It's always impressive how many different landscapes one can find in this small country. There is the Mediterranean, and while not one of the large oceans, still a very impressive sea. Then the mountains in the north, and most different from anything that Europe can offer, the Negev desert, which during the rainy winter season, in the early weeks of February, suddenly blooms. At least at the edges, millions of red flowers show up, transforming the otherwise barren floor into a red sea, attracting just as many Israeli families and their children for a picknick. And this time, finally, I was one of them. Grabbing two of my friends we dove into this festival atmosphere with its food stalls and ice-cream trucks, playing annoying music all day long. But, since we're still young and fit, we quickly escaped the masses to go on a hike. Totally worth it.

However, as this was not the real desert, and we still wanted to see the real red sea, we decided on a two-days camping trip in the mountains of Eilat. And even though every time I forget how freezing the desert gets in a winter night, the views of Mount Yehoram are just stunning enough to make it an unforgettable experience. Hiking in these red, yellow, orange and black mountains was just exhausting enough to fall asleep almost as soon as the sun set. Of course, we couldn't miss going snorkelling in water warmer than air, watching loads of colourful fish. To conclude this trip, we took another peak at the national park Timna, which is rather touristic, but big enough to forget about them quickly, and while so close to the mountains we saw before, still completely different. What a week.