The flight from Newark to Ben Gurion was pretty awful (as I have now begun to expect). I creeped out a couple of small children by getting emotional about my dog for a moment and watched a bad movie with, of all things, a Boston Terrier in it (which lead to the creeping out of the children). When I got off the flight Austen and I got slightly turned around and ended up in the taxi with a whole bunch of people not from our trip. We got a full tour of Jerusalem as we dropped people off having no idea whether or not the sherut driver actually had any idea of where we were heading as he did not speak english. Eventually we found where we were supposed to be and met up with the rest of the group.
After meeting the staff and other group members, we headed out to the Beduoin camp (I am sure we did something else too but can't remember what so I will add that in later). We had a 5 minute camel ride in the dark and had a traditional beduoin meal, which was not nearly as good as the last meal I had in a beduoin camp.
We did get to hear some cool music though and learned about the traditions of the beduoin people. After the meal and welcoming ceremony, our tour guide led us on a silent(ish) walk into the desert for some quiet reflection. That moment was when the trip really began to sink in for me. We had a decent bit of time to ourself and I laid down and stared up at the stars with my feet running through the sand. An amazing sense of perspective washed over me and it was a very special moment for me. I think when you realize how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things it makes you work harder to make your time here on Earth matter. At least that is kind of what happened to me. I just thought of all of our forefathers who have stared up at the same sky and walked in the same desert and how amazing it is to be able to share that with them. Thinking back to that feeling still gives me the chills.
The next day (maybe?) we went on a beautiful hike called Nachal Tamar where I proceeded to get dehydrated, which I decided to ignore. It was a really neat hike down a hill somewhere that ended at a not so beautiful gas station. The hike itself was downhill and there were several points at which we had to stop and use a ladder or rope to get down. There were also several cars down the ravine which was pretty cool. The ravine has been carved over thousands of years by flash floods and its crazy to see all of the rocks strewn about and the damage to the cars that must have at least some what resulted from the rushing of said rocks.
After the hike we went to the Dead Sea. I had just been there a month ago but wanted to cover myself in Dead Sea mud again so Madeline and I rocked it out. It took forever to find the damn mud but it was well worth it!
After emerging from the Dead Sea, which is unrefreshingly HOT), I began to feel quite sick. After being unable to keep water down I enjoyed some time in an Israeli ambulance. Erica and Sarah took great care of me and we had a wonderful time (minus the fact that I was sick) staring at the hot Israeli ambulance guys. The girls were so good to me... Erica even fed me water while I was sitting there and called me pet names like "little goat" and "pretty monkey". We didn't end up going anywhere, just sat in the ambulance for a while and I got an IV to rehydrate me. After that lovely adventure, I went to the hostel in Arad with Erica and Sarah. They gave me a room and sent me on my way to shower, relax and wait for the rest of the group.
We did some other stuff too that I am totally forgetting so I will fill in the details later. I am going to jump ahead to where we are now in the next post and come back to the beginning when other people are around to remind me of what order we did things in.
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