4th day, 2nd leg (cosmic karma)

It's 5.30 friday morning. My alarm goes off and I roll out of bed. This isn't a work day. I'm voluntarily rolling out of bed so that I can go walk 18 km up and down mountains, knowing that in the end I'll feel like double my 49 years. Why the fuck do I do this to myself? Is this really called "fun"? (actually, it is, in a perverse, masochistic sort of way) So at 6.30 we met once again at our regular meeting point, the Segafreddo at Kadarim, had our regular pre-walk caffeine shot and set off for our first real test , our first long walk. I was eager to get past this leg because we'd dodged it for whatever reason and had completed the 3rd leg already. More importantly once we'd put this leg behind us we could tick the box by the Upper Galilee and say to ourselves that we'd finished a defined area of Israel and finished the first part of the shvill. Our next leg is the 4th already, in the Mt. Meron area. We're becoming experienced shvillers
After the usual leaving one car at the end and driving on to the beginning we got to Tel Hai by 7.30 and started off. So far almost all of our shvil encounter has been about nature. Babbling brooks, mountain vistas, scrubby forests etc etc etc. An orchard here and there about man and nature. Today man was going to have a bit more of an influence on preceedings.
The first part of today's walk took us through the Tel Hai sculpture park. True, it was in a natural setting but the reason that the path took us down that way was two-fold. One was to take us past the large sculptures placed around the area, none of which were particularly mind-blowing and the second to make the up-hill that we had to walk just a bit steeper. They succeeded in that. So we straggled up the path from the sculpture park to the scenic road that would be our route for the next 4 hours. Now here lies the crux of the problem. We are walking shvill (path)Yisrael, not kvish (road) Yisrael. Yes, its a scenic route, it is pretty, but its a road. Go back to the first chapter and re-read the part where we hitched a ride because we thought that walking meaninglessly along a road just didn't do it for us. We don't mind huffing and puffing up paths, but doing the same along a road for 4 hours doesn't quite justify getting up at 5.30 on my day off. And huff and puff we did. By definition, mountains are not flat. They go up and down. A lot. So we walked for about 12 of our 18 km along a country mountain road. Yoni was more vocal in his disapproval of the situation (remember, Yoni is the grump of the group), Gary and I were more able to put it into the context of pretty views and "this is part of the shvill and take it as it is" type attitude. As if we needed proof that what we were walking on wasn't hard black dirt but indeed was what the dictionary defines as "road", a convoy of some 30 cars belonging to the Smug Drivers Association of Northern Dimona passed us by, with knowing grins that sort of said "Gee I'm glad I'm in this car and not walking out there on the road." Usually I would have a wry grin and think "Gee I'm glad I'm out here in nature and not looking out at it through a window". Today, in this situation, I'm not sure which grin wins. Anyhow, since cars are bigger and stronger than pedestrians we were forced to stand aside whilst they passed. Hmpf.
After an hour's or so walking we came to a lovely picnic spot called Ein Ro'im, replete with set barbeque spots, lots of shade and empty picnic tables. Please refer back once again to chapter one and note that we can't resist empty picnic tables. This time there was no park ranger to tell us that we had to pay for the right to use the empty picnic table. After a short break and a fascinating conversation concerning the differences between commercially and home grown locquets we hit the road. A bit further along we found what motivated the motorcade to come bother us on this backroad. The Ramim Geological Park. Apparently when this part of the Rift Valley was split open all those millions of years ago it exposed layers and layers of rock that represent a multi-million year history of the area. This geological park explains what rock your looking at and how long its been there all in easily accessible strata. The people visiting the site give new meaning to that fond term of ours...rock-apes.
Along the way we crossed paths with some other shvillers including one particularly sad looking character who was walking by himself. By the look of the amount of equipment on his back it appeared that he was doing the whole shvill in one,2 month go. We agreed that doing the shvill on ones own doesn't sound like much fun, and his demeanour seemed to agree. (So why do it, I dare ask?) Then we crossed paths with another pair of misplaced walkers. An eleven year old kid (or so he appeared) with his 9 year old brother, strolling down this road, in the middle of no-where. The younger one throwing sunflower seeds in his mouth, one at a time, and expertly spitting out the inedible casing, in that unmistakable middle-eastern style. Playing hooky from school, not a worry in the world. No parent in sight. Eventually, a fair way back, we spot mum and dad in the escort vehicle, somehow driving at the same speed that their offspring were walking. So we were starting to see a few more walkers on the trail and were having to share our personal space with cars. At this point we should have realised that today's section was going to be really different from everything else that we'd walked to this point, including pre shvill yisrael walks.

