This past week has been sheer hell. Due to a huge project at work that is in constant flux and under near-impossible timelines, I’ve been eating, breathing and well…not sleeping this project all week. I didn’t even sleep Wed night, we were up all night working. So when the weekend came around and I escaped to Arad, I realized two things:
- It was the weekend of the Sdom mountain bike race
- I hadn’t had time to replace my bike’s chain since the Arad race, meaning it was not exactly rideable
- I’d forgotten all of my riding clothes at my apartment near Tel Aviv
Crap! Ok, so I will make the best of things. At 06:45 this morning I headed down to the site of the race to join up with a few others from my Search & Rescue team who were volunteering out on the course. I arrived a few minutes late, and we had to run quickly. In the end, there were 4 of us in 3 jeeps scattered along an 8km section that runs along the base of the cliffs on the Western side of the course. I was at the Southernmost of the 3, along with my commander. To say it was uneventful was an understatement. A few minor cuts and scrapes. My commander even fixed someone’s front rings.
I spent a bit of time practicing for my high angle rescue course next week. Mid-morning, the volunteer about 2km North of us notified us that an older male had arrived at his marshal point with a shoulder injury. Since there were riders on the course, we couldn’t take the jeep against the direction of riders. While it sounded a lot like an injury that could wait an hour until jeeps could get in, it’s probably safer to check him out - and hey - I had nothing else to do. A quick 2km run with my medical pack confirmed my suspicions. He’d had a shoulder injury that was agravated by a fall. Didn’t even want Advil. 2km back….end of race…pack up & go home.
Oh! Gal Friedman, the Athens 2004 Gold medal winner in windsurfing took 3rd place overall. I see a multi-sport / AR competitor in the making. hehe. Will need to recruit.
Anyway, after that I went home, showered and grabbed Ana to go to a race of a different kind. There was a Bedouin cultural festival just outside of Arad, and yesterday we’d missed the…umm…camel rae. She wanted to see it, so we went back. I really don’t know what we saw, so I really can’t analyze it. I’ll just stick to the facts.
One young bedouin stood by his camel and got on it. An older bedouin walked over to his camel, hissed at it a bit, yelled at it, hit it and then got on. They moved 50m over, and a huge crowd of some 100 bedouin formed around them. The older guy started yelling at nobody in particular and waving his arms a lot. Then they and 2 more bedouin on camels (note: camels were specially decorated for racing) and walked over towards the big open field. The crowd of some 300 followed and lined up at the edge of the field. The 4 started walking accross the field…and going…and going…
Ana asked someone what was going on. He responded that the race had been cancelled.
> Why?
Over what?
[tags]arad,israel,sdom,mtb,bedouin,race,camel,desert,sar[/tags]
