To tie back to one of my earlier posts on the NGO EcoPeace, this past weekend we got to visit a reserve run by EcoPeace called the EcoPark. We were far up north roughly 3-5 km to Syria and Palestine and were truly in the midst of a beautiful region. We went on a guided hike for a few hours which was EXTREMELY hot but very fun. We brought trash bags with us and picked up trash as we went. While the area was beautiful, it was filled with litter which was very unfortunate... We hardly picked up any trash even though we each picked up 2 bags by the end of the hike (22 bags of trash). We passed by some Bedouin villages within the reserve, with lots of sheep and donkeys, and we slowly made our way back to the headquarters. Afterwards we got to eat lunch and then we helped them clean and weed out their garden in the front of the entrance. Personally, I have never absolutely loved gardening, but getting dirty and knowing how much it was helping them was so rewarding. By the end we were all incredibly sweaty, but the work paid off especially since we knew how important the EcoPark was to facilitating the goals of EcoPeace.