Photo credit: Noam Bedein

There is a particular kind of quiet that only the desert gives you, and I found it in a hot tub at two in the morning, staring up at more stars than I knew existed, my wife beside me, the whole world reduced to steam and sky.

We had come to Noor, the glamping compound built inside an old ostrich farm near the Besor stream in the western Negev, for one night away from everything. What we found was closer to a small act of healing than a vacation.

A farm with history behind it

Before Noor existed, there was simply the farm. Tzofia and Mike Van Herbenbroek fell for desert animals long before they fell for each other, and their shared love of wildlife eventually led them to start an ostrich farm in the early 1980s, back when almost nobody in the country was raising ostriches. For decades, the farm exported breeding stock, then shifted to ostrich leather and products, riding out the ups and downs of an industry most people never think about. In 2022, in the folds of the badlands near the Besor’s secret springs, the family opened Noor, a cluster of tents designed to feel like the camps of old-world explorers who arrived somewhere remote and simply stayed. That is really all the backstory this piece needs. 

The fuller story of the farm, its animals, and its four decades in this corner of the Negev deserves its own telling, and I am saving that for later, along with a look at how the farm and the region around it have moved through the nearly three years since October 7th, and how a place like this has quietly become a possible home for healing retreats for servicemen and women, and for many other groups who need it. 

There is also a winter version of this story still to write, since the suites at Noor are a different experience entirely once the desert cools. For now, though, this is just about one night. 

What matters here is the experience of staying in one of the private suites, as a couple, in the thick of summer.

Bungalow twelve

Our unit was suite twelve, and calling it a bungalow undersells it. It reads more as a glamping tent that happens to have everything you would want from a small private home: an open-air bathroom and shower shack, a mini bar, an espresso machine, desert wine and cold water. Outside, its own tub, a small round table with chairs and a front deck with two sun loungers, a private fire pit, and a barbecue corner that we never got around to using because we were too busy doing nothing at all.

The tent itself sits apart from its neighbors, buffered by desert brush and a scattering of eucalyptus trees, so there is no sense of being stacked next to other guests. Everything about the space felt clean in a way that surprised me: crisp linens, fresh towels, careful little touches that told you someone had thought this through. And beyond the tent flap, nothing but open Negev terrain rolling out toward the horizon, with horses wandering loose across the property as if they, too, had simply wandered in one day and decided to stay.

The hot tub after dark

The real highlight came once the sun went down. We switched on the tub heater, lit the fire pit, let it burn low, and slipped into the hot tub just outside our tent. The desert had gone completely black, no ambient light anywhere, just a sky so thick with stars it looked unreal. Somewhere out past the tent, jackals called to each other, and every so often something else rustled through the brush that we never identified. For a moment it felt less like the Negev and more like being dropped into an African savanna at night, the same sense of a vast, breathing landscape just beyond the edge of the firelight.

What struck me most was the stillness. Not silence exactly, since the desert has its own soundtrack of animals and wind, but a deep absence of anything human. No traffic, no phones ringing, no small talk to keep up. Just my wife and the water and the fire and the animals doing whatever animals do once the sun is gone. It is the kind of quiet that makes you realize how loud your normal life actually is.

Even in peak summer, the night air cooled off enough that the hot tub felt exactly right rather than excessive, and by early morning it had cooled further still.

Sunrise, round two

We were up before the sun, mostly because neither of us wanted to miss it. Back into the hot tub we went, this time watching the sky turn from black to grey to a soft gold as the sun came up directly in front of us. The property has these low, comfortable sun loungers scattered around, and we ended up wrapped in blankets, watching the horses graze in the pale early light while birds cut across the sky in loose formations. It was one of those mornings that photographs never quite capture, the kind you just have to have been sitting in.

The walk to the spring

Later that morning we set out on foot toward a spring about seven minutes from the suites, part of the Besor stream system. What surprised me was that the water was still running, even at the height of summer, when you would expect everything in the Negev to have dried to dust. Instead, we found a pocket of green, reeds and vegetation crowding the banks, birds moving through the branches, and clear, fresh water flowing quietly past. We had the place entirely to ourselves. Standing there, so close to the farm and yet so completely removed from it, felt like its own small form of cleansing, a reminder of how much life the desert actually holds once you know where to look.

Coffee at OPA

On our way back from the spring, we stopped at the colonial coffee truck that sits on the farm itself, OPA. The name means grandfather in Dutch, and it was chosen as a tribute to Mike Van Herbenbroek, the farm’s late founder, who built the place with his own hands alongside his family starting back in the 1980s. It gives the truck a quiet weight once you know the story, a small family memorial disguised as a coffee stop.

Photo Courtesy OPA

The setup is simple and unhurried: wooden tables under the shade of eucalyptus trees, large male ostriches that wander right up to the edge of the sitting area, and a stretch of open lawn where kids run around while parents linger over coffee ground fresh on the spot. We ordered iced coffee and homemade sandwiches piled onto fresh bread, both delightful. The menu covers more ground than you might expect: cold drinks and herbal infusions, seasonal salads, sweet and savory pastries, including an almond brioche worth ordering on its own, and both vegan and gluten-free options for anyone who needs them. On Saturdays, they put out a traditional jachnun alongside whatever special dish they are running that week. Just behind the truck sits a small working farm with a goat, a children’s playground, and an open field set up for weddings and events, so the whole corner doubles as a gathering place for the surrounding community as much as a stop for guests. 

It is clearly built as a rest point for hikers coming off the Besor trail, the rope bridge, or Eshkol Park nearby, but it works just as well as a slow, easy pause for anyone staying at the suites, a bridge between the quiet of the desert and something warm to eat.

A different kind of couples getaway

What Noor offers, more than luxury in the conventional sense, is a genuine reset. It is the kind of place built for two people who need to remember how to be quiet together, away from the noise that usually fills a relationship’s daily rhythm. Between the private hot tub, the fire pit, the animals roaming free, and a hidden spring just a short walk away, the western Negev turns out to hold exactly the kind of wellness experience most people assume you have to travel much farther to find.

We left the next morning sun-warmed, a little sleep-deprived, and strangely recharged, already talking about when we must come back, this time with our boys, to the family glamping tents.

Noor glamping hospitality experiences for couples, families, and groups. Call:  050-659-8254

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