At the beginning of my second week in Tel Aviv midway through February, I went up north near the Lebanese and Syrian borders to spend a few days with one of Carrie’s colleagues who lives up there. Barry and his wife, Masha, graciously invited me into their home so that I could go hiking and see the difference between this part of the country and the rest of Israel.
On Monday morning, Carrie dropped me off at a bus station on the side of the freeway in Herzliya and I caught a bus heading the three hours north to the town of Kiryat Shmona. I had to get up pretty early to make the trip so I pretty much just crashed the second I got on board and slept the whole way there. When we finally got to the final stop, I made my way over to the cab stand and tried to give them the address for where I needed to go. They must not have understood me correctly because they told me it would cost about 90 shekels (the equivalent of just over $20 USD). I replied back that I was told it should only cost 20 shekels and they indicated that would be the cost if I wanted to take the bus. I certainly didn’t want to pay $20 for what I was certain would be a very short trip so I wandered over to the local mall right nearby and was luckily able to pick up a wifi signal on my phone (a complete godsend throughout much of Israel.) When I typed in the address it showed that the house was only a kilometer away so I knew that I could just walk. Using the map on my phone as a guide I was able to get to the house in just about 15 minutes.
Once I arrived, I tried knocking on the door, but didn’t get any answer. I was pretty sure that I was at the right place, but didn’t know what to do if there wasn’t anybody home. I finally had to resign myself to using my American phone to call Barry and let him know that I was outside. I guess he had been expecting me later in the day and hadn’t heard me knocking. Fortunately, he was at home so I didn’t have to keep waiting outside in the cold.
After eating some of Barry’s homemade soup for lunch, he drove me across town to the Beit HaShomer kibbutz where there is a small, but pretty comprehensive museum about the early Jewish settlers in the area and the security they provided to the area during the Second Aliya immigration into Israel. The dozen or so men who originally settled with their families in this part of the Upper Galilee region at the beginning of the 20th century created a security force called the HaShomer that was the precursor to the Haganah secret police and later the Israel Defense Force after the State of Israel was established in 1948. I was the only one in the museum so I was free to wander around watching all the little video vignettes and looking at the photographs that accompanied the written historical summaries.
Barry had called ahead to the Tel Hai museum that was located just down the street at the local college and they had said I should come around at about 2:00pm. I took a bit of time going through the first museum, though, and by the time I had finished there and then made my way down the road, it was almost 2:30pm. The second museum was a courtyard at another early settlement called Tel Hai where eight men defending the settlement died in two separate Arab attacks in 1920. I walked into the open courtyard and walked around a bit looking for where I needed to pay or for any signs of life at all. There didn’t seem to be anyone around so I just walked around a bit looking at the exhibits, but was unable to really understand them since everything was written in Hebrew. Just as I was about to leave, I ran into a woman who appeared to be going around locking up. She said the museum was closing, but they had tours nearly every hour and I could come back tomorrow to go on one of them if I wanted. I guess that’s why I was supposed to be there right at 2:00pm. Whoops. I thanked her and said I would try to return in the morning, though I knew I most likely wouldn't have time.
Once I left the museum, I grabbed some food at the college snack bar and then walked along a path that the settlers had used to go between the two kibbutzim and which played an important role in the last stand at Tel Hai. I walked down from the path into a ravine and then back up the hill on the other side into a national park. Barry had told me that I would be able to hike along the hillside in order to get back to the house. When I got to the entrance to the park, there were two paths that I could follow: one to the right and one to the left. I chose the one to the left because it seemed to offer the better view of the valley down below and I could clearly see the part of town where I was heading. I walked along for about 45 minutes to an hour, but then started to wonder if I was actually on the right “path” since I appeared to be just walking along a paved road midway down the hillside. I felt like I should actually be up on top of the ridge where I would have a better view.
On my righthand side was tall chainlink fence that blocked access to the rest of the hillside above it. At one point, however, I saw a door in the fence that could easily be unlatched and opened. I decided to try to get up on top of the ridge so I went through the door and tried to make my way through the bramble so I could climb the hill. I finally realized that it was too steep and slippery and since the only foliage was small shrubbery there were no trees that I could grab onto for leverage. I had to abandon my attempt and go back to the road. A little further down the path, however, I saw another opening where the door was actually missing. I took this as a good sign and scrambled through the fence and up to the top of an intermediary hillside that led to the main ridge. There was no path so I had a bit of difficulty picking my way through, but it wasn't anything that I couldn’t manage.
