Day 15: Amasa to the end! (23+2kms) - and Day 16: Messilat Zion to Tzova (19 kms + 1)

The last day on this middle third of the trail heads out of the trees and grasses and hills, and drops down to the desert. We could see a stark difference standing on top of the ridge, looking at the forests to our right and all the brown and small spiny bushes and dust to our left. Then we saw our first camels of the trail! Clearly we were headed toward the desert. :)

We also stopped for a bit to watch another Stortex (stork vortex) and contemplate their purpose. If you know why they do this, please do share.

Not too long into our day we could already see Arad off in the distance. We knew it would still be many hours before we arrived, but it's always exciting to have the end in sight!

As we came more toward the desert, we saw a shift in insects and flowers. I didn't get a picture of the neat white beatle, but these little white flowers were cool up close and as a field with one of the many Bedouin dogs we came across during the day (the trail goes actually through a Bedouin village, and one of the dogs was (understandably) very displeased with us marching through so presumptuously).

We hiked up a hill to get a look at our final Tel of the hike, Tel Arad, and then down the other side in search of the elusive Loess Irises. Not that irises, like, hide or anything, but K seems to have an iris curse so that every time she tries to come see them she's either too early or too late to see them bloom.

But we *did* find a few! (She was hoping to see the whole side of the hill all irised-up, but we were just a little early for that. Lots of leaves and buds though, and a few blossoms!)

We spent the afternoon leapfrogging two other hikers. They passed us, then we took a shorter way over the Tel rather than around it and passed them. Then they passed us again as we sought irises; we passed them as they took a break under one of the few trees; later we took a break in Arad Park and they passed us a final time. The last time we saw them it was incredibly picturesque. They were taking a break, sitting on the side of a hill overlooking a riverbed as a herd of sheep descended one hill and climbed the next, and in the distance a herd of camels grazed on top of another hill, backgrounded by white puffy clouds and bright blue sky. Pictures can't do it justice, of course, but it was a really beautiful site as a wrap up to the whole trip, and hopefully foreshadowing my return in a few years to pick up where I left off and complete the trail through the desert to Eilat.

If I do get to come back and finish the INT, I plan to do so by joining a group - for safety and for comfort. There are organizations that coordinate the trips, supplying food and water, and carrying the tents and sleeping bags to the stopping place each night. You hike with the group during the day and then work together to cook and clean each night and morning in the camp. It would be a very different experience than I just had, but I think it would be a wise choice for me to attempt the desert section. :)

We continued on for the last few kilometers, seeing more signs of the desert - the remains of a sheep at the bottom of one hill, and new kinds of rocks - some that looked incredibly like hunks of meat!

They made me think of Jesus fasting in the wilderness (this is part of the Israeli "wilderness") and seeing stones like these that look like meat, and others that look like bread, and then being tempted to turn some into food when challenged about his identity. Aren't we all so tempted when our identity or qualifications or whatnot are challenged! Anyway, incredible to see the drastic changes in the landscape in just one day of hiking.

As we climbed to Arad, we took some final looks over the way we'd come, able to spy Mt. Amasa in the distance and trace the path we'd walked all day, and then we turned our faces south again, climbed the last bit, and arrived. So surreal. I can hardly believe we did it. We stopped at the first gas station we came to to visit the facilities and celebrate with some ice cream, then we followed the trail markers to the center of town, and touched the pole that the final one (for us) was painted on, and welcomed each other to Arad. Yahoo!

Before heading to the Angel's for the night, we stopped for a celebratory dinner, and then by a grocery store to grab some evening snacks (it was still early, so we figured we'd get hungry again before bed), and breakfast goodies. Our Trail Angels for the night actually no longer live in Arad, but they kept their house there so they can visit, and when they're not in town they open it to travelers and hikers. So awesome. :)

We were excited to have our own space to unwind from the trail and putt putt around the next morning. Well, as Kathryn Schulz eloquently describes much of life: "I thought this one thing was going to happen, and something else happened instead."

We had taken our time with dinner, grocery shopping, and meandering through the town to the house a few kilometers away, so when we arrived it was after dark. But no one was awaiting us, so we'd figured arrival time didn't matter.

We went to the place where the key was hidden...no key. We looked around in the dark using my phone's flashlight...no key. We wondered if we had the right house and imagined the rightful owners coming out to see us sniffing around their property looking for hidden keys. (When the Angel had told K the address, it had sounded like an odd one for Israel, but then we had figured out that K had heard the Hebrew word "Nof" as the English word "North," and then we'd found the place. When we couldn't find the key I wondered if our deductive reasoning had led us astray. Super awkward if we were at the wrong house.)

While K stepped away from the house to call and ask for clarification, I kept looking, and just as she was getting no answer on the phone, I found the key. We opened the door, and the light switches didn't work, but the Angel had mentioned there were some things about the house that she'd have to explain when we got there - since no one lives there, there are a few wonky things with the electricity, etc.. So we entered in the dark, with just my cell's flashlight. But as I entered, I saw a glow around the corner and heard what sounded like a soft television on in the living room. My calls of "Shalom?" and "Hello?" elicited no response.

