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Henrik Kibak » Blog Archive » Entry #4 - Sabbatical: Shvil Israel Part I

Entry #4 - Sabbatical: Shvil Israel Part I

What do you need to know to make sense of the “On Israel” category of this blog? - That my wife is Israeli while I am not. This is my fifth trip to Israel, but instead of staying for two weeks, we will stay nine months.



From California to Israel and onto the Trail
Preparing our house to be rented out and figuring out what to take when you are going to be living and working on the other side of the planet for nine months took longer than I expected. The final two weeks were pretty hectic but when my wife and Jess and I were at the CDG airport in Paris jess_paris.jpg it felt pretty good. Jess did well on the flight between SFO and CDG, so that relaxed me a lot. But when we got to the Tel Aviv airport, hmmm… My wife noticed that the metal choke collar that had been laying in the Pet Carrier was ice cold. And now that we were on the ground at the Ben Gurion airport at 2AM the air temp was close to 90. jess_tlv.jpgAnyway, the pup was pretty wasted at that point and did not share our excitement at meeting our friends.

That was early Wednesday morning. My wife who is expert at helping me to “set limits” has us in the car at 9PM Thursday evening so that we can join her friends on the Shvil Israel (the Israel National Trail). For the next two hours we are racing through the darkness in our underpowered automobile desperately following the only one who knows the way up the Arava Valley to Tiberius from Jerusalem, and then over to a little town called Kfar Vradim. Our friends house is filled with old folks (us) as well as a group of 20-somethings who are also going to hike. At 5AM those of us with cars are up early to drop the young folks off (they are hiking a different segment) and then we are looping back to pick up the rest of the forty and fifty-somethings. Some cars are then dropped at one end of the trail and others shuttle up to the head of the trail where there are about twenty children, dogs and parents waiting.
nahal_amud1.jpg Hiking the Shvil Israel - Part 1
Back to “setting limits.” We hike down this beautiful long canyon with a stream in it, Nachal Amud. The river has swimming holes and trout in it, as well as some very large and beautiful crabs sitting about on the rocks. After about 10 kilometers the stream peters out as do the shady trees. The late summer heat sets in. “Setting Limits” and the dog are putting down some serious liquids at every opportunity. Good thing I brought a back pack that essentially only is filled with 2-liter bottles of water. I am extremely impressed with the Israeli kids who are along. No complaining or whining, only continual good attitude under tough conditions… and I am talking about kids as young as eight! We are the laggards!

After another 10 km through beautiful country we are done. I’m kind of shocked because my GPS tells me that we are at sea level. Which means that we dropped about 2,800 feet today. “Setting Limits” and the dog are nearly dead. But I am high because I was introduced to my first Jujube Tree, with real dried Jujubes on it! They were delicious. Those of you who are old enough will remember Jujube candies which were popular in the US until the 1970s. Guess what?!! Those dried Jujube dates tasted just like the candy! Which I hadn’t tasted in 30 years.

nahal_amud2.jpg Not exactly a bike trail… nahal_amud5.jpg 2006_09_23_sat_amud.jpg



The shuttling of the hikers to the campsite and the retrieval of the cars from the trailhead begins. It’s a little embarrassing because no one is rushing to put their kids in my car. Hey, I wouldn’t jump at putting my kids in a car driven by a non-Hebrew speaker who arrived in the country yesterday… But I promise I will write a post on Israeli drivers later. I’ll even write one on Israeli pedestrians!

The campsite is just downhill from the canal that takes water from the Kineret to feed most of central Israel.The canal has a pretty serious fence around it. But even though it is sunset, the temp and the humidity is high and I would love to get rid of the sweat. I spot a corner where hopping the fence would be easy, just like in California. But I also know that Israel takes security pretty seriously, so I refrain. Good thing, because not five minutes later an armed jeep with two guards comes cruising along inside the fence. Note to self…

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