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We noticed that the colors on the trail today were different from 2 weeks ago, largely as a result of the change of season. In late spring in Nachal Dishon there was still water or at least its affects, so there was still the last of the winter green. Here there are no water sources so everything has dried out more. It hasn't turned yet to the grey of Israel's summer, more like a mottled green. There were still lots of flowers in bloom, but not the entire canvasses of spring reds and yellows. Walking above the Hula Valley the views were beautiful but the haze had set in and these beautiful views didn't have the bold contrasts that we'd seen in earlier walks.

Eventually the road and a regular walking track parted ways, with us on the track. Things were starting to feel a bit more normal. We spotted a rather nice , rather large turtle which we decided would become our mascot. No snide remarks please, we're not without a sense of self irony. We passed a nectarine orchard, strong with the sulphuric stink of chicken shit laid down as fertilizer. These were things that we might expect to experience on the shvill.

And then came Barry.

As is the custom and polite social grace (we are, of course, very mindful of our social graces), when you come across another walker you exchange pleasantries; how's it going, how far to go, watch out for this and that. Camaraderie is the word, I think. Added to the shvill camaraderie was the fact that Barry spoke our mother tongue quite well, albeit with a South African accent. The conversation therefore lasted slightly longer than the standard 3 sentences. It came up in conversation that Barry had left his car where he'd started in the same car park as we had left one of our cars, but had no transport at the other end. I have no idea how Barry and Nurit, his partner, planned to get back to their car and I'm not sure that they did either. Anyhow, Barry suggested\asked that perhaps one of us could drive his car up to where they were going to finish, that is, where we started and had left a car. Since we were 3 drivers and we had one car waiting for us at the carpark it was no problem. So he promptly unhooks the key to his Toyota Land-Cruiser and innocently hands it to 3 strangers walking down a path in the Galilean mountains, instructing us to leave the key on top of a tyre, for all to see, in a public parking space. We exchange cell phone numbers and walk our separate ways. Its true, Yoni, Gary and Paul resemble middle aged accountants more than potential car thieves, but still, leaving a 300,000 sheqel motorcar in the hands of total strangers is, well, trusting, at best. But the strangeness had only just begun.

We continued on our tired and merry way. When we met Barry we'd walked about 15 km already, so we had another 3 or so to go and thus were getting pretty weary. Eventually, after 6 hours of walking we arrived to the car park, where we found Paul's Mercedes van and Barry's Toyota Land-Cruiser. However, to my dismay, Paul the fucking idiot, couldn't find his keys. I turned all my pants pockets inside out and in my backpack found crumbs that even mice wouldn't eat, but no keys. Instead of keys I had a knot in my stomach. I'd either dropped them along the way, which was what I was pretty certain had happened, or I'd left them in the back of Yoni's car at the other end, which I was pretty sure wasn't a particularly realistic option, but in this situation you clutch at any straw you can. And then the magnitude of the divine intervention, the hand of God, the Cosmic Karma or the most unbelievable coincidence that even the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy would find too improbable, struck. How is it possible that some bloke who you've never met before and will probably never meet again, on a mountain path, plops into your lap a set of car keys to his luxury car, when at the same time you lose the keys to your own car? If not for this stroke of unimaginable dumb luck then we would have been well and truly shtupped. Left in a car park with a car that we couldn't get into or drive, unable to make our way back to the start to pick up the other car. By the way, if I'm going to beat the odds, then its all the way. The keys were in the back of Yoni's car. That's it. From now on I'm going to lay tfillin and do mitzvahs, say Hail Mary's and go to confession, fast during Ramadan and meditate in the Tantric Buddha style in order to achieve Nirvana. Anything to keep the gods smiling on us as they did today.