The trouble came when I tried to get to the top of the higher ridge where I assumed another smaller path was located. Again, there was no trail so I was climbing over thick underbrush and getting caught on thorny bushes. Finally, the top of the hill seemed just steps away, but I suddenly encountered a wall of shrubbery that was not about to let me through without a huge struggle. I realized that with the afternoon quickly advancing, I had to once again give up my quest for the summit. The only problem was, the way directly back down didn’t look any more inviting. It was steep and full of thorns that gave me nothing to grab onto if I got stuck or started to slip.
I knew I was going to have to make my way horizontally across the hillside until I came to a spot that looked more promising for an easy descent. I walked as quickly as I could because the sun was starting to set and I knew that I would be in a lot of trouble if I was trying to climb down through the darkness. At last I saw a place where I thought I could get down, but it still caused me quite an effort and I was really afraid that I was going to completely lose the light. I made it to the very last part where I saw that there was about an eight-foot cliff separating me from the level of the fence. There weren’t any good hand or footholds so I knew I was going to have to jump and fast before it got dark. My hands were full, clutching a now completely thorn-tattered plastic bag with all belongings, so I had to drop the bag and then climb down on my hands and feet until I got to a point that was low enough where I could jump. There wasn’t any opening in that part of the fence so I had to walk all the way back to the original doorway to get back out onto the road.
I have never been happier to reach a road in my life. In retrospect, trying to climb the hill without a trail was probably a really stupid thing to do, but luckily I was now safe. By this point, darkness was really starting to fall, though I could still see the way along the paved path thanks to all the lights down below. Once again, I was able to use the map on my phone to figure out just exactly where Barry’s house was and I clambered down to the main road at the first possible opportunity. When I came in the door, Barry commented that he was just about to start worrying about where I was. I told him, yeah, I got a little bit lost along the trails. Boy, was that the understatement of the year.
The next day, my plan was to go up to Metula right on the Lebanon border to go hiking along the waterfalls of Nahal Ayun. Even though the town is only about eleven kilometers away, buses go there from Kiryat Shmona only about once every two hours. I overslept and missed the first one at 9:40am and then just missed the one after that at 11:40am because it took longer to walk to the bus station than I expected. The next bus wasn’t until 2:00pm and though at that point I should have just tried to hitchhike (again, a very common practice in Israel) I was nervous about the correct protocol and my lack of Hebrew skills so I decided instead to go eat lunch in town and wait it out.
At 2:00pm, we finally rolled out of town and 20 minutes later we were pulling into Metula. Judging from the map on my phone, the entrance to the park was back down the main road about half a kilometer or so. As I started walking down along the shoulder, the skies opened up and it started to pour rain. Undetered, I forged on figuring I had come all this way and there was no point in turning back now. When I got to the park entrance, however, there was a big gate blocking the road. I had half a mind to walk right around it, but then a ranger truck pulled up and I asked the man who got out about trying to go in. He said to go talk to the driver so I chatted with the other ranger and he told me that I had to go up to the other entrance all the way at the top of the town. He wasn’t even sure if the park was still open because of the rain and kindly offered to drive me back up to Metula if I was still around when they came back out after talking to their boss. I thanked him, but decided to try my luck at the other entrance and walked to the main road where I hitched a ride the short distance back to the bottom of Metula since I didn’t feel like walking all that way in the rain.
Once I was dropped off, however, I still had to walk all the way through the town to the park entrance. By the time I got there it was nearly 3:15pm. I walked up to the gate and of course what would the ranger tell me, but that the park was already closed. It wasn’t even because of the rain. The nature reserve actually officially closes at 4:00pm, but you have to enter by 3;00pm. Just my luck. The bus back to Kiryat Shmona didn’t come by until 4:00pm so I went into a cafe where I had a hot cup of tea and tried to dry off while waiting it out. It was basically a failed attempt at a day, but I guess those happen every now and then.
