Israel 2013: Sweet and Salty--Day 1

I have four days to write about, so I will be posting them in segments. I will also be posting a ton of pictures, and will try to upload a video or two. In case you're wondering, Sweet and Salty refers to the two seas we hiked from and to: Salty=Mediterranean, Sweet=Sea of Galilee.

Wednesday night (March 20th) I, along with other members of our bible study, which comprises of students of various backgrounds here at Rothberg and Hebrew University, held a "mock" passover seder. I highly suggest you click on the following link to read about our evening. My friend Mark is an excellent writer and I feel he described the evening better than I could. You can read about it here:
http://markbesonen.blogspot.co.il/?spref=fb

The very next morning at 6 am, we were gathered at the North Gate to start our "Yam el Yam" (Sea to Sea) hike. Of those who went were 75 students, 3 madrachim (kind of like student counselors), two tour guides, two medics, and two armed guards. After loading all our luggage under both tour buses, we left for our first destination: Achziv Beach. Achziv is north of Acre on the far northern coast of Israel, not far from the Lebanon and Syrian borders. An empty water bottle was used to obtain some water from the Mediterranean Sea so it could be poured into the Sea of Galilee, the last destination of our hike. While on the beach we had to do some stretches to help prepare for the day's activities.

Israeli Army boat switching shifts with another army boat

Once we stretched and took pictures, we were loaded back onto our respective buses (one and two, which is how they divided us into groups) and driven to Nachal Kziv to start day one of our hike. We started at the top and worked our way to the bottom, walked through a lot of water, trying to take in all the beautiful scenery and drinking in lots of sunshine, which meant drinking lots of water. We were supposed to hike with 3 liters (here we call them "litters" due to a typing error in a previous email) a day, which is a lot to carry when you also have snacks, lunch, sunscreen, camera, etc. in your backpack. But we survived.

The Monfort Castle, one of the premier Crusader establishments in the Galilee (built around 12th century), about 10 mi south of the Lebanon border

"Bus 1" group leading the way

The trek down was fun. Most of the paths were narrow, preventing two people from walking side by side. On our left were rocky walls, trees and brush, and to our right the long, bumpy drop to the bottom. The terrain of the path was ever changing, from dirt to large rocks. As much as I wanted to look out at the scenery surrounding me, I really had to watch where I walked. This was not only important in preventing a nasty fall, but also in preventing losing an eye from the various low lying branches we had to duck under. I was so in my element out there. We came to the first stream crossing. I had bought hiking shoes for the occasion, as we were told to bring a second pair of shoes for the first day as our feet would most likely get wet. I had fun watching people trying to cross walking on dry stones; most were successful, some were not. My friend Rob and I skipped rocks across the water as we waited for our group "bus 2" to finish crossing. Since we had to cross water several times, those of us who opted to walk through the water hiked in wet shoes for the 4-5 hour hike. Fun!

There were a lot of fish in the stream (I think we kept crossing the same one)

Fun obstacles to maneuver over and around

The "hike" felt more like a leisurely nature walk once we reached the bottom. A few of us started to complain about this, as we were forced to stop what seemed like every 20-30 minutes to rest, and more importantly, to drink water. I'm not sure who contained more water, me or the stream. However, while we were there, someone was taken to the hospital for dehydration, so we weren't taking any chances. We would realize towards the end of our jaunt through nature, however, that our leisurely walk was about to get a little intense...we had to go back up the mountain.

In the picture above, we had tree roots to climb up; other places we had large stones, and other times we had dirt paths, which were trickier to climb, but thankfully some places had things we could grab onto to help pull ourselves up. During our ascent, the madrachim did not want us stopping to take pictures. We stopped only to drink water. I found it ironic they kept us from resting on the most trying part of the hike, but still I enjoyed the exercise, and the satisfaction of knowing that physically, I was able to do it (though it felt like my little heart would explode).

I stopped for a few seconds to let a friend photograph me

Once we reached the familiar starting point at the top, we lingered to catch our breath, drink more water, and take more pictures. There was an ice cream stand next to our buses. I was next in line, drooling, money in hand when we were told "don't buy any ice cream, you can't take it on the bus!" I wiped the drool from my mouth, returned my money to my backpack, and moped begrudgingly to the bus. Sometimes it hurts to do the right thing. Ok so I'm embellishing a bit here; but I really did want that ice cream.

Thankful for air conditioning and wondering why I bothered to put on deodorant that morning, I nestled into my seat on bus #2 as we were driven to Akko (also spelled Acco; same as Acre...I know, not confusing at all) to the Knights Hostel and Guest House for the night, which was amazing. Akko/Acco/Acre is an an ancient city that is also mentioned in the bible. They know it has existed for at least the last 4000-5000 years and are still doing excavations; some of the city's past are located right within the Knights Hostel. I took a much needed shower upon arriving, though I was more excited about dinner. For dinner I had Israeli salad (I had been craving it for days and my friends can attest to the fact that I talked about it nonstop), chicken nuggets (shnitzel...did I spell that right?), potatoes (they always look radioactive and we're not sure why...they're a highlighter yellow), a chicken thigh, and some other things I can't remember at this moment. After dinner I went up onto the roof with some friends. The view, what we could see in the dark, was amazing. We were practically sitting on top of the Mediterranean, and there was a mosque within walking distance with its minaret right next to it, all lit up in green, the color of Islam. The sky was clear, the air pleasant, and some cats eerily meowed in unison right behind us. Oooh, and my friend Larissa brought chocolate to the rooftop. At 8 pm we took a tour of Akko. The tour ended at 10pm and I was thrilled to plop down on a non-midget bed that included a real mattress. Our balcony door was stuck open and we were a little worried it might be cold in our room during the night, but it was nothing of the sort. The air was perfect all night, and it wasn't too loud with traffic (my internal alarm clock has been malfunctioning for the last couple weeks; it thinks 3:30 am is an acceptable time for waking up, so I can confirm this as fact).