What a hike!

"As you like! As you like!" yelled the taxi driver desperately trying to get our cash. On Monday morning, only a day after returning from a 4 day field study of the Galilee region, I started another journey returning to upper Galilee for a 5 day backpacking trip from Mt. Meron to the Sea of Galilee to Yehudiya and back to Tiberius.



Tim, Kristy, Shlomy, Craig and I were planning on meeting our friends, Steve, Ben, and Ruth up in Sosa. We left JUC at 9:30, got our food from the local shuk, and went on to the bus station. The fun began early when we found that our bus did not actually leave the central bus station, but another bus stop in Jerusalem. The bus was supposed to leave at 12:40, so we were there a little early, around 12:00. Tim was given a piece of paper with Hebrew on it that he was supposed to show someone outside. "They'll tell you where to go," he was told. This was only after we stood in line for about 10 minutes, where one woman ticked off the teller so much that the blinds were shut on her. Yeah, that's right. I have no idea what was said, because it was all in Hebrew, but I wish every job came equipped with a handy set of blinds to close any time someone annoyed you. We thought it was fortunate that she opened them back up until she told us that our bus didn't come there.



A friendly Israeli directed us to the bus stop where we stood for another half hour. The trip up took about 2 hours, and we were dropped off at a nice middle-of-nowhere junction in northern Israel. Another bus was supposed to come, but as we waited, a taxi driver stopped to harass us. It was probably one of the most hilarious times of the entire trip. First of all, we waved him off because we didn't need his service. He stopped anyway, pretending to view the orchard behind us, but I knew what he was up to. He asked us where we were going. "Sosa," we told him. He offered to do it for 100 sheqels - about 20 a person for a 10 minute drive - and repeatedly told us that there was no bus going to Sosa from where we were. Too bad we had already been told by two bus drivers that a bus would in fact be stopping there. We offered him 80 sheqels total, but he wouldn't budge his price. "100 sheqels!" he kept saying. He would have been breaking a law if he let 5 people in his cab that only fit 4. He didn't care, he just wanted our money. We tried to convince him that Kristy was small, and that she only counted as half a person. He said, "No! she counts as two!" openly insulting Tim's wife (who is nowhere near being two people). We decided that we would take the bus, and he continued to say, "As you like!" but didn't leave. When he did leave, he turned around and continued to harass us on the other side of the road, trying his hardest to make some cash. He probably wasted 20 sheqels in gas in the duration of his terrible attempt to get us as customers. What a goon.



The bus did come... twenty minutes late. During that time, storm clouds were moving in quickly over the mountains. That was certainly an unfortunate sight. Before we left, I asked Mrs. Wright for a tent, which it turned out she had already given to somebody in my group. But she assured me that the weather would be fine, the chance of a downpour in this season is highly unlikely. Pffft. We got off the bus into a squal of rain, then walked about a kilometer up the road to a campsite, absolutely soaked and freezing, where we met up with the rest of the group.



Busses were leaving as we were coming to the National Park of Mt. Meron, it was around 5:30 or 6 at this point. Little did we know that those busses contained about 700 junior high/high schoolers that were supposed to be sleeping there but were leaving because of the rain. We walked down to the campground, passing a small group of people cooking a whole lot of food. They offered us some hot soup, and of course, we GLADLY obliged. Heck man, slightly warm soup would have been relieving after freezing in the rain like that.



We said our hello's to the group of 5 cooks and found out that they were cooking for 700 school children. The main guy, I think his name was Ofer, pointed down to the campsite and offered us some of the tents that the teachers were going to use. Again, we gladly obliged, since we were somewhat crammed to begin with. We set up camp and began to make a fire with our nice, wet wood. Craig and Shlomy worked on that while a couple of others spoke more to Ofer. We ended up being offered to rummage through their food and take what we wanted. Again, we fully, and I mean to the fullest extent, GLADLY obliged, taking peppers, onions, fruit, four loaves of bread, a bag of milk, sugar, eggs, and margarine. We were then told to use their grills after them to cook up some burgers and kabobs. Dang, you better believe we gladly obliged. We got so beyond hooked up by those kind people. I'll never forget when we tried to refuse some of the stuff. "That's right, they're Americans, they are polite," while they piled more stuff into our arms.