When I got back to Kiryat Shmona that night I was invited to attend a seder being hosted by some friends of Barry and Masha in honor of Tu Bishvat, the new year for trees. It’s basically like the Israeli Arbor Day when school kids all over the country plant tree saplings. At the dinner, one of the main traditions is to eat fruits and nuts that are native to the Land of Israel such as figs, olives, dates, raisins, carobs and almonds. There were lots of little kids in attendance, including the hosts’ four school-age daughters who performed a skit for everyone after dinner. All the kids were obsessed with my phone, but were disappointed to learn that I didn’t have any games set up on it. To appease them, I downloaded this free temple run game they wanted to play and that seemed to make them happy. By the way, I've since tried to play this game, and I completely suck at it. The girls' mom was from the UK and their dad grew up in New Jersey so fortunately pretty much everyone spoke English. It was definitely interesting to experience this traditional holiday that I didn't even know existed since it's not very commonly observed among Jewish Americans.
I'm currently sailing on a cargo ship en route to Italy and unfortunately there is no Internet on board. I will update you on the rest of my stay in Israel the next time we get to port.
After eating some of Barry’s homemade soup for lunch, he drove me across town to the Beit HaShomer kibbutz where there is a small, but pretty comprehensive museum about the early Jewish settlers in the area and the security they provided to the area during the Second Aliya immigration into Israel. The dozen or so men who originally settled with their families in this part of the Upper Galilee region at the beginning of the 20th century created a security force called the HaShomer that was the precursor to the Haganah secret police and later the Israel Defense Force after the State of Israel was established in 1948. I was the only one in the museum so I was free to wander around watching all the little video vignettes and looking at the photographs that accompanied the written historical summaries.
Barry had called ahead to the Tel Hai museum that was located just down the street at the local college and they had said I should come around at about 2:00pm. I took a bit of time going through the first museum, though, and by the time I had finished there and then made my way down the road, it was almost 2:30pm. The second museum was a courtyard at another early settlement called Tel Hai where eight men defending the settlement died in two separate Arab attacks in 1920. I walked into the open courtyard and walked around a bit looking for where I needed to pay or for any signs of life at all. There didn’t seem to be anyone around so I just walked around a bit looking at the exhibits, but was unable to really understand them since everything was written in Hebrew. Just as I was about to leave, I ran into a woman who appeared to be going around locking up. She said the museum was closing, but they had tours nearly every hour and I could come back tomorrow to go on one of them if I wanted. I guess that’s why I was supposed to be there right at 2:00pm. Whoops. I thanked her and said I would try to return in the morning, though I knew I most likely wouldn't have time.
Once I left the museum, I grabbed some food at the college snack bar and then walked along a path that the settlers had used to go between the two kibbutzim and which played an important role in the last stand at Tel Hai. I walked down from the path into a ravine and then back up the hill on the other side into a national park. Barry had told me that I would be able to hike along the hillside in order to get back to the house. When I got to the entrance to the park, there were two paths that I could follow: one to the right and one to the left. I chose the one to the left because it seemed to offer the better view of the valley down below and I could clearly see the part of town where I was heading. I walked along for about 45 minutes to an hour, but then started to wonder if I was actually on the right “path” since I appeared to be just walking along a paved road midway down the hillside. I felt like I should actually be up on top of the ridge where I would have a better view.
The trouble came when I tried to get to the top of the higher ridge where I assumed another smaller path was located. Again, there was no trail so I was climbing over thick underbrush and getting caught on thorny bushes. Finally, the top of the hill seemed just steps away, but I suddenly encountered a wall of shrubbery that was not about to let me through without a huge struggle. I realized that with the afternoon quickly advancing, I had to once again give up my quest for the summit. The only problem was, the way directly back down didn’t look any more inviting. It was steep and full of thorns that gave me nothing to grab onto if I got stuck or started to slip.
