It was in 1997. A friend, a neighbor, called and asked if I would agree to come with him to hike the high mountain in the Sinai desert.
Of course I agreed and so did 3 other friends/neighbors.
We live in the north of the State of Israel and it took us a good few hours of driving to get to the south of the country, cross the border into Egypt, take a taxi to the Santa Katrina Monastery which is at the foot of the high mountain.
We chose an experienced Bedouin guide, loaded our bags and water on our backs and started climbing.
The mountain is built of brown granite rock and has many trails and many pools of very tasty water that you can drink from without fear.
The sky was very clear and during the three days of the journey not a single cloud was visible.
At night we chose a relatively flat area on which we spread the mattresses and sleeping bags, we were very tired after walking and climbing and fell asleep quite quickly.
The second night, I woke up in the middle of the night, it was half past two in the morning.
I lay on my back, and looked at the starry sky.
I have never seen so many stars.
Then I saw a huge, long, long streak of clouds, one that starts in the south and ends in the north. It was a strange cloud. What's more, I remembered that the sky in the morning was crystal clear, without a shadow of a cloud...
For some moments I thought that even I could see colors in this cloud...
And then I realized - this is the Milky Way.
And that was the first time I saw him really clearly from end to end - a picture I will never forget!
When I thought about it later, maybe it was the pillar of fire that led the Israelites at night on their journeys in the desert after the exodus from Egypt...
#MilkyWayFestival