From the desert – with love

The deserts in Israel are not dull tons of sand, but multicolored mountains, deep canyons and caves created by wind, water and time. This is a carefully adjusted living world, not emptiness, but space, prompting to contemplation.

Cowboys, Bedouins and Cold Beer

We were five. We lived in Eilat for three days and from the souls were cut in water. We swam in the Red Sea just so, dived with a mask in coral reefs, photographed with dolphins. And we wanted some land exotic. Maybe in the desert on a camel? Naturally and exotic! Here it is a desert, visible from the window of the hotel, it remains to find a camel. In the advertising leaves facilitated: "Texas ranch", Tours on camels from $ 35, including Bedouin snacks.

We were five when we entered the wide gate "Texas ranch",

Rancho in Israel – already exotic! Here once filmed a cowboy film, and the scenery was preserved – in the dry air, the tree does not rot.

Troy left us when it came to climb the camels. Two sat on the bench under the hot sun of the South and said they would wait here to wait for our return. Their eyes were directed to the house with the inscription "Saloon" and cold beer. But what about exotic? And in no way – they did not think that the camel is so high, they do not want to fall from him, break the leg and spoil all vacation. In vain "Verblyundee", Bedouin Musa, assured that it is not a camel, and the camels that they are humble, that no one has fallen from them – we still had three.

My one-burning camel named TEA lay and looked at me quite peacefully, I scored a warm saddle, my legs did not get to the ground, it was fun and not scary. Tea straightened the hind legs, it seemed to me that now I’ll get on her long neck, but I did not have time to get scared like a camel got up. Before the earth, of course, was distant, but it was convenient to sit.

The caravan went on the road, the camels stepped out silently and gently, we swelled into the tact of their steps and looked at the colorful mountains around.

Among the hills of light yellow color, other mountains and hills unexpectedly appeared – then dark red, then gray, almost black. Sometimes it seemed that some chains of the mountains were lit by the Sun, and others are shipped into darkness, but it was an entree – the sky was cloudless.

The gorge was narrowed, we drove 40 minutes. It seemed that I could spend a whole day in the saddle, but we stopped at the spread acacia. Musa ordered camels to lie down, we removed carpets from the saddle, spread them in the shadow of acacia and lay down on the ground next to camels. Time did not move; A light breeze that always blows in the gorge brought a pleasant coolness.

Musa raised a fire, treated us with sweet tea with spicy marva and began to make dough from flour and water. Then it looked fine and roasted on the contrary. Fresh cakes slightly smelled smoke, he wrapped in them salty goat cheese – here she, promised Bedouin snack, simple and tasty.

Musa told us about how Bedouins survive in the desert, about their insens and customs. "Here you are, – he said, having served in someone else’s country, carry shopping, buy gifts to the native. And we, Bedouins, on the contrary, we give the one who goes on the road, and who defeated the difficult path, to-do everything in the living house is everything, a person on the road is always harder than at home". And we remembered those who are now drinking cold beer in Salun, but Nimalo did not envy them.

Sea below sea level

When we returned to the ranch, we were five again. We did not say that two, how much they lost, but we so respectfully uttered the word "desert" And at the same time, the eyes rushed so that two decided: it is necessary to visit the desert – on the jeep. No sooner said than done. 37 dollars with person – And now we are looking at the Israeli resort of Eilat and the Jordanian resort Aqaba with a steep hill, where we are famously drove on a powerful SUV.

All guides tend to exaggerate. Listen, in their country all – the most. But we have not yet heard. The driver of the jeep confidently says Israel – Continent. "Continent?" – I ask for incredulously. "Yes, it utters firmly, – a separate continent between Africa and Asia". And explains: "Here once occurred geological catastrophes, huge maintenance plates shifted, geological layers moved. The ancient magmatic breeds displaced the surface, you will see them. Ghore deepthine is formed – Syrian-African Rift. At her bottom – Jordan, then the Tiber Lake (Galilee Sea), it is on a hundred meters below sea level, and the Dead Sea. His shores – the lowest point on land – 400 meters below the world’s ocean level. Israel is a unique phenomenon, nothing is comparable to a small continent".

And we began to wind up a kilometer for a kilometer in the Negev desert among silent mountain chains of fantastic forms and colors. We have seen the once horizontal layers of the breed, pillars of Ammora from weathered sandstone, similar to the city of cyclops, we gained in glass bottles of colorful sand handy, and they laid out there, forming a rainbow rainbow. We listened to the stories about Boulins Boulev, slightly "Choknuta", which makes the nest soft outside and tough inside. We watched how, to find out in the water, instantly dumps the solid peel and produces white "cilia" Blepharis Ciliaris seeds. We followed the packs of slowly taking off flamingos, living on one of the ponds near Eilat, we hunted with cameras on wild goats. In short, we were so fascinated by the beauty of the desert that. paid another $ 45 and went to Timna Park.

