The Fun Never Stops

One of the residents

Friday morning I woke up early like usual (okay, its only the 2nd time) to go volunteer at the youth village. I learned that most of the other people there are less volunteers and more court-mandated-community-service-workers. Hahaha... They're not murderers or anything, I was talking to one of them and he just got in a drunken brawl with some guy so now he's there a few days a week. He also really wants to learn English and I want to learn Hebrew so that's a plus. Main point, I'm there to volunteer and work hard, they are there not by their own free will so they don't want to work at all. Also, Friday mornings they typically have birthday parties for kids. They bring food and eat, feed the animals, make pita, go on tractor rides, perfect for the budding kibutznik. I have to leave early because I'm going on a trip to Eilat for a day and a half, I get back and have just enough time to do laundry, the dryer even already has 20 minutes on it, just enough time.

So I know next to nothing about what this trip will entail (Bedouin tent and camel ride is all I know) and ask one of my friends what she is bringing. I cram some warm clothes for the night and another shirt in my yellow backpack and some food, of course. I go to the central bus station with my other friend. This place is huge, in a sketchy part of tel aviv and very confusing to navigate. We finally find the right gate and get our tickets. We're still waiting on the two other girls. The other two girls arrive and we get on the bus. I then learn its going to be a 5 hour bus ride. No problem, I am the master of long bus rides, Amherst to NY was almost always 5 hours.  Besides, I have my music, food and water, I'm ready for the worst. Which is what precisely happens in the form of a mother and her two very young, very loud, very upset children. She ends up displacing my two friends who were sitting across from me. Hip hip hooray... Throughout the ride they cry, scream, hide under the seat, fight each other, get hit by their mother and cry about needing to go to the bathroom. To which the mother makes the bus driver stop, right by a police station on the highway mind you. She grabs the kid by the arms brings him to the side of the bus, in everyone's view and just pulls his pants down and away he goes. He also apparently started to poop because I hear her scream something about poop in hebrew. Luckily we also had a few breaks. One of which involved a McDonalds in the middle of the desert, complete with golden arches. Even in the desert of Israel you can't escape the clown. As we're getting closer and the sun is setting there is the most beautiful sunset over the desert horizon, wonderful color gradient. 5 hours later we arrive to the bus station. I was under the impression, a wrongful one at that, that a taxi would be waiting for us to take us to Yusef's Beduoin Tent!!!!!! There was not. However there were still taxis, they just had no idea what we were talking about... After many minutes and talking to numerous drivers we finally find one who knows where to go. Unfortunately there are five of us and only four seats. He refuses to take all of us so we split up into two taxis and just follow the first guy. We finally get to our destination.

There it is...

Courtesy of google maps, also
the image seems broken, oh well

Quite literally, Yusef's Bedouin Tent. Just one. A single tent. As humor is my go to coping mechanism I just laugh and take in the whole situation. I should clarify a bit. We were expecting the usual Bedouin tourist destination. In the middle of the desert, with many huge tents, for sleeping, eating and dancing. What we got was a roadside restaurant attraction... We were all severely disappointed, especially those of us who have never been to the real thing. We even went through the 5 stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. This can't be the place, this fucking sucks, can't we find another place, this is not what I was expecting (sad face) and alright lets just see how this works out. So we walk the 15 feet from the side of the road to the tent with our bags and are greeted by who else but YUSEF!!! There are couches outside with sheets over them, almost every surface is covered in either a tapestry or rug. The ceiling is adorned by decorative lanterns and poorly wired light bulbs. We sit down, still in shock just focusing on getting some food in our stomachs. He asks us what we want to eat and we explain that there are people in the group that dont eat meat. Hummus and pita it is. Every time he talks to us it sounds like he is being sarcastic even though he is being sincere, it confuses some of us. He starts us off with olives, pita, hummus, labneh and some surprisingly good salted cucumbers and tomatoes. We all start chowing down and a bit later he brings out the authentic stuff, grilled meats and french fries. Two heaping plates of french fries. Hummus and french fry tacos for dinner it is. One of the girls asks about sleeping over and he replies with what seems like sarcasm but is really just confusing sincerity. He tells us of course we can stay and tells us where each of his family members sleep. They all live in this tent... 

A lot of other groups are also coming through for dinner and hookah. One of whom leaves a very memorable impression. A Polish grandmother with a very high pitched voice who ends up getting quite shitfaced off of beer and befriending just about all the other adults there. Her face was just glowing with drunken glee and I really wanted to be her friend. Some of us are getting very tired and just fall asleep pretty early. I stay up pretty late as I'm still a little sketched out and paranoid. Eventually, I fall asleep and wake up 5 hours later to the sun rising over the mountains in Jordan. It's pretty dam cold and I'm not gonna get any warmer by laying in bed. So, I struggle to put on a pair of jeans over my pajama pants, get my shoes on and go across the street for a better view and some exercise to warm up. The First Days of Spring by Noah and the Whales was my soundtrack for my morning outside the tent. I still can't get over how good Love of an Orchestra is. I walked down the street to see what else was around because we weren't exactly offered breakfast. "I give you tea or coffee in the morning and then you leave" -Yusef

That's fine, we had to make it to the camel place by 8:45. Luckily I found an aroma close by andwent on a breakfast run and got back with minutes to spare. We load into I guess his son's taxi and go just down to the road to the camel place. The whole of last night he wouldn't give us a straight answer to how far away it was. It was only a few minutes away, so we say our goodbyes and go. We arrive to the camel ranch and are debating between the 1.5 or 4 hour ride. I've done camel rides before and would not want to be on one for 4 hours. Thankfully that's not the case, there are parts that the camels are linked together, parts we ride on our own (aka not chained together) and parts where we just chill with the camels and make food. We get two guides and they bring us out to the camels. They are all female camels with distinct personalities and we get matched by the guides. I got the ginger camel, Offi (well as ginger as a camel can be which is not very.)

view from one of our breaks

Lots of great conversation with the guides, it felt less like a tour and more like just hanging out on/with some camels. They call a taxi for us so we can get back to the bus station. Same thing happens as before, the driver won't take us all but we ask him to call another cab. I don't think he ever did because me and the other guy were waiting there for a while. We find the guide again and ask him to call another cab. Finally one comes and we make our way to the station. The girls already bought us tickets but for the bus 3 hours from now. This would mean getting back to the sketchy bus station at 11pm. Not something we really want to do. Also, one of the girls 'needs' to get back in time for her birthday clubbing celebration. So we end up getting on the bus with the agreement that we give up our seats to anyone coming onto the bus. Well that wasn't an issue as there were no seats for us to begin with. Besides the seats on the floor and in the stairwell in the back. I ended up sitting next to a woman's smelly feet. That was only the first two hours. We finally had our first rest stop and it was utter chaos as there were a few other buses stopping as well. Well it was chaos for the women. The line for the bathroom was going out the door and some women resorted to just finding a semi-secluded place to just pop a squat. The men's bathroom had no issue, no line, just in and out. I stand up for the next hour of the ride. No problem, it's just like the subway. Finally a bunch of people get off the bus and seats open up. I'm losing my writing steam and can't remember anything super funny or interesting happening after this point. So we finally get back and take a taxi to the dorms.