How many people do you need to put a camel into a car? No, this isn't the start of a joke, but a real event that happened at around noon on Tuesday in the Judean Desert.
Chagai Tal from Hod Hasharon and his friend Shachar went on a Jeep tour, which was supposed to go from Kfar Hanokdim near Arad to Metzukei Dragot. On the way near Nahal Chaver, they found a group of Bedouins spreading out a blanket for a wounded camel that was apparently hurt in a rock slide.
"We saw eight Bedouins with blankets, trying to move the camel," Chagai told Walla! Travel.
According to Tal, they didn't see how the camel was injured, but "we saw them trying to help it," he remembered. "We helped them carry it and then they asked if we would help them transport it in our car."
"We stopped the car, got out some belts and helped them pull the camel for a quarter of an hour until we got to a path. Then we all looked at each other and wondered what to do next."
"We took them to their encampment."
Tal and his friend then started to make room for the camel in the trunk of the car. "I had to take out the seats and other equipment in order to make room but there was no other way, we had to evacuate it," he said.
"We saw eight Bedouins with blankets, trying to move the camel."
Chagai Tal
According to Tal, after loading the camel into the trunk, another unbelievable thing happened: eight bedouins got into the car as well. In order to accompany the camel, they hung onto both sides of the car. "Some were holding onto a rail from outside the car and some were inside with the camel. We took him to their encampment, about 4 km away," he described and joked, "Afterwards they even had the nerve to ask us to take them back to the site where they left their donkeys."
"They told me that when a camel breaks a leg, it's done for."
The Bedouins are from the Ka'abane tribe which lives in the village of Dakayke (they pronounce it "Dagayge") near the South Hebron Hills. After the camel was evacuated, the Bedouins invited the two Israelis to be their guests and have a meal. "But we only drank tea and coffee and talked about soccer," said Chagai, "we didn't have time for a full meal."
According to him, while none of the Bedouins spoke Hebrew, his friend communicated with them in his broken Arabic. "All in all it was a nice experience," he added.
On Wednesday morning Chagai washed off the traces of camel blood in his car. "I washed my car today because we got back late yesterday," he explained.
And what happened to the Camel?
"I hope the camel has peace. They told me that when a camel breaks a leg, it's done for, but it was only a scratch, so it'll live."