Egypt Pictures

so the photo is horrible... but here we are at the border!

Our hotel in Dahab

The restaurant at our hotel

Just some of the coral reefs

Aren't snorkels flattering?

Our hut where we ate in Abu Galum

The Bedouins dont really care about comfort on camels... just wanted  to get us there and back

The Abu Galum fisherman at sunset

Relaxing on the beach

The fish looked unreal

The sunset at our kibbutz when we got home

Trip to Egypt

Over the weekend, I decided to travel to Egypt (Sinai specifically) with two friends from my program. We took a bus to the border on Thursday evening, and we encountered our first luck of the weekend en route. We started talking to two Israelis who were also traveling to Sinai and they offered to share a cab with us once we crossed the border. We had no idea where we were going, so we gladly accepted. After walking over the border, it was clear that we were in Egypt. The atmosphere was totally different, which was quite a shock to us. We expected another mid-east country... but in comparison to Israel, Egypt is 40 years behind. So we crossed, and our Israeli friends, one of whom spoke fluent Arabic started bargaining with the cab driver. This was our first experience with Egypt's bargaining, which we heard was much different than Israel. You can bargain for ANYTHING in Egypt, even a bottle of water in a grocery store. It's crazy. So thirty minutes cab ride and our driver, Samy, whom we became friends with, pulls into a place called Paradise. He got out of the car to say hi to all his friends and they started showing us around the place and our room. All along the Red Sea coast of Sinai there are little bungalow villages that you can rent for a few nights like a hotel. They are all pretty gross, but we didnt know that before hand.

We had heard from many people back in Israel that there are nice places so we talked with the driver and decided to continue on to a city called Dahab. We arrived and he showed us to a nice hostel and things were good. We sat down for some dinner at the hostel and talked with the manager, who was a really nice 20 year old guy who we became friends with over the weekend. He told us all about Dahab and treated us to Bedouin Tea, which is the best tea I've ever had. We talked about things to do and decided that the next morning we would get up and go an a Jeep Safari/Camel Trip/Snorkeling Trip.

Friday morning, we were awoken by our "wakeup call", a knock on the door, and after we got ready, we were greeted and started on our trip. The jeep first took us to an incredible snorkel spot called The Blue Hole, where we first sat down for a bite to eat and tea, and then we snorkeled. We were lucky to be on the jeep with two Israeli's, a father and daughter, who had been to Dahab multiple times before and showed us around to the best places. The father knew the owner of one of the beach front restaurants near Blue Hole, which became our home base for the day. It was great to meet the two Israeli's, because they took us under their wing and made the whole day much better. After snorkeling we took a camel ride to a national reserve called Abu Galum. It was supposed to be the best snorkeling/diving in Sinai, but we couldn't find any reefs. I swam along most of the waterfront and found nothing. It was quite disappointing, but we spent some time relaxing on the beach and it was nice. As part of the day's trip, we were served lunch in a Bedouin hut, and it was delicious. We had a traditional Bedouin meal with salads and rice, but also had great fish that was caught no more than 25 minutes before we were served. After eating a relaxing, my German friend Arkadij, who was born in Russia, taught us a Russian card game called Durak, which supposedly every Russian in the world knows.We played for a while, relaxed some more and it was really nice. At one point, a man who lives in Abu Galum came over, and somehow we got to the topic of camels, and we learned all the commands for camels, which came very handy on our ride back. We had a need for speed, so we yelled the commands and ran the camels past all the other groups of people on the path. It was fun to watch as 3 teens, an American, a German, and a Brit ran past them looking like camel pros. Once we got back to our restaurant at Blue Hole, we took some more time to relax and enjoy the sunset and some more Bedouin Tea. We then got the jeep ride back home to finish off a great but tiring day. After cleaning up, we decided to go out on the town. Dahab is a beautiful beach front town with restaurants and Bazaar shops all along the promenade. We did a little shopping and then went to bed.

Saturday morning, we slept in a little, and then decided to do some more snorkeling. We got a ride to a place called Three Pools, which was even better than The Blue Hole, and it was less populated. I got tons of underwater photos, which I will post on here soon. We spent the whole morning on the beach, went back to the hotel, cleaned up, had lunch and packed everything up. We were so tired after a great weekend. We got a taxi ride with our friend Samy and the two hour ride back to the border crossing felt like nothing since we all fell asleep. We crossed the border back into Israel, and we were very happy to be "home". Much of this joy may have been because it was the first time the whole weekend we were in air conditioning! A few bus rides later and we were back at Kibbutz Yahel sharing our stories with the group and hearing about everyone else's weekend adventures. It was great to be back home after an adventurous weekend!

All in all, I have come to the conclusion that Egypt, despite being a beautiful country with incredibly nice people, is crazy. It was definitely a shock to see how different two neighboring countries, Israel and Egypt, could be. The culture- society, way of life, city development, and even food, was so different, even though we were just a few hours away.

Thats all for now, pictures are soon to come!

-Ethan

Pictures from Last Week

A great lookout into the Eilat mountains

We got into some interesting terrain this time. This was the easy stuff. More to come later.

At one point, Hagar, our Madrich (leader) for Kibbutz, stopped to teach us a song about all the Kibbutzim in the South Arava.

This is the crazy viewpoint from above the canyon. To the right is Egypt.

Some of us decided to be true tourists and put up the peace sign. Hooray for cheesy!

I'm really not that big... 

Rio took a chance to breathe right near a cliff into the huge valley

Here is some of the rough terrain. At points going down, everyone had to hold onto a railing... there was even a point when we had to climb down a rickety ladder.

Lunch on the trail is always delicious and revitalizing.

