Eilat!

The dates are messed up again- the last post was actually published on May 20; right now I'm blogging about the Sunday after Tzfat (May 9). I don't actually remember what we did- I think just unpack from Yam el Yam and rest, but that night we did have a concert with some hippy-dippy new age Israeli musicians which was a lot of fun and a little bit funny.

Anyways, on Monday we began our journey to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel. The trip takes about 5 and half hours, so we stopped along the way. We visited Ben Gurion's house in Sde Boker and discussed the possibility of making Aliyah in light of the fact that Ben Gurion was one of the strongest Zionists (who said that to be a true Zionist, you had to make Aliyah). We then made our way to the Bedouin tents in the desert (and this was really desert-sandy, windy, and brown), which is one of the trip's highlights. We rode camels (fun, but mounting and dismounting was terrifying), and then rested in the tents before a delicious dinner of traditional Bedouin food- kebab, rice, hummus, etc. To the Weber kids' surprise, a group from Davis was at the tents also. We were happy to see fellow Atlantans and conveyed our love of Weber to all of the incoming students. They were having a Bedouin music concert and dance party, so we crashed along with some JDS kids and had a great time dancing and drumming. Later that night our group shared tea and baclava, cuddled in the tents, and sang and played guitar.

In the morning we stopped for Tefillah at the largest crater in the world in what I think was Mizpeh Ramon. I've expressed before how beautiful the canyons and cliffs of the Israeli desert are, and this was another gorgeous view of them. I chose to do a creative writing Tefillah, in which we sat in a circle overlooking the drop and wrote pass-it-on poetry inspired by the desert (each person writes a line, and then you pass it on). Afterwards we took a bus and hiked to the sand dunes. To me the concept of having sand dunes be a tourist destination was sort of odd, because I was envisioning little ones like those at the beach. These sand dunes, however, were hugely massive and soft and very conducive to frolicking, and I proceeded to run down and up them 3 times. It's crazy to think that even though Israel is so small it contains such a variety of landscape and weather- again, this was true desert- no trees and 100 degree heat. It was a ton of fun but needless to say I was grateful to come back to the air-conditioned bus.

We kept driving and made another stop at a view of more mountains. Our teacher, who is now religious and made Aliyah after being an agnostic for almost 27 years of his life, shared his story with us and we discussed journeys in general. He told us that according to the Baal Shem Tov, each person has 42 journeys in life, and the group shared some of our experiences with our journies as well. As we were talking, I saw a big white plane in my periphery, puncturing the clear blue of the sky. I walk my dog every day at home and for some reason I usually look up and see planes while doing so. I always think about the people on them, where they are going, and that if I were on the plane what I would be doing. The weeks before this trip I always envisioned myself on the ride over to Israel, but sitting there I began to think about the quickly approaching plane ride that would begin another phase of my life-going back home, and then going to college. I was sad to think about leaving Israel, happy to be back with my friends and family in Atlanta, nervous and excited to think about the upcoming adventures I would have; it was one of those moments.

On Wednesday I opted to hike Har Shlomo, which our teacher said was his second favorite hike in Israel. It was awesome, and I'm so glad I did it. I felt like I was on Mars- everything was red, rocky, and sandy. We started early to beat the sun and it thankfully wasn't too hot; when we reached the top we had a nice breeze as we looked below onto the city of Eilat and neighboring Jordan. The view was incredible. In the afternoon we had some free time and I went to the beach. The water is totally clear, and looking out at the sea with mountains in the backdrop made me never want to leave Israel. Sure, Eilat is a little touristy, but with good reason. It's paradise. That night we boarded a disco boat for a dance party. It reminded me of the first night, except that now I knew everyone, and it was a ton of fun.

Thursday was our last day in Eilat, and those that did the Har Shlomo hike went snorkeling in the morning. I had no idea that Israel had coral reefs, but my assumptions about this country were proven wrong yet again. The fish and coral were awesome and it was also nice because the water was so clear- I could see everything. Afterwards we had some more free time in which I soaked up more of the gorgeous beach view and did a little shopping. A five and a half hour bus ride followed with incredible views of the Israeli landscape, and then we were back to campus again.