Kadima! A camel tour in the Negev desert. How camels think.

This is what Noah told us.

The most amazing fact about camels is that they have a photographic ('eidetic') memory. Hence they're use as 'trains' in the desert. Once they walked a trail they'll remember it, and they'll walk the same route next time.

Think of it. It's amazing. Picture the middle-East deserts: sandhills as far as you can see. And these camels know how to walk to end up in the next place where they can eat and drink.

Because a camel only gets underway to another place when it knows it can feed itself at the end.
Be it around the next corner or a couple of hundred miles away: as long as they know that food will be at the other end, they'll walk.
And they'll walk exactly the same track. Not a metre to the left, not a metre to the right.

People living in the desert make good use of this quality. They take the camels to the next settlement, give them food, take them to the next settlement, feed them, and so on, till they come back, after 4 or 5 settlements, at the place where they started.
From then on the camels know the route. So if people unknown to the desert arrive and want to get to the next settlement they just go with the camels and arrive safely...

The camels are lined up in consideration with their characters. Leaders and followers, but also 'trusted sisters', since camels form deep bonds and they want to walk behind the 'sister' they trust.
So you can easily walk with camels that are 'loose', they'll form a line, and after they walk behind their preferred other there's no need to worry anymore - you just sit back and relax.

(That is, if you haven't got a camel that sees food somewhere, and you're not able to steer the camel away from it (how can you? They're huge, and they know from the start you can't handle them anyway). So your camel starts eating, sees the rest of her sisters vanishing behind a hill and starts galloping to get back in line. You don't want that).

You've hard the stories about camels being grumpy, unwilling, stubborn and ready to bray and spit? Those are the males.
In the 40 years the camel farm at Eilat exists they've for 30 years been working only with the females - they did try the males in the first 10 years but it simply didn't work. Hence only female camels, now some 30 of them.
They form 'friendship' groups, there are 5 or 6 of them. When they buy a new camel from the Bedouins they sit back and watch the camel being accepted in a group, and with these groups they form the line up for the tours.

We were with them. With Noah and 16 camels (and 16 persons on them, of course) we toured the Negev desert and if you ever want something really special you should book a holiday to Eilat and go with one of the camel tours. Preferably the 4 hrs. tour, because then you get a concise training how to deal with them. Like getting them to sit - so you can dismount - or to get  up - scary even if you've done it before - and how to lead them downhill. Or to get them going: Kadima!

After sunset we dismounted, sat in the middle of the desert and were served herbal tea (delicious) and a sort of pitta bread made on the spot, served with soft cheese. This is btw the moment to ask Noah about camels, he lives them and all you want to know about them he's ready to tell. Noah, thanks again!
Since I've written that already I'll show you some photo's.
Kadima!

ps: this is Pieter's story. He's the one in the white t shirt..

Eilat: Snorkeling in the Red Sea

Eilat hosts the most northern coral reefs in the world, and snorkeling or diving is done everywhere.
But please note.

The coral reefs are of course very fragile, so you cannot enter the sea wherever you want.
Special 'beaches' have been made - and you have to pay before you can enter them - and you're only allowed to enter the sea via a long jetty. Ok so far.

Then there's a guard that starts yelling whenever you swim outside the flags or inside the buoys (fencing off the reefs!). Great when you can't hear anything because you're snorkeling, but ok, I see why they're on guard.

Not that the reefs are very special, IMHO. They're in a dire condition, whitened because of water pollution, not much re-growth and there are not so many fish - but some of the fish that swim around  are larger than I've ever seen before. And very, very beautiful...

Here are some pics of the cruise we made on the Sabbath.
4 hrs. on a former fishing boat, with an on board BBQ, and views of four countries: Israel, Jordania, Saudi-Arabia and Egypt.
The sea was lovely warm, we could try out our newly bought snorkeling sets and that was great...

I start the photos with the backs of the containers-cum-shops and some harbour pics. Then the part of the beach reserved for orthodox Jews: man and women apart (and only sun bathing, no swimming!).
I end with photos from the surrounding countries. It's really interesting, sailing there!

Israel: Beautiful Timna Park

Timna Park, half an hours' drive from Eilat, is rightly famous.
We found it downright amazing.
We've been to America to see the deserts and the strange and wonderful nature that comes with them. Here we found a true blue desert again, but then 'only' a 4.5 hrs. flight from Holland.