It continued to rain on and off that night after we got a little bit drier from the fire (which Craig and Shlomy successfully started). I had the pleasure of cookin' up the burgers and kabobs. What a way to start a hike huh? Hey, for the record, not all tents are water proof. Good to know huh? I didn't. At some points in the night, it poured so hard. I joked around the next morning, "I'm gonna have to have a talk with Mrs. Wright."



We woke up and I got the privilege to make some delicious eggs with turkey, peppers, and onions in them over the fire that we managed to start. The fire was so strong the night before that embers remained under the ashes which kept the heat in. This made it pretty easy to get the fire going regardless of the soaked wood.



We started our hike around 10:30 that morning on Tuesday. I know it was late, but hey, it was a crappy night and we got a slow start because we were being so spoiled with all the food. We had to return some of the bread and other stuff because it was just too much. The hike that day was beautiful. We got to the peak of Mt. Meron around noon, dogding kids all the way.



Here's a joke - what's louder than a group of Israeli school girls? That's right, NOTHING.



We got away from them into the Nahal Ammud going towards the Sea of Galilee. Around the time we began to prepare to set up camp, a National Reserve worker came along and reminded us that it is illegal to sleep in the Nature Reserve and told us to go to a nearby campground. I was so ticked off, but I'm glad my group was subordinate. We had to hike out of the Nahal, up a very steep ascent to a campground that wanted 10 sheqels for us to sleep on their ground. I get so ticked off at that. How can I be charged to sleep outside darnit?!



It's really not that bad, it's about 3 bucks. Kristy hooked us up with some pasta that she cooked on a portable stove. We had a flavor packet and some other goodies from Ofer, so it was actually really good.



Hey, another fun fact, Israel gets an enourmous amount of dew in the summer time. That was a crappy lesson to learn the hard way. I had the bright idea to sleep under the stars Tuesday night. I woke up realizing that the outside of my sleeping bag was soaked. I got up and went under the small tent that Shlomy set up sometime in the middle of the night. What a wet way to start the hike huh? His tent wasn't water proof either, so the dew slowly seeped through the tent and when I brushed up against it, I was again made wet.



We woke up and had some oatmeal with chocolate chips and raspberry jam in it. Good camp food, isn't it? It was delicious. We continued our hike, and this time we avoided the school children completely, descending down the Nahal Ammud again and travelling all the way to Migdal near the Sea of Galilee. We wouldn't have gone that far, but we ran out of water and water sources. Now, you may be wondering, how can you run out of water when you are traveling along a Nahal? Actually, you may be wondering, what in the world is a Nahal?! In Israel, there are streams that form off of mountains called Nahals or Wadis. Nahal is Hebrew, Wadi is Arabic. In the Winter, many people die in them because of flash floods that are actually frequent with rain. Along the Nahals or Wadis, if they are in Cenomanian Limestone, the land becomes very fertile. For instance, the oasis of Jericho next to the Dead Sea is made possible because it is at the end of the Wadi Kilt.



Anyway, it was dry because it had been a terribly dry winter. What little water we had from the downpours on Monday apparently did nothing to the Nahal.



When we reached some civilization, namely a road, we decided to add a prefix to our "hiking." That prefix is "hitch." Now, mom and dad, you're probably reading this, thinking, "Are you effin' kidding me?!" and I'm not at all. Hitch hiking in Israel is much different than in America. In the Tanaach, the Hebrew Bible, Jews are instructed to pick up hitch hikers. So, most of the people who would pick a hitch hiker up in Israel, are religious Jews - which I found to be true. Northern Israel is populated by some of the nicest people I have ever met in my life by the way.



Tim and Kristi got a ride by one car, while Shlomy and I got a ride from a Jewish couple who we had actually seen on the path earlier (come to think of it, I have no idea how they ended up in a car going that direction). How about that. Maybe we saw them near the other road that we went across. Anyway, the others wanted to walk the rest of the way instead of hitch hike. We got into the cars, and asked them to take us to Khof Tamar. "Where is that?" the couple asked Shlomy and me, "Do you have a map?" We didn't have a clue, so we told them to follow the car that Tim and Kristi were in.