Not withstanding that, I could at least pay for lunch at the Blue Bus Hummus joint.

3rd day (Family Day)

Over the past few years I've gotten used to the trio of Gary, Yoni and Paul sort of rolling off the tongue in regards to walks. Rolling Paul, Susan, Gal, Yoav, Aviv, Gary, Danielle, Yoni, Yael, Anton, Lisa, Adam and Mocha the Dog off the tongue is a bit more of a mouthful. But there we all were, on this crisp spring morning, in the car park at the entrance to the Nachal Dishon Nature Reserve, eager to set off on our shortish hike down the creek. By my estimation, which is nearly always wrong, the 6 or so kilometres should take us a couple of hours, not including stops. For once I wasn't TOO wrong.
We'd been walking a scant 5 minutes when finally IT happened. After one and a half legs spread over about 10 hours of walking we finally found other shvillers. We were starting to suspect that the rest of the shvill yisrael community hid, took a sicky or generally went missing when the word was out that we were on the trail. But no, here were three young lasses doing all 960 km in one go. If I was 25 years younger with less responsibilities and more physical prowess then I would love to do it in one stretch, 2 or 3 months on the shvill. Actually, who am I kidding? I don't think I would ever have coped with 3 months in a tent, surviving on battle rations and brackish water. All the same, good on those that do do it that way. As for me/us , I'm very happy to be doing it the way we're doing it, one leg' or even half a leg at a time. Of course we have just started and have a few years and a lot of hard km ahead.
As already said, up to this point we hadn't seen any other walkers and very few humans. This stretch of the shvil is known to be very busy. The upper dishon is one of the most visited paths in the north. Besides its beauty the path is broad and on a very gentle incline/decline, so it makes easy walking, biking, motocrossing, jeeping, ATV-ing. If I'd previously labelled shvil yisrael as the cvish 6 (main highway) of Israel, so here was proof. I don't think 10 minutes passed at any point of our walk that we didn't see some expression of human movement. Undoubtedly and unfortunately pedestrian movement was the least common.
You know how sometimes you go past a tree and there's almost a neon sign on it saying "come sit under my leafy branches"? And how the earth around it is positioned just right so you can sit down comfortably? And its breadth is just right to hold under it 12 people and a dog? Well after about an hour's walking we saw such a tree, whose beckoning we could not resist. The perfect place for a coffee break. or tea break. Gary took the thermos out of his backpack and started pouring herbal tea. Those that like herbal tea said it was good. Who am I to argue? I took out the finjan and gazia and started to boil water to make kaffe shachor. Only problem was that the gas was running out and the replacement cylinder I'd shlepped wasn't the right type. It looked like that all the paraphernalia that I had in my backpack was just that, paraphernalia. I wasn't, however, going to pass up on my coffee so easily. The kids brought me twigs for kindling, and in no time I had a little fire going. The water boiled, (at least the second time. The first time Mocha the genius wonder dog kicked over the finjan chasing an imaginary bird) the coffee cooked and those that prefer cooked black coffee over herbal tea got what they'd been waiting for.
In keeping with the relaxed nature of the day, we sat for a long time under the said tree, but in the end we dragged ourselves up and continued on our way.
Every city has its home-grown local versions of hoons that burn rubber up and down the street as an expression of their masculinity. In the middle of the Dishon stream we weren't exempted from a sort of local, weird hoon. No-one really drove up or down the track too quickly or dangerously but we couldn't help noticing one particular group of 4-wheeled buggy riders. Each one had a different colored buggy and was attired in the corresponding Power Rangers uniforms. I kid you not. Full dress uniform. Helmets, protective armour, the works. Since Power Rangers are the good guys, they didn't drive recklessly. But they sure did look weird.
In some way the many groups of 4*4s that we saw were almost as ridiculous as the Power Ranger ATV-ers. This wasn't a hard walk by any means. Yoni's 9 year old Yael did it in a breeze. It seems, dunno, a contradiction to "get out into nature" by taking a car trip up a creek bed.
The top end of the creek was dry already after winter's end, but as we progressed it started to trickle which gradually become a very low, slow flow (sorry for the rhyme). The stream was not so slow that it wasn't inviting for anyone under 45, so as the stream gradually grew in strength the kids with dog in tow (lead?) all decided it was more fun walking in the stream than next to it. Don't misunderstand me here. The stream was at no point any more than very gentle, a far cry from the torrent that we crossed a month and a half earlier further downstream.
And so we continued. The kids splashing in the stream and the adults enjoying the last of the spring flowers, the views, the perfect weather and most of all, the company.
No shvil walk is complete without the meal at the end. Its part of the walk, remember? We'd arranged to bring picnic lunches which we left in the car that we'd left at the end. We found a grassy patch, opened up our hampers and completed the days activities in the most fitting way.

