There's No Water in the Desert

This weekend was our first tiyul (trip), and we traveled to the Negev, which is, of course, really hot and dry! We left at 6am yesterday (Friday), and stopped at this historic center where we learned about an ancient people who developed a trade route from East Asia to Damascus, and had all these really impressive ways of surviving for months in the desert with perfumes and spices and a caravan of thousands of camels! We saw some of the ruins of a few of the centers they had built on the secret route that only they knew of.

The bus then took us to Mitzpe Ramon, which is a gorgeous view of the Machtesh Ramon, a kind of huge crater in the middle of the desert that was caused not by impact, but by erosion. We went on a short (3-hour) hike through the machtesh, and then headed to a bedouin campsite for the night. We cooked our own dinner, had a campfire, roasted marshmallows, and went to bed because today we had to wake up early four our intense 8-hour hike through a huge section of the machtesh! It was a difficult hike because hiking in Israel is nothing like hiking in the American northeast, which is what I'm used to. Everything is desert and sand, there are no tall trees or shade, and you're under the boiling sun the entire time (even in October!). But we were prepared with four liters of water each, and we took lots of water breaks and made sure we were hydrated. We climbed up and down two mountains, plus did a lot of trekking on jeep trails and water pipe trails and other random trails all throughout the machtesh, and there were lots of incredible views of huge sections of the "crater."

I'm back at school now (and really tired!), and tomorrow I'm supposed to begin my two linguistics classes within the regular English department at the University, but there is some question as to whether or not classes will take place tomorrow because of a strike. In Israel, somebody is always striking. Last year it was the students, who didn't come to class because they didn't want tuition prices to be raised. Right now, high school teachers have been on strike for a good few weeks, so there are no high school classes, because teachers want a pay raise (and they are paid terribly--about 5,000 shekels/month, or a little over $1,000). And university professors may be striking for the same reason. So I'm not entirely sure when my classes will be starting.

I did start my Hebrew class though. I'm in class 6, which is the highest, and I think it's difficult--a lot more difficult than the kibbutz ulpan. But I'm sure I'll learn a lot, and my teacher is this fabulous woman who likes to talk to us (in Hebrew, of course) about her alternative lifestyle.

Lila tov!