Freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization…

Now that the seger has finally ended and ‘normal’ life is beginning to start up a little more, it’s time to head outdoors while the weather allows! These snowy days are limited and holds all kinds of possibilities for quite a bit of fun!! Nature is ever so slowly waking up, and getting ready for spring. The truth is we don’t know when the next seger will begin, or if we are leaving behind Covid days sooner than we hope. What I do know is that the days we are able to get outside we really should not waste. We all don’t truly understand what we have until it’s gone. All these months of being locked indoors have been maddening. So with that said – what am I taking a look at to get me outside?!

The desert has always held a beautiful mystery to me. Tales from ‘Arabian Nights’ always begins to play though my head. Nachel Peres is one of the Nachals in the Southern part of the Judean Desert. It provides a spectacular example of dramatic change of landscape as the canyon deepens. During the first half of the hike, we’ll see that the trail is flat and leads towards a river path. It’s a gorgeous walk that will take us deep into the desert. Once we arrive at the Wadi – stream – we will follow it along and make our way towards the Dead Sea. The beginning of the Wadi actually contains some fairly large pools that are sometimes full with water from the previous flashfloods. This area is called Gavey, ‘small pool’ in Hebrew. As we walk along, we’ll have the chance to enjoy and acquaint ourselves with the emptiness and silence only found in the wilderness far from civilization.

For those of you who are a little more curious about places where hardly any human eyes have ever seen – I’d recommend traveling down into the depths of the Earth also near the Dead Sea. The Salt Wonder is a natural salt cave. There are only two known locations in the entire world where this phenomenon has been discovered. One is Iran, and the other, right here in Israel! The adventure begins on the lowest point on Earth, where you hike uphill to the top of a natural salt mountain. From here, we take in the stunning views and one by one we rappel down into the Earths bowels. After a nearly 300 ft drop down, we begin our caving adventure. From every direction there are multihued salt crystals glittering at you wherever you look. These crystals unlike regular stalactites actually form into beautiful and magical shapes. Throughout this adventure, we crawl through some tight spots, and climb into massive chambers. This is a site that hardly any humans have seen. If you are feeling brave and adventurous; this is the perfect site for you!