On 14 February 2009 we set out from
kibbutz Dan on Israel's Northern border, unsure of what lay ahead, thinking
that we would be finished in 4 years. And here we were, 22 March
2016, on our way to the last leg of our journey. This gives the term
"fashionably late" a new meaning. I had been jittery all week with
the excitement of finishing the shvil. Yoni and Garry seemed more relaxed and
Mark has other, more important endings (and beginnings) to worry about. Shimon,
our regular Eilat driver for the past 3 trips had put his taxi into the
panelbeater's, so he organized Dudu to drive us to the starting point. We
didn't want our last day on the shvil to start late because of an unknown taxi
driver, but we needn't have worried. It seems that Eilat taxi drivers never
sleep, as Dudu was at the apartment 15 minutes early, at 4.45, explaining that
Tuesday is party night in Eilat, when revelers hit the clubs. If only we'd
known earlier, we could have gone out raging. In any case, we arrived to the
starting point at 5.15. Just as Dudu was finishing his night shift, the full
moon was finishing its, and the sky was changing from the shadowy grey of moon
lit nights to the undefined half-light of morning.
So this was it. The last
accommodation booking. Last taxi ride. Just to give you an idea…this last jaunt
would have us drive for 11 hours, sleep 6 hours, walk 7 hours = 24 hours. It's the last time we would have to do this insanity. The word
"logistics" could finally be used as a safe, no hassle word that
refers to the process where factories deliver their products to market and not
the hassle of getting us to, in and out of impossibly far flung places.
Typically for us, we almost got the
start all wrong, as we sped up a path that seemed logical, but would have taken
us to the local border army base. Imagine what the guard at the gate would have
thought if he'd been surprised by 4 lost vagabonds who had rocked up to a sensitive
border army base, stammering sheepishly, " which way to Eilat by foot?" Was this ISIS, who are
active in the Sinai, trying a new ploy for infiltration into Israel? Luckily we
discovered our mistake quickly and found the correct path without too many
hassles and having to test the army's alertness. The 15 minute drive from
Eilat, which is, of course, at sea level, rose to the starting point at almost
700 metres, on route 12, which runs along the border of Israel and Egypt. From
the outset we could clearly see the border security fence at the bottom of the
valley to our right, meaning that the massif directly opposite us was Egypt. Given
that we were so high up, after a few hundred metres walking, we could also
clearly see the Red Sea. For most of the day we would alternate between glimpses and full panoramas of both the border and the Red
Sea.
The end of the shvil was obviously on
our minds and we each had different ways to show it. Almost as soon as we
started walking, Yoni asked us to nominate the 5 best legs. It quickly
became apparent that naming the 5 best walks was almost impossible, given that
there were so many great ones, but the conversation focused around the many memorable
experiences of these past 7 shvil years. We had no problem, however, identifying
the 5 worst, given that there were so few bad ones.
After a couple of kilometres the path
led us down into Nachal Gishron. The descent was quite steep, but nothing we
hadn't negotiated in the past. However, there were metal railings and foot
holds to help us get to the bottom. We had so often passed terrain where we had
sworn at the shvil elders for being too tight fisted to put some sort of safety devices into
the rock to assist in maneuvering through, yet here there was an overkill of
banisters and rungs to help us get down a path that was of medium difficulty. Go
figure. That's not to say that we didn't take the help offered, as unnecessary
as it was. A little further on, the chasm dropped 50 metres straight down. Here,
the metal ladders were 100% indispensable (and 100% scary). Not far beyond our
ladder descent, the shvil asked us to drop about 5 metres, without any sort of
aid. Garry, being nimble and unflinching, jumped straight down. Mark is
characteristically more cautious and found a way to maneuver down. I'm
uncoordinated but stupid, so I jumped too. And Yoni, well, let's just say that
he got down, safely but in a somewhat ungraceful manner. There's a video of the shenigans, that
I have been forbidden to upload, but for a price, am willing to release it to
the highest bidder. It makes great comedy.
Given that we'd driven from sea level
to an altitude of 700 metres, it was our aim today to get back down to Eilat
and sea level. Over the first 6 km, we'd been walking downhill; sometimes
steeply, sometimes vertically and sometimes moderately, but the variety of
colours, mountains and sea views ahead of us made it as interesting as any leg
we had done to date. Where else in Israel can you see 4 countries at once? But
the shvil elders weren't going to allow our last day to consist of a gentle
drop of 700 metres over 14 km. No sir. Payback time had arrived. We learnt long
ago that if we encounter any geographical feature that was called
"ma'aleh" something-or-other, we were in trouble. So after encountering
the various gradients of Nachal Gishron, we now had to tackle Ma'aleh Gishron. Upon
leaving the valley in order to start the ascent, we missed the correct path (of
course), continuing along an unmarked path that came to a dead end that even
the shvil masters on their cruelest day couldn't make us climb. We backtracked,
found the correct path and almost immediately wished we hadn't. It was a doozy.
You can blame it on my A.D.D., but I've never been known for my patience and so
far today exemplified it perfectly. I always love walking the shvil. I love the
outdoors, the challenge, the camaraderie, the escape from day-to-day life and
much more. However, the jitters that I'd been feeling all week quickly gave way
to impatience. I think for the first time ever, I wasn't enjoying it. It's not
rocket science when I say that overcoming the physical challenges of the shvil is
80% in your mind. So when my mind wasn't in to it, the ascent up Ma'aleh
Gishron was that much harder. As I've said somewhere else, I'm too shvil old
and grumpy for this shit. Just let me finish. If my impatience made the walking
more difficult for me, Yoni had it even harder. On this, the last day of shvil,
he was suffering from light-headedness and dizziness. This is not the way he wanted
to finish the journey.