In the Timna Park, there is something to see: the remnants of the ancient copper mines (we made a souvenir tooth souvenir in our eyes), gigantic Solomon pillars, a huge rock "Mushroom" From the weathered sandstone, the remnants of the Egyptian temple.

At the foot of Solomon Pillars, we saw a big tent-acquired fence – recreated recently tabernacle. From the Bible, it is known that the Prophet Moses on Mount Sinai (completely not far from here) received the stone from the god a stone with ten commandments, an agreement was concluded (vow. Covenant) between God and man. According to the command of God and on his instructions, the tabernacle was built (tent, tent), room for worship services. It was made with extraordinary magnificence – copper, silver, gold, embroidered curtains, four-layer roof. The tabernacles wandered with the people in the desert, so it was easy to disassemble, to transfer and put again.

In the tabernacle, two rooms, divided by the curtain: the first (large) -the, or the sanctuary, the second – the Holy Saints. In Saint, there was a golden seedswie, a table for bread, lined with gold, and an altar for smoking incense. The Holy Saints kept the ark (house) of the covenant with commandments on stone srices. Previously, only priests could be included in the Holy, and in the Holy Saints – only the high priest and then only once a year.

Today, tourists can enter the Holy, and in the Holy Saints, to see the Golden Angels, bent over the Ark of the Covenant. The ark is similar to the Golden Chest, there are stone plates with commandments, a bloomed staff of Aaron and a pot with semolina heavenly. Aaron was brother Moses and the first high priest. Moses instructed Aaron to put in the Ark manna Heaven – in memory of the accomplished miracle. When millions of the sons of Israel 40 years have wandered over the Arabian desert, they fed on bread, falling from the sky in the form of rain. Sweet white lumps needed to be assembled early in the morning, with the sunrise they melted and disappeared.

Truly Miracle – Forty years Millions Food Food Semnel Heavenly!

When we left the tabernacle, the desert spread around us around us. She was the embodiment of a miracle.

Live dirt and dead water

At the very beginning we were five, but three days before the end of the vacation almost became four. I touched my leg, I could neither walk nor swim. But friends did not leave me in trouble, they said: "We are not in the wild west, and in the civilized east, hand to the Dead Sea, went there, there we will cure".

Two hours drive – and we are in Ein-Bokek. An hour later, I am deprived of therapeutic mud. I find out that the dirt that tourists are painted to take pictures in "Ethiopian" form – nothing more than an attraction. For the procedure, the dirt must be heated. In a separate cabin, lined with a cafeter, a nurse deceives me with a hot gray-black porridge, then bursts into a polyethylene and a bike blanket. Lying, ripe, on the table, ointment lightly smells about tar (or asphalt?), It seems that I am lying in a warm bath, only water in it does not cool, but it remains pleasantly warm. After 15 minutes, the thick layers of dirt are written me, but I’m still gray-black. There is a shower in the booth, and I wash off the mud spots for a long time. It seems to me that the leg became easier, but the sister smiles: one procedure is not enough, that’s if there are five things, and not from such diseases here is cured here. And sends me to the pool with heated water of the Dead Sea.

I descend into oily water, the impression is that I go in the heated glycerin. I’m afraid to slip and fall, I was strictly warned that the water should not fall into the eyes. After all, in the Dead Sea – a huge saline concentration: 30 grams per 100 grams of solution, or rather, brine. Not far from me An old man poses in front of the camera, half-sidewal-half-round on the back with a deployed newspaper in the hands. It’s funny, you can not say anything in which it is impossible to drown. But long to be in it also do not advise. I get out of the pool and by slipfasting from salt water with a tile floor carefully delight to a fresh soul. Uff! Now – in the jacuzzi. My knee seems to begin to bend. And this means that tomorrow it will be possible to go to the Judean desert, to see a salt pillar, in which the Lot’s wife turned out, who gave life for the only look – to the native city sentenced to death for sins.

Where to relax from terrorists?

We saw salt mountains and "wife Lota", drove on the canyon Perasim with his striped walls, they got off with white from the flour cave, and – we did not have time left to buy gifts. We have grabbed the creams, dirt, ointment of the Dead Sea (it turned out that in Eilat they are cheaper than Ein-Bokek, in the firm store "Ahava" On the Dead Sea and in the Dutyphri Tel Aviv airport), we remembered the attitude of Bedouins to gifts, and it seemed right to us.

Homemade meets us joyfully and neither began to ask: "How are you there? Not dangerous? Terrorists have not seen?". – "What terrorists?" -Was surprised.

And our surprise was clear: because we did not have time to watch TV.