I knew I was going to have to make my way horizontally across the hillside until I came to a spot that looked more promising for an easy descent. I walked as quickly as I could because the sun was starting to set and I knew that I would be in a lot of trouble if I was trying to climb down through the darkness. At last I saw a place where I thought I could get down, but it still caused me quite an effort and I was really afraid that I was going to completely lose the light. I made it to the very last part where I saw that there was about an eight-foot cliff separating me from the level of the fence. There weren’t any good hand or footholds so I knew I was going to have to jump and fast before it got dark. My hands were full, clutching a now completely thorn-tattered plastic bag with all belongings, so I had to drop the bag and then climb down on my hands and feet until I got to a point that was low enough where I could jump. There wasn’t any opening in that part of the fence so I had to walk all the way back to the original doorway to get back out onto the road.
I have never been happier to reach a road in my life. In retrospect, trying to climb the hill without a trail was probably a really stupid thing to do, but luckily I was now safe. By this point, darkness was really starting to fall, though I could still see the way along the paved path thanks to all the lights down below. Once again, I was able to use the map on my phone to figure out just exactly where Barry’s house was and I clambered down to the main road at the first possible opportunity. When I came in the door, Barry commented that he was just about to start worrying about where I was. I told him, yeah, I got a little bit lost along the trails. Boy, was that the understatement of the year.
The next day, my plan was to go up to Metula right on the Lebanon border to go hiking along the waterfalls of Nahal Ayun. Even though the town is only about eleven kilometers away, buses go there from Kiryat Shmona only about once every two hours. I overslept and missed the first one at 9:40am and then just missed the one after that at 11:40am because it took longer to walk to the bus station than I expected. The next bus wasn’t until 2:00pm and though at that point I should have just tried to hitchhike (again, a very common practice in Israel) I was nervous about the correct protocol and my lack of Hebrew skills so I decided instead to go eat lunch in town and wait it out.
At 2:00pm, we finally rolled out of town and 20 minutes later we were pulling into Metula. Judging from the map on my phone, the entrance to the park was back down the main road about half a kilometer or so. As I started walking down along the shoulder, the skies opened up and it started to pour rain. Undetered, I forged on figuring I had come all this way and there was no point in turning back now. When I got to the park entrance, however, there was a big gate blocking the road. I had half a mind to walk right around it, but then a ranger truck pulled up and I asked the man who got out about trying to go in. He said to go talk to the driver so I chatted with the other ranger and he told me that I had to go up to the other entrance all the way at the top of the town. He wasn’t even sure if the park was still open because of the rain and kindly offered to drive me back up to Metula if I was still around when they came back out after talking to their boss. I thanked him, but decided to try my luck at the other entrance and walked to the main road where I hitched a ride the short distance back to the bottom of Metula since I didn’t feel like walking all that way in the rain.
Once I was dropped off, however, I still had to walk all the way through the town to the park entrance. By the time I got there it was nearly 3:15pm. I walked up to the gate and of course what would the ranger tell me, but that the park was already closed. It wasn’t even because of the rain. The nature reserve actually officially closes at 4:00pm, but you have to enter by 3;00pm. Just my luck. The bus back to Kiryat Shmona didn’t come by until 4:00pm so I went into a cafe where I had a hot cup of tea and tried to dry off while waiting it out. It was basically a failed attempt at a day, but I guess those happen every now and then.
When I got back to Kiryat Shmona that night I was invited to attend a seder being hosted by some friends of Barry and Masha in honor of Tu Bishvat, the new year for trees. It’s basically like the Israeli Arbor Day when school kids all over the country plant tree saplings. At the dinner, one of the main traditions is to eat fruits and nuts that are native to the Land of Israel such as figs, olives, dates, raisins, carobs and almonds. There were lots of little kids in attendance, including the hosts’ four school-age daughters who performed a skit for everyone after dinner. All the kids were obsessed with my phone, but were disappointed to learn that I didn’t have any games set up on it. To appease them, I downloaded this free temple run game they wanted to play and that seemed to make them happy. By the way, I've since tried to play this game, and I completely suck at it. The girls' mom was from the UK and their dad grew up in New Jersey so fortunately pretty much everyone spoke English. It was definitely interesting to experience this traditional holiday that I didn't even know existed since it's not very commonly observed among Jewish Americans.I'm currently sailing on a cargo ship en route to Italy and unfortunately there is no Internet on board. I will update you on the rest of my stay in Israel the next time we get to port.
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