Going to Timna Park we started driving along the Israelian-Jordanian border. This was all military terrain of course, and we even ran into border crossings and military outposts.
All very interesting (and soldiers waving at us!).

There's a stretch of about 2 km. between the two borders, and in Jordania there's a Hwy running north as well, so when you travel up the Israeli Hwy 90 you see the cars on the other side of the border going along with you. Weird.

Timna is cheap to enter, and you definitely need a car. It's an extensive Park with stunning views wherever you look. And many different coloured rocks: the first 'special point' is a fiery red, mushroom shaped rock in an ochre coloured landscape.
Then you come to the Timna mines: the oldest - and very interesting - copper mines in the world (think 4000 BC), in a glaring, white landscape with a large arch as an extra - ok, it's not Moab's Arches National Park but it's a great big arch if there ever was one!

Then there are the dark red-ochre Salomon's pillars that definitely reminded us of the Australian Olgas - not so much the shape (a pillar is after all quite different from a huge rounded rock) but the total silence, the heat, and these wonderfully coloured rocks that you could climb and walk on to your heart's content.

At the end of the track is a restaurant and very good art shop near an artificial lake, so you feel like you're in an oasis. We didn't want to leave this stunning landscape, and took the 4Wd tracks to see more (no problem with a 'normal' car).
After a day and a half in busy Eilat we were finally unwinding, and truly 'on holiday'!

  

Eilat: a Town for Tourists, a Town with a History

Our first impression of the tourist part of Eilat was - I must admit - of a Lunapark gone berserk.
Huge hotels all along the coastline, on the Promenade small shops in delapidated containers selling tourist stuff and cheap clothes. Then small stretch of pebbly beach bordering a very quiet sea.
All this in glaring lights and accompanied by very loud elevator music.

Next day we skipped the Lunapark part and headed for Eilat's very interesting Eilat Museum.

Eilat started as a town in 1949 when Israeli soldiers 'gave' this part of the land 'back' to Israel.
This part of the world has been occupied by every wandering tribe, plus the Turks, the Romans and the English. But in 1165 BC (said the timeline in the museum) the land had been Israels', so it should be Israel again.
First a military base, then a small town consisting of an airstrip and, half a mile away, a few blocks of houses, a post office, a school, a hospital. A new town in a barren land.

In the 70's tourism was booming and Eilat had it all: a wonderful dry climate, 360 days of sun, the Red sea with coral reefs. Hotels and malls were built and the tourists flocked in.
It's not international tourism though: Israeli and Russians make up 95%. The remaining 5%: Americans and Dutch - we've always had a soft spot for Israel.
But there's Eilat itself too, and we happily strolled this - for us - strange and unknown city.

One thing has endeared us to Eilat: the airstrip it all started with.
Now a small airport, and now bang in the middle of Eilat. We're not kidding: wedged between the sea and the airport are the hotels, behind the airstrip Eilat itself.

In the evening the planes start coming in, they roar over your head and land right in front of you.
Our hotel was right above it (Eilat is built on hills and the hotel was on the city side) and it was fascinating to see these planes so close.

Israel? Eilat? Why?

Well - to be honest, it was the cheapest week away on offer.
We booked before we had any second thoughts.

Like: so we're going to Israel - a country we never ever considered as a holiday option.
Or: we'll be staying in the same hotel for a whole week - that would be our record yet.
And then - oh well, let's just go, we're going for the snorkeling, the hotel comes with a swimmingpool  and there's a desert and deserts are great.

The flight to Eilat gave us ample opportunity to make photos of what awaited us, and that was, flying all over Israel to the most southern part, mountains. Very dry mountains, and between them dry riverbeds with green dots in it.

Ovda Airport, originally a military base, lies in the middle of the desert, an hours' drive from Eilat.
The landscape we drove through was by far the driest and most barren land we've ever seen. It didn't very much lift our spirits, but travelling along the Egyptian border was special - a huge railing with sensors and camera's separating the middle of nowhere.
Then a roadblock, yes, we're in the Middle East!, and hills covered with military lookouts and camouflaged foxholes.
Finally the town of Eilat, with the Jordanian town of Aqaba next to it.

But first some pics.
I start with my pet love: signposts. This one is in my Top Three.
Then the Israel-Egypt border plus roadblock (in the distance!).