2nd day ( 3 Little Boys)

Someone cleverer than me once said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Our walk today was definitely a long way from hell, but still this quote is apt.
Yoni came back from the glamorous seaside resort of Shiamen feeling a bit run down. It happens.
The route we had planned for today (the 2nd leg of shvil yisrael) was quite a long one (18 KM) so I suggested that we do a shorter route. This shorter route included only one short sharp climb and the rest a gentle downhill slope. Or so I thought. Or so the book said. In reality the short sharp climb wasn't too bad, but we got a bit lost...no, no, no. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Just let's say that in the end the route we took was not a lot shorter and probably at least as strenuous. Well, my intention was good.
So we started where we thought we would be finishing and headed south, past Nabi Yesha which is a ruined Muslim holy site that is the purported burial site of Yoshua Ben-Nun. Or so the book said.
Beyond the impressive ruins we sighted the horn of Naphtali. What a great name! It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. "Zappo, bring me the horn of Naphtali and we'll destroy once and for all the evil Groods" But I digress. In reality the horn of Naphtali is the highest peak in the area known as the Naphtali Highlands, opposite the settlement that goes by the name of Ramot Naphtali (Naphtali Heights). Could you guess that one of the ten tribes of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, Naphtali, inhabited this area?
It is indeed obviously the highest point in the area and access to it is from Nabi Yesha is via a small valley whose sole purpose is to make the ascent longer and steeper. Lucky that the views of the green scrub forest we were walking through and the Hula valley below us were so beautiful. Whilst the hill in front of us loomed imposing, the actual climb wasn't as bad as it looked. Certainly the views, as I have already mentioned, were beautiful, but as we ascended they just got better. Atop of the hill was a trig point which I was anxious to see. Once again, according to the book, a trig is the actual point of height above sea level that is gazetted and marked on a map. When we see on a map a little triangle with a number that represents height next to it, that is measured at the trig. Anyhow, at some point close to the top there was a fork in the road where we were unsure which way to go. Upon consulting the book we turned right. After a few hundred metres we saw a familiar orange, blue and white marking and we were convinced that we were on the right track. After a few hundred metres more the markings turned to black but again upon consultation with the map and the book it appeared as if this was still ok. After another 500 downhill metres the black markings continued, but upon further consultation with the map it appeared that by now this wasn't ok. Now this isn't the first, nor the second time that we've found ourselves unfound. Not exactly lost. Not exactly found. Just not exactly where we thought were meant to be and just not exactly knowing where we were. Whatever, this walking business is not always as exact as the book makes it out to be. There's a lesson to be learnt here. Don't believe everything you read in a book, even if it is THE book that is called "Shvil Yisrael".
Garry, Yoni and I have trouble defining what constitutes "lost" . Certainly we've had enough experience not knowing where we are over these past few years. Walking around in circles in 40 degree heat, ending up somehow at Yoni's car when we thought we were somewhere else and weren't looking for the car, is lost. Coming out of a path not where the map had us believe we would and having to hitch back to our car is sort of grey. I'd be happy for comments on what is "lost". We at least agreed that it has a range of grey from 1 to 10, and we've experienced most of the shades or at least will in the future. One of the lessons that we've learnt from being "not found" on a number of occasions is to recognise it early and rectify it before you get REALLY dark grey, 9 out of 10 lost. This we did.
We backtracked the kilometre or so we figured that we'd done since the last sign, including the steep uphill (reverse of downhill) and sure enough found an orange, blue and white marking that led us away from the horn of Naphtali.
