Birthright-Mayanot, Bus 357 - Summer 2011

Today was a pretty big day. I know I’m hyperbolizing every day we’ve had so far, but today was seriously a pretty big day. But in order to understand today, let me take you back to last night. I’m pretty amazed that I still have a concept of what “today” and “last night” are, since the days and nights have all started to blend together, but I’m gonna try to hold it together for two more days.

Last night was our night in the desert, living in the Bedouin tents. I didn’t really know what to expect, except that I heard the food was good. That was a rumor was confirmed. The food was really good. Hummus, tahini, salads, pita, and chicken aplenty lined the rows of students in the tent. It’s worth noting that there were plenty of other buses there with us, including our friends from Mayanot 358 with whom we listened to a short speech from a Bedouin man. Afterwards, we got a little lesson in IDF training from our soldiers, partook in a program they had planned for us in which we shared more experiences from the trip, and spent the rest of the night circled outside around a bonfire. We sang songs, smoked a little hookah (when in Rome, right?), roasted some marshmallows, and with the way we powered through the wee hours of the morning, it would’ve been hard for you to tell that we had to climb a mountain the next day.

But indeed we did, and after some joke telling and shenanigans in the tent from Raz, Idan, and Yuval, we woke up at 6:00 (no, really), had a big breakfast and headed to our first activity of the day, a camel ride. I’ve ridden a horse or two in my day, and in some pretty diverse locales: in the snow, on the beach, in the ocean, through the rainforest, etc., but this was just a tad different, to say the least. We split up into pairs and took to our humped creatures for a quick ride up some dunes to catch nice views of the end of the sun’s rise over the Negev.

After the camel ride, we got on the bus, said goodbye to the Bedouin tent complex, and headed for Masada. The sun was strong, it was pretty hot, and my t-shirt wasn’t going to cut it. I took a lesson from the Paul Spero book of fashion, and under his advisory, had him cut the sleeves off my Plainview PAL basketball shirt. While the sun’s strength may have made me pay for my decision, the extra ventilation was probably worth it.

The hike itself up Masada wasn’t too rigorous. When we got the top, Ronen showed us around a few of the historical sites, explained to us how life was sustained for dwellers atop the mountain, experimented with some cool echo trick, and we got the chance to receive our very own Hebrew letter from a sofer in the synagogue atop the mountain. Very cool.

The hike down the mountain took a little longer. The time was passed with all sorts of banter-college sports, Spike TV shows, and relationships became the talk of the mountain. We all made it down eventually, shaky legs or not. We needed to cool off from the hike, and while the Dead Sea was on our schedule, it wasn’t going to give us the relief we needed. Instead, we headed to En Geti to a natural spring, where we got to wade and cool off in a pool of natural water. The oasis was some much needed relaxation for all of us, and it was an awesome time.

So now we’re going to the Dead Sea, right? Well, not so fast. In order to avoid retail prices, we went to the Ahava factory to check out some Dead Sea lotions, salts, and other things of the sort all at wholesale pricing. I didn’t buy anything, but I was reprimanded by an employee when she saw me rubbing a cream on my foot. I know Israelis are stubborn, and usually right, but the bottle said “TESTER” right on it, not to mention, it was a foot cream. I think she was just freaked out by the sight of some guy just rubbing his bare feet in the middle of the shop, but I was equally freaked out, so I stopped after finishing only one foot. I walked with a limp the rest of the day. Just kidding. Kind of.

Alright, now we can get to the Dead Sea. The saltwater phenomenon-the lowest point on Earth-awaited us and we embraced it with open wounds---I mean, arms. Open arms. So we decked ourselves out in mud and floated on. Again, this is just one of those things about Israel that you can’t really grasp until you try it out. This whole trip has been filled with incredible first-time experiences, but this one ranks near the top. There’s not much more to say about it-after all, we were just kind of floating in water-but you’ve gotta do it for yourself. You just do.

We spent a few hours there, and finally headed back towards Jerusalem, where we got to take some long-awaited showers and naps. But before that, we said some parting words and had our goodbyes with our eight Israeli soldiers who departed the group this afternoon. All the soldiers and a bunch of us had a few words to say on the bus ride back, and for me, it’s just so incredible to realize that there are these soldiers, no younger or older than me, who have had such amazing life experiences protecting and fighting for Israel. Not that my life hasn’t been filled with great experiences, but it was so cool to get to know these soldiers and hang out with them and learn what life is like for them. Let’s just hope it was a “so long,” not a “goodbye.”

We just finished up an activity with Shia, an Israeli filmmaker who showed us two short films-one of his and one of a friend’s-and had a short, open discussion about them. He let us know he’ll be receiving an Oscar at the 2018 Academy Awards, so stay alert.

So tomorrow is another full day, culminating in Shabbat at the Wall. Shira gave us a wake up time of 8:15, so naturally, we’ll just stay up a little bit later. Speaking of which, I’m going to go see what everyone else is up to. Keep checking the blog as our trip hits the home stretch! Wow, it’s already been 8 days here. I’m not sure where the time goes.

Though, I’m definitely sure it doesn’t go towards sleeping.