Camping by the Red Sea...

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Camping by the Red Sea...
After returning from Egypt I was left with one more month in Israel and in my Kibbutz...
So, it was time to do a few more things before heading north to Europe and the UK...

One thing I wanted to do was to visit the Red Sea...

I heard about a place called Nuweibaa...which at that time was still part of Israel in the Sinai, just a few kilometres south from Eilat...
From Tel-Aviv, I took a bus to Eilat, which is a highly touristic spot in the 'Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat' in Israel so I didn't want to stay there at all, so as soon as I got to Eilat I took a bus to Nuweibaa.

That gulf is a very interesting spot, Its coastline is divided among four countries; Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. You can literally stand on the beach and look at all 4 countries from that spot.

I heard about that place on the beach through a friend of mine at my kibbutz. He said he'd been there and that many backpackers went there to spend some time camping on the beach for free and that it was amazing!

He said..."All you need to bring is your sleeping bag and you can crash right on the beach for free".
So, I thought...that sounds like me!

Once again I left most of my gear in the kibbutz and headed for the beach for 4 days, once again I had no idea what to expect...and when I got there ...he was right!

It was an amazing place and there were lots of backpackers from everywhere, most of them were also volunteers from different kibbutzim...

There was only a small shop run by a Kibbutz nearby and there seemed to be some 'public toilets'...
There were probably 5 palm trees and nothing else...

On one side of the beach it was the Red Sea, and behind us on the beach the desert...
Temperatures there got really high, 40+ Degrees Celsius!
So... it was really really HOT!

I met some of the guys there and right away we hit it off. As soon as I was all set on a spot on the beach I left my gear with some of the guys and went in for a dip in the beautiful warmish tranquil waters of this unusual place...

Later that day I headed over to the shop to buy a sandwich and a drink and other bits and pieces, that's mostly what I ate every day... then, when it was time to use the loo...so I went to the public toilets and I walked in and...
​OMG...are these the only loos? ...I asked some of the guys standing nearby... they said, "Yup"...

They were the 'squatting type' of loos and they were as filthy as hell, it seemed like nobody had aimed right and there was simply no clean spot to even place your feet on!

So, from that moment onward I refrained from using the loo at all, and do any 'number ones' in the sea... fish do it there anyway...
Not sure how I managed to hold it in but...I did manage... (Mind over matter I guess)
However, I wasn't going to let that ruin my stay...
​
I spent most of my days going in and out of the water, swimming and snorkelling and sunbathing a lot...

Every night we sat by a bonfire under the stars and there was always someone playing a guitar... just like in one of those scenes you only see in movies...
There was a certain 'unreal peacefulness' about the whole place and floating in the air amongst the people there...absolutely magical...

I slept, like everyone else, in my sleeping bag alongside a bunch of them...it was quite a sight to see on the beach...
There were hundreds of people in their own sleeping bags, all in one line...one after the other like Dominos as if it was an organized thing, but it wasn't. I guess everyone was just doing what the others were doing...

Every night I'd put all my belongings inside my sleeping bag while sleeping and I was using my recently purchased 'Onitsuka Tiger Sneakers' as a pillow wrapped in a towel...
Unfortunately, on my last night there I must've moved away from my sneakers while sleeping and someone stole them!
Bugger! Not my new sneakers! I had just bought them in Athens...never mind...

Well, now I was shoeless...and had to buy a pair of plastic sandals at the shop to have something to wear...

After those 4 days went by I headed back home to my kibbutz...
I was really looking forward to being back 'home', having a good meal, and taking a shower, hadn't done that in 4 days, and.... going to the loo!!!

I remember clearly walking into my kibbutz and seeing some of my friends, they were asking me...
"How did it go?" Did you have a good time?
I kept walking fast and said...Yup, it was awesome, I said, I'll tell you all about it later, got to do something first...and I locked myself in the clean conventional loo for a wee while!

It is hard to believe that of all the things in the world all I wanted at that moment more than anything else was a *clean loo...
(*We do take clean toilets for granted, and from that trip onwards, I've always paid attention to the availability and cleanliness of public toilets everywhere I go and, here in New Zealand, they excel at it!)

