We started our experience leaving Jerusalem to participated in Leket picking apples. All of these apples strictly go to the hungry & needy in Israel and by working for 45 minutes in the apple orchard, our group was able to help over 300 families in Israel!! From there we headed south where everyone crawled in some caves and had a blast.
Then it was time to head down further in the Negev near S'de Boker where we began our Desert Experience. We walked for a few hours before finding our campsite where people relaxing, walked around, admired the sunset, played Frisbee and just hung out. We slept under the stars and tough to find a more beautiful view of our vast universe.
We woke up before sunrise to beat the beat and climbed up to a couple amazing peaks to see the expanse of the Negev desert. We arrived at a much needed desert oasis where so many people jumped in to cool off, relax and get rejuvenated. We continued our hike after our shade quickly disappeared and walked a few more hours when we reached another desert "oasis" which was an actual Bedouin tent where a woman's wonderful hospitality made us homemade pitta, labaneh (cheese) and hot tea. Yes, hot tea can actually be refreshing even in temps near 100. We finished our hike after the tent and reached the second campsite where everyone relaxed and felt amazingly accomplished after doing this all together as one IST community.
We camped out under the stars again and went to a spa where everyone relaxed in multiple swimming pools, had a hearty lunch and filled their hearts & souls. We left the spa and headed to an amazing kibbutz called Yotvata which specializes in their dairy products. Everyone got their own flavor of the specialized ice cream and felt like nectar of the gods after our desert experience. We concluded the time by getting to Kibbutz Lotan, which is our home away from home the next 3 nights and had the chance to have a BBQ/pool party to relax re-energize. Today we are off to Eilat to go snorkeling, banana boating and water sports before returning to the Kibbutz for Kabbalat Shabbat :)
Below you will find some of the ISTers blog entries mixed within the pics.
I was not expecting it to be so dark and enclosed. Without a light you had to trust your touch to lead you through water tunnels of Jerusalem. When we started out, we were behind people who had a light, but we got separated from them almost immediately. Taylor and I were separated from the group in the dark with no light. It was a great bonding experience. She was in front and telling me the height of the rocks above us as we kept moving slowly. After a while, I realized that we could use my watch light for a little light in the pitch blackness. After a while we heard a rush of water from in front of us which scared us for a second until we saw a light and realized it was 2 other ISTers coming back to find us. Josh later said when he found us we looked like we were from the show "Lost". With light we went through some of the tunnels and got to see the rocks around us which I thought were really cool. Eventually, we decided to turn off the light because of the experience. Walking through the water tunnels was an unforgettable experience and I'm so glad I did it.
--- Aliyah Price, 2014 ISTer
No one (almost) wanted to spend 3 days in the desert. Everyone just assumed it would be hot, dry and desolate. Most of us assumed that we would just be hiking through sand and maybe we would see some cacti or scorpions every few miles. But the Negev was so much different, Yes, it was hot. Yes, there was lots & lots of sand. But nobody really expected there to be any real terrain. We had to scale boulders, hike mountains, and dodge large rocks in our pathways. We had to figure out how much water to drink when we knew it would be much longer until the next fill up or even the next spot with a small. amount of shade. The truth it, thought, that most of us really enjoyed ourselves.
Many of us made new friendships just because where all there is to do is walk the only way to keep oneself entertained is to talk. And although the desert oasis was beautiful, stunning, gorgeous...although the Bedouins can really make the greatest tea & pita I can safely say that I have ever or will ever eat, I don't think those will be the greatest memories of the Negev desert experience. I think the memories will be of the amazing views we had the pleasure to see, of the funny things that happened or the funny stories that we told and of the many shooting stars we could see while stargazing at night. People will look back and laugh at how uncomfortable sleeping on rocks truly is. The will smile at how scary it was when I lifted up the blanked on top of my bag and a camel spider was just chilling out by my duffel. People will remember the bonding experience of freaking out together whether about the spider, or how Jacki spilled our entire water supply :) Although most of us didn't want to go, too many good memories happened on our Bar Midbar - our desert experience - for anyone to say they regret going or they would have rather done something else. Too many friendships formed or strengthened, too many once-in-a-lifetime experiences, too many "what happens on IST, stays on IST" moments for us to have missed out on this experience.
We are such an amazing kehilah (community) full of brothers & sisters and laughter and song. And of all of the memories that we will hold until we die, our connection as one family is the one that will never fade.
--- Elise Kramer, 2014 ISTer
Hello from Israel!! We just got back from our wilderness experience in the Negev and thought we'd share our adventure. When we left on Tuesday, we weren't exactly sure what lay ahead and we weren't super optimistic. That changed quickly though. The first day we went on a quick hike to our campsite that was filled with beautiful scenery. That night the group bonded over songs and a nice campfire. The next morning we woke up at 5am. We continued our hike and made two stops along the way. Our firstone was a beautiful oasis where we ate lunch and "cleaned" up. At this point we thought our hike was over, but we were far from right. We continued on as the cool morning turning into blazing heat. We eventually reached the Bedouin tent where we ate pita, drank tea and took much needed naps. Finally we made our way down to our last stop where we relaxed, met some Israeli soldiers and slept. Overall, the hike was fantastic. Although there were some tiring pointsw, it brought us all together. We are having a wonderful time here and we continue looking forward to the journeys ahead...
Alana Kaufman & Noah Adelstein, 2014 ISTers