We were dropped off right in front of the campground we were trying to get to. But this place wanted 35 sheqels to sleep there. Shlomy said, "We could sleep in a Kibutz for that price and have a shower and warm bed." So we looked around, passing the place we were supposed to pay and looked at their crummy spot on the beach. It was not worth that price whatsoever. I saw a path along the beach on the left, and said to them, "Hey, lets check that out, maybe we can find another place." So we snuck past the people who wanted to rip us off, and found ourselves in a big wheat field along the Sea of Galilee.



We made a left, went a little ways, made a right, and then made another right at the pirate ship and ended up finding an open field with a shanty house along the shore. Shlomy and I grabbed a grapefruit that had fallen onto the ground on the way - best grapefruit I have ever had, but maybe that was the dehydration speaking.



We were greeted by some dogs and a woman who barely spoke English. She was apparently from Egypt, and apparently was not expecting visitors but gladly offered a price to us. It was 100 sheqels for all of us, which wasn't too bad really. When you have hiked around 40 kilometers within two days and have a 30+ pound bag on your back, you take what you can get. It was a great night, beautiful out and comfortably warm in the little house-thing we slept in.



The next morning, Craig and I departed from the group after watching the beautiful sunrise over the Transjordan. They planned on hiking the Arbel cliff, which I had just done on the Galilee field study, and heading home after that. Craig and I started our hike (with the hitch prefix again) around 8. We got a ride to a local supermarket from a nice Israeli man that we met at a gas station. Restocked and ready to go, we stood around pointing at the ground to every vehicle to pick us up until 9:30, when finally a man in a small truck picked us up. He dropped us up on the Northwest Junction of the Sea of Galilee, which means we were still very far from our destination. We walked along the shore on the road that goes around the sea, waiting patiently for another person to help us.



We actually passed Capernaum before a man in an Israel Post vehicle picked us up. What a nice guy. He took us all the way to the Yehudiya Junction, on the Northeast side of the Sea. One last ride finally brought us to the Yehudiya National Park.



There, we began another 6 hour hike, into another wadi that was actually full of water. The land was beautiful, and so were the falls. This was no simple hike either. It required that you go through absolutely freezing water to stay on the path. You just walk along when suddenly, there is a ladder next to a waterfall going straight into the water. Fortunately, the sun was beating down on us, keeping us warm despite the frigid waters. At the third set of falls, we jumped in completely willingly, even though it was unnecessary.



The walls of the cliffs surrounding us were covered in streaming water. The natural springs were perhaps the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. We took turns taking pictures of each other under this enourmous natural spring waterfall. The fish were abundant and kind of intimidating. They were huge!



Getting out of the wadi was a workout and a half. You know those stair master machines that people buy for thousands of dollars? This was a stairmaster better than any of those. It was just a huge pile of Basalt boulders piled on each other. It looked like the after math of some sort of basalt avalanche. My cavs and quads and absolutely every part of me was exhausted at this point. I didn't mention yet that the shoes that I previously had on were tearing into the soles of my feet because the padding didn't withstand my weight over prolonged hikes. That was lame. My friend Ben let me borrow his hiking boots for Thursday and Friday (yeah it was that bad).

It would have been 15 sheqels to sleep at Yehudiya National Park. So we hitched a ride to Quzrin, hitting up another supermarket before we arrived at a nice forest where we slept. Craig wanted to take a bus back to Tiberius, but I wanted to hitch hike to save money. Fortunately for me, there were no busses to take to Tiberius from Quzrin at that point in the day. We hitched a ride all the way down from Golan to Tiberius in 2 shots. Actually, we landed 6 Kilometers outside of Tiberius, but decided to walk because it was so beautiful out.

We found the central bus station of Tiberius and finally got back to Jerusalem at 3:45 p.m. Friday afternoon. I have scrapes, blisters, sore muscles, a bad sunburn, and I'm completely exhausted, but I haven't felt this great for so long. Hiking certainly builds up appreciation for the little things in life that you take for granted. And hiking in Israel builds up a tremendous appreciation for all those who had to do it without the convenience of the nice prefix "hitch" with cars. Jesus did a lot of traveling between Jerusalem and Galilee. He must have been a beast. Same with Paul. Dang.