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich for breakfast. It was odd. I never really ate sugary foods for breakfast at home, so it was a little odd to be having chocolate goo on white bread. It was tasty, but I don't plan to be doing it very often. I like grapefruits. Especially the ones here.
The hike we went on was 9 hours and was very tough. It was lot of up hill-down hill type stuff and for the last half it was like walking on a beach. We got an amazing view of the desert. I took some pictures, but I can't put them up because the internet is too slow. It was really hot yesterday. Really hot . I had to drink about 6 liters of water throughout the day. I also ate a giant bag trail mix, two apples, and two peanut butter sandwiches (sans chocolate goo). In my pictures, I look really bloated because of all the water. Somehow, I managed not to get sunburned. The Israelis on the trip made fun of me because I put sunscreen on religiously. They would say things like "Does the gingi need sunscreen?" really sarcastically. Whatever, I didn't get burned. I alternated two shirts on the trip. One on my body and the other under my hat serving as a koofiyah. I'm going to invest in one before the next hike. (A koofiyah is the Arab cloth that goes over the head. Unfortunately, only bad guys are pictured wearing them in the west, but they're very common and most of the Arabs I have met here wear them)
Did I mention the desert is beautiful? It really is. We got to climb up a mountain and we could see all the way to Jordan. It was amazing. The desert is so calm and peaceful. Ben Gurion was right. The desert is the future of the Jewish people. There's so much space and potential in the desert for both agriculture and commerce, as demonstrated by Be'er Sheva. I like it there and plan to go back another time.
I tried to sleep on the bus ride back but couldn't. The six liters of water had to come out some how, so it was almost impossible to sit still. We stopped at a rest stop on the way that had a McDonald's and a small schwarma restaurant. Everyone from our bus went to the schwarma stand. I thought it was odd that all the Americans went for the schwarma, even when a McDonald's was present. I found it even odder that the McDonald's was full of Arabs, you know, the people who allegedly are anti-Western and live in the stone age. Whatever political philosopher who said that people are bought off by the luxuries of modern society was right. I can't remember if it was Marx or if it was Rousseau or someone else. But either way, I think that the road side McDonald's is another example of how Western commercialism will most likely bring the end of the strife between Arabs and Israelis because everyone will be too busy super-sizing their orders.
Anyways, the schwarma was great. For those of you who don't know, schwarma is a pita sandwich made of some sort of shaved meat and all the toppings you can think of: hummus, vegetables, hot sauce...Anyways, the meat had a taste of curry powder on it, which is odd, because I've never had the before. Either way, it was delicious and hit the spot after the hike.
My Israeli roommates have all moved in. They're nice guys. One guy is from Russia and came in the early 1990's. He was thrilled to be living with Americans because he wants to practice his English. I told him I wanted to practice my Hebrew. So he and I have an understanding. Haifa is a wonderful place and I highly recommend that everyone come and visit.
Before I left, people expressed concern to me about whether or not I would turn Orthodox because I was in Israel. My initial impression after being in Haifa for a few weeks is that it is highly unlikely that I will turn into a black hat. The city, I feel, has a good balance between the religious and the secular and makes it easy to experience both sides, but also retain your values. Besides, most of my friends here were active in the Reform and Conservative movements religiously and the Habonim D'ror (Jewish-Zionist socialist movement), so most of them are set in their beliefs and know what they're looking to experience and what to take back from Israel.
To repeat, if you can get here, do it. It's a nice place.
And P.S.
I have massive blisters on my feet. And a kitty just walked by.
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