Beautiful.

Back in Israel

Hey Everyone:

Sorry its been a while since I last updated. Here's what I've been up to. We had normal week after keshet seminar. We had a really cool session about the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) where we focused more on the cultural aspect of the army and not so much of the political conflict that often comes up on the topic of the army. In the field, the big piles of bags were finally getting to an end, and then the other workers decided to deliver huge new piles, so our work with the date bags are nowhere close to over. On last Wednesday, we took another hike in the Arava. It was a beautiful hike through the Eilat mountains... we learned about the daily life of Bedouins in the desert and made a few stops at beautiful lookout points. We spent quite some time at a cliff overlooking an incredibly massive canyon and riverbed... and the view was like nothing else. Ill post pictures later.

We had a great afternoon in Eilat and got back to Kibbutz with time to relax a bit before getting a good night's sleep. Thursday, we volunteered in the morning, and I was asked to help in the kitchen. It was a lot of fun getting to know the chefs and being able to actually cook most of the food to be served for lunch that day. We really got to know the chef, Johnny, and we learned about the Kibbutz and his story as we worked.

We all are getting into the groove of things, and daily life here feels more natural that before. The group is getting along, and we are starting to really connect with each other. Each one of us is feeling more comfortable with the community. I am really excited for the next week as we become more and more a part of the Netzer community and as we try harder to integrate with the Kibbutz community.

I will post some pictures and then share in another post what I did this last weekend!

L'hitrayot,
Ethan

First Desert Trip... cool hikes

Our first Wednesday trip consisted of tow hikes. First was to some crazy sand dunes where we got to play around and second was to the Red Canyon, which is right around where some historians say the real Mt. Sinai is. We had lots of fun and cannot wait to do a longer hike on our trip tomorrow!

Off into the horizon from our first stopping point on the hike.

Rachel gazing into the distance during a water break

Only 10 minutes into the hike... a bit pitiful

Our first view of the dunes.

We had some time to run around and down the dunes. Lots of fun.

Except when we fell down of course...

Shady spots are great for learning. You can see our desert hike guide in the top left talking to us about the biblical history of where we were hiking.

I saw some of the most beautiful rock formations as we hiked into the red canyon.

Here's Kyla climbing deep down into the canyon... believe it or not, I fit down there too!

It was so cool to be inside at the bottom of the canyon, but the best view was from above.

Arrival At Yahel

The following pictures are from our first glimpse of Kibbutz Yahel. We were introduced to the Kibbutz with a walking tour. Our first sights were absolutely beautiful.

Two of my friends from the program. Arkadij from Oberhausen, Germany on the right and Josh from Birmingham, England on the left.

Our first Kibbutz friend, a cow.

One step of the date packing process... these are getting ready to go into sorting. Yum. 

The beautiful view out my window.

Happy November

Hey all,

Sorry its been so long since I've written. I had a full week on Kibbutz and we've been working, learning, and having a lot of fun. We have been working in the date fields.... where we have been closing up shop for the off season. To be precise, that consists of stacking and rolling up huge 12 foot mesh bags in groups of 24. The mound of bags for us to old grows everyday and we may never finish, but we have fun out there. As for learning, we have had sessions about community, Israel, and modern Zionism, and its really interesting to see all the different viewpoints in the group. We had a really fun session called "Beseder, Lo Beseder" meaning "Cool, Not Cool" where there were about 50 topics that we all had to classify as either cool or not cool.... these led to discussions of topics from Gilad Shalit to Brittany Spears. While some topics were funny, it really made us think during certain topics.

Every Wednesday, we have a trip off of the Kibbutz. Last week we took two small hikes to incredible sand dunes in the desert and to a beautiful Red Stone Canyon. We ended the day in Eilat with some time on the beach. The hikes were a great chance to see the beauty of the South of Israel, and it really made us think as we learned about the relation of our land to the Torah, and about claims that one mountain we were on is supposedly the real Mt. Sinai. As part of our day, we also went to a lookout point over Egypt. It was neat to be able to see Jordan, Israel, and Egypt all in one glance, and its wild to see how the markings of the border have changed so much with time and advancement of security measures. What used to be large rock pillars to signify a line has now become high security border fences. Despite the unfortunate fact that the original simple border is gone, it was easy to see that Israel knows what it is doing security wise.

This past weekend, we made the trek to Jerusalem for our first Keshet Seminar of the year. During this Shabbat, we gathered with 200 participants from other Zionist year long programs. We were of all different sects of Judaism, and it was a interesting and controversial weekend that definitely made everyone on Shnat Netzer ready to return to Kibbutz Yahel.

Now we are back at Kibbutz, and we had a great day in the date fields today, with enough breaks for eating all the pomellos we can, of course. The group is so obsessed with Pomellos.... we even had a pomello party the other day where we played games such as "hot pomello" "pin the tail on the pomello" and other crazy pomello games. We also had a great Halloween party last night, and we gave some Israeli's and Australian's their first ever Halloween experience. It was really funny trying to hold a serious meeting beforehand, because everyone already had their costumes on.

The food has been pretty good... we eat lunch in the dining hall, and its great having such good variety everyday. For dinner, we cook meals as a room, and I am proud to say I have come up with some great dishes. Tonight, we had Moroccan style couscous with fresh picked dates, and other fruits and veggies. yum!

As for pictures, for simplicities sake, I am going to try to start posting lots of pictures on here. I will do separate posts of just pictures and maybe captions, and please comment on whether I should stick to this or link you to a better photo website.

I am having a great time, and everything around me on the Kibbutz is so beautiful. I miss you all... keep in touch.

-Ethan