When I told my friends about my adventure, some wanted to get out there camping too and most of them had a good laugh about my loo ordeal...others just felt sorry for me...

The next day I went back to work in the chicken-house with Julio...my Argentinian boss...
He was so happy to see me and so was I...
He and his wife Fanny were good hard-working people and they treated me well...

I was quite aware that my days in my kibbutz were coming to an end and the time for me to carry on with my journey was approaching fast...I somehow didn't want it to end...and deep inside I didn't really want to leave my kibbutz...
​
You've heard me refer to my kibbutz as 'Home' and it totally was...
​It was my very first 'home away from home' and I had developed new friendships with people who didn't care about your background, social status, money, education, religious interests or anything else...they simply took you in at 'face value'...and I reciprocated with the same respect towards everyone else...

My experience in my kibbutz was simply unimaginable and taught me more than the work skills I learned... It taught me how to value people and life in an entirely different way and it triggered an insatiable desire to continue living in such a world...

During my stay on my kibbutz I forged some great friendships, and some of them I would go on to visit in their own towns after leaving...

I also picked up a couple of new habits in my kibbutz, some good ones and others not so much...

I started smoking cigarettes there, not sure if I did it because everyone else was doing so or because they were given to us for free in the kibbutz, as long as they were the 'Noblesse' brand (Israeli brand). we could get about 7 packs a week...
I also began drinking beer and wine on Friday nights after Shabbat dinner when we were partying in the bomb shelter and, the occasional beer during the week after work...
Not sure why either, again it may have been due to the people around me...and as they say...'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'...
I didn't use to do any of the above before I left Mexico... (I gave them up in Israel...6 years later)

A couple of the good habits that I picked up were reading and writing...

Yup, my first, non-school-text-book I ever read was in my kibbutz, and it was in English!
There was a wonderful library in my kibbutz and we could go in and grab whatever books we wanted to read and I got into it...primarily novels...
That was something that I would never do back in Mexico...and then...
I also started writing...

I started doing some journaling or keeping a diary (my journals are pictured below)...
I started writing every day what had taken place each day and how I was feeling about things...

Reading through some of my diaries now I realise that I was also a constant writer of letters, to my parents and to some of my friends back home in Mexico... and some of them wrote back...

In those days there was no internet or anything like that, so one of those things that I used to look forward to was getting a letter from anyone, especially from mum and dad...
Dad was always short of words but would write at the bottom of each long letter my mum would write, like a footnote, he'd write a couple of lines like "Glad all's going well, take good care, my son, Dad"... that was enough 'man to man talk'...I'd say... we never did quite have any long conversations... not a thing between us I guess...

I remember when someone would collect the mail for all volunteers and bring them to the dining room at dinnertime and call out to those who had got something... It was like waiting for your lottery number to be called out...I used to love hearing... Hector, you've got mail! or Hector, you got a letter!

Through those letters, I had deeper conversations with everyone...
I frankly don't think I'd ever communicated that much with my parents in particular...
Before I left Mexico I guess I was just a teenage boy...communicating with them with short words and not saying or disclosing much...typical teenager I guess...

Somehow, the distance and taking the time to choose my words before writing gave me the courage to open up more and be more relaxed about it...

I was definitely growing up...
Towards my last days in my kibbutz I promised a few people I'd go visit them, Arthur, my roommate from  Holland, said... "Yeah, come and stay a while" and others said similar things... and I said, I'll be there...and I was....(More on that on future stories)...

It was definitely a very sad day when I left my kibbutz Neve-Eitan ...
However, just before leaving in my Kibbutz, I did say to my *Kibbutznik friends (*the Israeli members) and to my Argentinian boss, Julio
I'll be back...I promise... (which I did 4 years later in 1985, more on that on future posts)

After leaving the kibbutz I headed back to Tel-Aviv to catch a plane back to Athens...and from there fly up to Holland and the UK, where my European adventure started...
​
Shalom Israel, L'hitraot לְהִתְרָאוֹת
I've learnt so much from you...

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