In any case, dizziness, difficulty or
whatever, we got to the top and as always, the views make it all worthwhile. Each
climb and its own view from the top. From there, the path continued on; it
dropped a bit, rose a bit, rose a lot, we panted and complained and after
almost 4 hours of walking, it was time for a break. We were about to have our
last breakfast on the shvil. This is no paltry thing. Yes. Yes, I know, we're
obsessed with food - Guilty as charged. But breakfast isn't just about the
food. In fact, over time, our on-shvil food has become simpler. We used to make
elaborate gourmet sandwiches, but over time we realized that we didn't need the
fancy stuff. Tomatoes, cucumbers, cheap rolls and bought salads all taste so much
better on the shvil, with your closets friends, in pristine air and in a spectacular
location. Shvil breakfasts had an intangible quality that went far beyond the
simple produce, vitamin replenishment and renewing energy. My last shvil
breakfast and the thought of the last few kilometers ahead lifted my spirits
and enthusiasm.
Over the course of our time on the
shvil, we have come across many weird and random sights, so why not a few more
today? In bygone years, people used message walls to leave graffiti or
information to those coming after. Today we passed a chewing gum wall. I'm not
quite sure what message was being sent here, but archeologists will have a
field day in the future trying to understand why a wall in this lonely desert
canyon had hundreds of pieces of chewed gum stuck to it.
Not too long after breakfast, the
path crossed a very new looking, paved bitumen road, in the middle of no-where.
Where it went, where it came from and why it is there, I have no idea. Like
most of today's route, this road was very close to the security wall that delineates
the border with Egypt. The weird and totally inexplicable part of the story is
that a silver Toyota Corolla, with its driver sitting inside, was sitting
stationary at the exact place where the shvil crosses the road. It was almost
as if Mr Shvil Painter, or his bosses, the Shvil Elders, had sent him there to
wait for us, making sure that we were safe. (As if). Or that he was a
drugs\weapons\Russian prostitute dealer waiting for a shipment to come up
through the Sinai and cross into Israel. I honestly don't know, but it was as
random a sight that you could ever imagine. And speaking of roads, there was
some final road walking waiting for us, when further along, the path went along a different
stretch of bitumen for about 400 metres. We have consistently and steadfastly
refused to walk on roads, ever since we hitched a ride to the end of the very
first day because it would have us walk along a road for 4 km. Now, in the
middle of this leg, we had no choice but to walk along this road. The irony was
not lost on us.
Weirdness, however, wasn't restricted
to other people. We had our own weirdness, in the form of some very strange
conversations.
Atop one of the day's many
cliffs, we passed an engraved metal rod driven into the ground, painted with
the blue white and orange shvil colors. This was a memorial for a shviller who
had slipped and fallen to his death here. Putting the solemnity of the location
aside, we started to fantasize about how the headlines would read if we were to
die on the shvil, working in our own personalities and physical and character
traits into the fictional descriptions. A psychologist may read our impending
completion of the shvil as much a trigger for the conversation as the stern
reminder that the shvil can indeed be dangerous, but I've never been one for
pop psychology, so I'll let the reader make up his own mind. I'm curious
whether a further conversation about which female members of parliament we
found attractive would be classed as weird, sick or demented or sort of normal
for 4 middle aged male friends. Again,
the reader can make up his mind.
Upon completing the climb up Ma'aleh
Gishron, I thought we had finished our steep climbs on the shvil. As usual, the
shvil elders had other ideas. In the middle of no-where, there was a sign,
pointing in the direction of the path we were on, towards Mt.Tzfatot. A path up
a mountain is almost as bad as a path up a Ma'aleh (ascent). In reality, it was
difficult without being murderous. And the shvil's final grand view from the
top was truly astonishing. We were a steep 3 km descent from the end. Just like
our estimation how long it would take us to complete the whole Israel National
Trail, we had gotten our timing all wrong. We thought we'd cover today's 14 km
in four to five hours and it was taking us closer to seven hours. This final
leg of shvil yisrael had succeeded in going out with a bang - borders, stunning
views, scary descents and gut busting ascents.
And that was it. The path leads to
the locked back fence of the Eilat field school, the tri-coloured shvil
markings disappear and you're finished. One of the great hikes of the world ends
without a plaque, without any official signs, nothing. If it was America there would be
a giant neon sign, fast food joint and a factory outlet. Europe would have a
tasteful but large inscription with lots of flowery language and platitudes. Yet
here in Israel, which is so often noisy and emotional, just a hand painted sign in lieu of any formal recognition from the Nature Protection Society which is responsible for the shvil. I guess it doesn't
matter, because we'd done it.
For seven years we dreamt of our
families joining us for the last hundred metres, continuing on with a dip in
the Red Sea and a celebratory meal. Unfortunately, our families couldn't make it and the beaches are all private
and fenced off, so no dip. We had a long journey ahead of us, so no celebratory
meal either. Rather than a grand celebration, with marching bands and pom-pom girls,
we found ourselves, 10 minutes after the last white blue and orange marking had
disappeared, in a taxi, heading back to the apartment. Half an hour after that we had showered and
were in the car, farewelling Eilat and the shvil forever. Talk about an
anti-climax. And yet, maybe this was a lesson in humility. Many thousands of
people had completed the shvil before us and countless more will after us, and
maybe we shouldn't make such a big thing of it. But when it comes down to it,
yes, I am proud that I've walked from Dan in the North to Eilat in the South.
It's taken us seven years and has been a physical and mental challenge that
none of us would have ever imagined that we would ever face. The three of us
have overcome doubts, personal and family complications and physical
issues along the way and yet we made it. It is a once in a lifetime achievement
that we couldn't have done without each other. It was a life
experience that I feel privileged to have been a part of.
