And on the third day...we rested. (just kidding, that was all Molly. She wants to ghostwrite my Career Israel newsletter bio, so I figure I would feature her here first.)
The third day started with an incline to Mount Meron. I was placed in the front of the group again, but slowly trickled my way to the back of the pack. We stopped once to take pictures briefly, and I took that time to regain my post...and then trickle towards the back again. I like to take the inclines at my own pace.
We reached the top of Mount Meron for our first real havsaka (break) - which usually consisted of halva bricks and dried fruit - around tea time. We used this time to take pictures atop the highest point that civilians can access. (If you look closely, you can see our house from the top of the gondola...)
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| Nina and I enjoying our considerably lighter packs. |
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| All of the Yammers on top of Mount Meron! |
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| I stole this picture from Meir... I think he took a great picture! |
After the peak, we continued on our merry way - but the trail started to get clogged with "hikers" aka religious folk in tevas and high socks...or people who are not fit enough to climb 3 flights of stairs... This made traveling rather difficult. Unfortunately for one of our own, Tal, this ended badly. In the midst of walking/turning to tell people behind her to wait for people to pass, she lost her footing and rolled her ankle. Fortunately we were on a relatively flat area - they wrapped her ankle, and at the next parking lot (20 mins later) she took a cab to the hospital. :(
Down one member, the fearless Career Israelites powered through. We walked for a while after leaving Tal in the capable hands of one of our 5 Israelis. The next time I checked my watch (ok that's a lie, I checked like every 5 minutes once it was nearing lunch time) it was past my normal lunch time. As the "trusty leader" I made the executive decision to stop for lunch.
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| Enjoying a much needed post-lunch siesta. |
After lunch, things got interesting. We walked for a while (for a change of pace...), and then we walked some more. Some hours later, we reached a wooded area. With springs...and Hasidim. I am not entirely sure how to describe it....other than a woodsy nature preserve where you have the opportunity to use the river as a bathing/swimming area? Let's go with that. All I know is that Meir made us drink a liter of water and then refill our bottle before we left the previous water source, so I had to pee so badly. There was no place I could go where there weren't Hasidim...and I am not ready to punch my ticket straight to hell.
Around 5:30 we stopped. We had two options...as night was going to fall in 2 hours. We could continue forward about 40 minutes... then take a STEEP hike up to our campsite. WHICH we would have to return back down the next morning. Or we could backtrack 15 minutes, then hike a little further to a different campsite. (Well you know which one I voted for) Obviously we picked the more treacherous route.
OH. SIDE NOTE. When we got to the beginning of the steep up-mountain (I would call it an uphill, but it was an effing mountain), there was a sign. BY DECREE OF the Israeli Parks, this route was CLOSED. Not to worry, we have Israelis. We disregarded that sign and climbed straight up up up. It was touch and go, but I finally made it. (When I got to the top, Yoni told me the sign said that was for "excellent hikers only" - I'm glad I qualified)
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| Our five-star campsite - a cow pasture with the occasional horse. |
We were so close to civilization! We tried to get delivery for dinner... but for some reason it didn't work. No cab driver wanted to deliver kosher l'pesach pizza or hamburgers to a side-of-the-road cow pasture. Go figure.
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| So close to Tzfat, yet so far! |
So, we Uri built a fire, and Molly roasted our meat sticks. She claimed they were better charred... but I don't prefer them either way. Finally, we got in the tent and got ready for bed when Molly declared she would sleep out under the stars. When was the last time I was described as "out-doorsy"? Yeah right, I was going to sleep in my tent... where it was more.... ::cough:: comfortable.
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| #OutOfTheTentFOMO not on your life. |
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