We all have elements of our personalities that may be defined as childish. There are 2 that I will admit to. One is that I hate the idea of missing out on something. We're doing this walk, the trig is at the top and it's part of the walk. We don't miss it. But we did miss it. Hmph. Yes, I know, its only a trig point and spending another half hour further backtracking and finding the proper way up doesn't make sense. And those that know me might identify a certain propensity to whinge like a little boy when I don't get my own way. So there I was, near, but not on the top, of a mountain in the Galil, having already backtracked after missing a turn off, whinging about not getting to see my trig. Why do they put up with me?
The next 3 hours or so passed without incident. That's not to say that they were boring. Far from it. 3 boys walking through undulating hills and passing flowering meadows where contented cows grazed . The bright green of the verdant slopes combining with the rainbow hues of spring flowers, surrounded by hills and vales...yeah, yeah, yeah. You get the picture. I can't count how many times each of us would just let out a "Gee this is beautiful" for no reason other than we needed to give voice to the beauty.
When we weren't exclaiming how beautiful the countryside was, our conversation would range from the profane to the profound. We'd cure the world's problems, rate Obama's first 60 days, get depressed over the fate of Israel and its upcoming loony government or try to solve the world's water problems by making and selling water barrels or working for companies that will throw millions into cutting-edge water technology. Above all this we discussed 2 pertinent and pressing questions. One, where were we going to eat lunch? Two, How do they paint the 3 colored markings on the trail?
question: How many people does it take to paint the orange, blue and white stripes that mark shvil yisrael?
possible answers:
3 - one for each colour
1 -he carries 3 cans of paint with him along the route
1- he passes over the route 3 times, each time painting a different coloured stripe
1 - he carries a special 3 headed adjustable hi-tech roller
1- he carries 3 pad-a-wax's
1- what's pad-a-wax?
any other suggestions?
Without being too deep and meaningful there was something boyish and innocent about 3 friends walking through the hills at once talking about serious issues and meaningless frivolities.
By the time we got to the area above the Nachal Dishon we were starting to feel a little weary, but we had some more fun and games still ahead of us.
The steep descent into the Dishon reminded is that there were some 49 year old muscles that hadn't really worked today, and now it was their turn to get tired. By this stage we'd walked about 12 km. Not very far in geographic terms, but we'd gone from high views over the Hula beneath us, to low scrubby forest, to rolling hills and flowering fields, to deep canyon views to a fast running stream. Not bad in 12 km.
After 12 km today and 12 on the 1st leg, we still haven't met a single other walker along the trail.Here and there the occasional local, and that in itself a rarity. We can't work it out. Perhaps its an Israeli version of the Truman Show, where its all a hoax, and we're the only ones not in the know. The cows in the fields that we passed were robots with cameras, and the trees are plastic with cameras and the eagle that hovered above us was just a hi-tec camera drone. Perhaps that explains the missing trig. Go figure.
Here in the Dishon stream we actually left the shvill yisrael which continued upstream whilst we headed downstream to where my car was parked. A stroll. A lovely somewhat tired stroll along the banks of a fast running stream. The trouble was that this stream crossed the path on numerous occasions. The first time that path and stream met there was a large water pipe adjacent to the stream. Garry pranced over it. Yoni wasn't too sure so he got down on his bum and bummed his way across. I walked across with about as much confidence as a blind man crossing a highway without a cane or a guide dog. By the second and third crossing we were like kids in the playground at school. By the 4th crossing there was no water pipe. We had no choice but to wade across, with the water splashing up to our shins and knees. The feeling that we were kids at play only increased at each successive crossing, either by balancing acts on the pipe or wading through the stream.
With wet feet and tired muscles we got back to my car, all smiles after a fun 15 km day.
Oh yes. Food. Abu Rami in Rameh is something akin to our "local" hummus joint and since there were no decent hummus joints in the vicinity that we'd walked, it was off to Abu Rami. On Fridays and Saturdays the place is full of Jews, almost no Arabs, in the middle of an Arab village. But that's another story altogether.