Julie and I have just returned from an eighteen day trip to Israel and Jordan that concluded with 4 days in Jerusalem. The idea for this trip arose at a Freeman Patterson workshop that we had attended in October 2021. As Freeman had previously done photography tours in Israel and Jordan pre-pandemic, we enquired into the likelihood of another and were pleased to see it materialize. We left Calgary on an early flight to Toronto on January 3rd, departing Toronto that afternoon and arriving in Tel Aviv at about 1030 AM January 4th, nine time zones ahead of mountain standard time, after 15 hours of wheels up air time. In addition to Freeman Patterson there were 19 of us - 2 from the United States, 1 from the United Kingdom, 2 from Israel and the rest from Canada (2 from Vancouver, 6 from Calgary Canmore, 2 from Saint John and 4 from Ontario).
Our first week was spent living in a moshav at Paran (pronounced Faran), which is 3.5 hours south from Tel Aviv, adjacent to the Israel Jordan border, and an hour north of Eilat, on the Gulf of Aqaba. The route to Paran went by Beersheba, multiple Bedouin communities and Dimona, where Israel's nuclear facility is located. The highway descends towards the Dead Sea (elev. -419 Meters) and the Evaporation Ponds. The  Dead Sea valley is a sub-valley of the Great Rift Valley of Africa. The descent is very steep and the jagged mountains are impressive, with cliff faces of 500-700 meters. There is very little vegetation.
A moshav is different from a kibbutz in that the families own their land and their business operations. It is secular. You must apply and be approved to live in the moshav. We stayed in a small bungalow style motel in the town. It was definitely a farming community - the dairy herd was less than 5 minutes walk away. There were gorgeous bougainvillea about, lots of birds and the beer store was a 3-minute walk. The town has a population of 600, in addition to 600 Thai workers (all young men) who are allowed to work in Israel for a maximum of 3 years. They intermingled within the town, appeared happy and well fed. Thai beer was available at the convenience store
In Paran the crop being harvested in January was peppers - all types but mostly bell peppers. They also grow flowers, dates and aubergine…. all for export. The plants are grown in massive, netted greenhouses, which allows for some shelter from the sun and allows them to conserve water. Irrigation was by drip lines. The end products are mostly exported world wide. The annual average rainfall is 25 mm. The water comes from 1600 meters underground, and is treated to remove mineral salts. Seventy percent of the commercial water is recycled. The drinking water comes from desalination plants along the Dead Sea, which is about 100 km north, or from Galilee.
Below is a gallery of images from our week in the Negev Desert. To view the images individually, click on the first image and then scroll through. In addition to photography around the town (the first 6 images), we had a shoot in Wadi Ashosh (a wadi is a dry riverbed), followed by the netted greenhouses, which are great for abstract images; and then there was also a day long shoot in Timna National Park (thought possibly to be the site of King Solomon's Mines).  The mountains of Jordan were directly across the arava (broad valley) and were great for late afternoon and early morning shoots. I hope you enjoy these images of a very interesting part of the world.
Stew