When I turned the corner I saw a man lying placidly on one side of the couch with his sleeping bag, backpack, and its contents strewn across the other side. He was watching a video on his phone. "Oh, hi..." I greeted him tentatively.

"Hi."

Silence.

"Um..."

And then K came around the corner, "Oh!"

I ventured another initiation to a conversation, "Um...are we in the wrong place?" I figured with our packs and such that our identities were pretty clear - and besides that, if this was the wrong place, then we had just walked into some guy's house randomly. Figured he'd offer an explanation. Nope!

"No. You're in the right place."

. . .

"Oh...she didn't mention there would be another hiker here..."

"She didn't know."

"Oh, I see...um...uh..."

Really, it takes something very special to leave me totally speechless.

Finally, as I stood there trying to come up with a next statement or question or something to seek more Gricean Maximish cooperation to the conversation.

"I came yesterday, but I'm sick, so I stayed an extra night, but I didn't tell her."

Well. That explains it. Huh.

I introduced myself.

"Hi."

K introduced herself.

"Hi. Nice to meet you."

His language sounded American. I wasn't sure if we were having a weird cross-cultural, different norms of conversation experience.

"Nice to me you, too, Mr...?" (Okay, I didn't say "Mr.", but I used the kind of intonation that indicates I'm asking you to fill in the blank with your name. Afterall, I feel like if I'm going to share a house with you, I should at least know your name. Asking too much?)

He did reciprocate then.

"Where're you from, J?"
"Toronto."

"Oh, well nice to meet you."

We walked away. Clearly J wasn't overly thrilled to see us, either. (Really it's understandable since he was so sick and may have expected to have the house to himself for a couple more days. It was still unexpected behavior and left me and K a bit stumped.)

We went around the house, exploring which lights did and did not turn on, which rooms had mattresses and which had random pieces of furniture, or wood, or trash. And we searched the kitchen for a fridge, and a way to boil water...to no avail. We put our yogurt and milk back outside on the porch hoping it would be cold enough overnight to keep it safe to eat in the morning, and looked for blankets and for the switch to turn on the water heater for showers...we lost that hide and seek game, too. We asked J. He didn't know and didn't seem to care. He's been here two days with no shower? That can't feel nice. (Oh yes, he had mentioned that he'd just come off the southern stint of the trail. Kudos for him, and I figured that may explain the oddity. I might be totally wiped to the point of social disregard, too, if I tried that on my own!)

Thankfully the Angel called us back later and gave us the house orientation. Yes, there *was* a small refrigerator hiding in one of the cabinets under the counter. Yes, there was a water heater switch hiding in a mud room we'd missed. And we finally figured out how to get the stove to work so we could boil water for our snacks now and tea/coffee in the morning. J went to sleep in the living room (next to the kitchen), so we made our snacks and ate them as quietly as we could and chatted in whispers and signs.

Then to bed. With no blankets. We got out our sleepsheets (shaped like a sleeping bag, but made of sheet-like material), put on our warmest clothes, and hoped we could fall sleep. It wasn't too bad...until it was. We both woke around 3am shivering. I tried a few ways to try to warm up and finally concluded by pulling the dirty old thin mattress from the other side of the room over and balanced it over myself. A bit uncomfortable, but definitely warmer. Sigh. Back to sleep.

And that concluded our hike from Tel Aviv to Arad; ta daaaa!

The next day we made our way back up to Jerusalem, repacked a bit at the hostel.

And we had a very nice lunch at Tmol Shilshom, a fantastic vegetarian restaurant, slash, artists' and writers' hub.

Then we bussed down to Kibbutz Tzova so tomorrow we could hit the trail nearby to pick up the 19 kms we had missed during the rain. We found that the hiker's room wouldn't work for us with the equipment we had (better suited for camping hikers), so we caught the bus on its next circle (same driver!) and returned to the hostel for the night. So nice and warm. :)

Then Friday we got up, bussed to Messilat Zion, busted out the missing 19 kilometers, and bam! Our goals for the hike were met!

Then we hitched back to Jerusalem (great to be back northish where hitching is more common) for me to pick up the rest of my stuff and return to Haifa for the weekend. Had a great final visit there, and then whoosh down to Tel Aviv, and at 5am we hopped on the plane through Brussels and back to D.C.! Phew, what a whirlwind, and what a great time!

Day 14: Meitar to Amasa (23kms)

Monday morning we had a lovely breakfast at our Angel's and then walked straight north through town, rather than back out the west side we'd come in the day before (towns like this one in Israel tend to have decidedly clear entrances and exits, so we were kind of finding our own way, since this didn't seem to be a gated town like some are).

The GPS had indicated a walking route toward the north, so we gave it a go. It was nice to see a different part of town, and we found the end of it...then we kind of off-roaded through a construction site -- watching for any movement of construction equipment, but setting aside our American, "Ooo, I don't know if we're allowed to walk through here..." and channeling our inner Israeli, "Yalla, the trail is over there; let's go." -- we navigated the piles of white gravel until we found the to-be end of the city. Then once again channeling our inner Israeli we scrambled down a "cliff" of dirt (step, slide, step, slide) and presto we were outside the north of the city on solid ground. Ein Baya ("No problem.")

We walked across some fields and found a trail that ran parallel to the INT, and eventually joined up with it, and then we were on our way. Up and down the hills we went, always a bit more up than down, we were headed for the second highest point on the national trail - not the steepest or longest ascent, since we began the day far above sea level, but still we climbed on and off the whole day.

At one of our rest stops we met a woman from Germany who is hiking the whole trail south to north straight through. She was impressive! And so laid back. She had just finished the desert, on her own, tenting and climbing, and being an all-around badass, and now on Trail Day 22 she was picking up the pace, planning to do three book days in two days, to give her more cushion at the end in case she wanted to visit any tourist spots or whatnot -- her flight was booked for two days after she planned to complete the trail. Two days!! Clearly she had no patience for, ya know, getting sick, or bad weather, or...anything getting in her way. I didn't see her cape, but she probably had it tucked in to help with aerodynamics and hiking speed and such. These people are so cool!

So, let's see. Although this was one of our longest days, I only have two pictures, and since it was nearly a week ago, my memories are quite faded, but I do remember singing quite a bit -- several songs that one of my favorite babysitters used to sing to us as kids (Waltzing with Bears, Marvelous Little Toy, the one about the old lady who swallowed a fly...), and Camp Stevens songs from my phone's playlist (and other John Denver songs I've added to it).

At one point I was happily singing off-key along to California Dreamin', and we turned a bend to greet two other hikers heading northbound. They didn't join in, but they smiled. :)
An interesting pair: the one who looked somewhat Israeli claimed to be from Israel, though his English had a French accent, and at one point he spoke a phrase in French a little under his breath ("Je ne sais pas..."). The other looked straight *straight* out of Portland. I could not believe it when he greeted us in Hebrew. I thought for sure when I mentioned I was from Oregon, we'd have a great connection and he'd tell us all about his own special home brew recipe and pet iguana who juggles and plays the ukulele. But no. Despite his big beard, and hat and shirt with the sewn on words, "Happy Hippie," and skinny jeans (no, not really, but he really could have been), and...oh I don't remember, his whole Portland vibe (or it could have been Venice Beach), he claimed to be from a small town near the airport in Israel. Go figure. We chatted briefly about the trail in each direction we'd just hiked, and then with well-wishes all around we all headed on our ways. I kept waiting for the westcoastbestcoast guy to break character and admit his origins, but it never happened. Such commitment to the role!  Admirable. ;)

At every peak, K spotted the next and wondered if it might be Mt. Amasa, our spot for the night. A quick glance at the watch and a lil quick division of distance over time repeatedly led me to doubt it...and then when the time was right, we arrived. Didn't even see the peak coming because it seems we'd been pretty much on level with it for a while by the time we made it to Kibbutz Amasa.

The Angel we'd talked to on the phone (well, K talked to -- she did all the Angel phone calls, and I did all the GPS bus finding and whatnot), he told us we'd be staying in the Kibbutz's hiker room, and when we arrived we didn't need to call, just go to the center, past the playground, and look for the sign or ask someone where it was. Turns out before we even got to the Kibbutz entrance there was a sign. Love it! We saw our trail marker to start the next morning, and turned off to the left in search of the room.

Found a house made of mud. Remember the mud?!? We thought it would be so fitting if that was the hiker room, but no, it was a bit further on.

We were greeted by a very cute welcome committee chair:

And then found the door. Look! It even has an INT trail marker on it. :-D

We finally made the pasta that we'd bought many days before -- Angels kept feeding us, so we hadn't had occasion yet to cook it, but it made a good dinner+breakfast here. ;)

We had again hiked at a good pace, so we'd gotten in pretty early for trail days. Thankfully that meant we had settled in pretty well before the other two arrived. We then got to be the welcoming crew, showing them around the room, "Here're the three bunk beds; I'm using this one, and she's got that one; here's the kumkum (for boiling water); sure, you can use that electric socket for charging; here's the hikers' library box; yes, the shower has hot water..."

These two hikers had met on the trail today. The German one had just finished hiking up from Eilat, through the desert (all the props to him and everyone else who takes on that venture!), and the Israeli had recently finished his military service and just began the Shvil that day from Arad. He didn't seem to know much about it, and it looked like maybe the German guy was kind of taking him under his wing. I love trail culture. :)

At sunset the Jewish guy stepped outside to do his evening prayers. A bit after that, the Buddhist guy climbed onto a top bunk so he could sit tall for his meditation. The Atheist across the room wrote in her journal, while the Christian lay in bed talking silently with her God. I thought we sounded like a setup for a joke: "A Jew, Buddhist, Christian, and Atheist walk into a hiker's room...and they chatted and joked and had a lovely time." Okay, so the punch line is a bit anticlimactic. But really, this land has had enough punchlines for way too many lifetimes already. We went to bed.

The next morning we all were stirring in our beds around the same time (the Israeli had opted against a top bunk, and instead pulled one of the mattresses down onto the ground between the bunks). I got up and snagged the bathroom first - oh this bathroom! It was the source of much amusement to K and I because the seat was not attached to the toilet, so you had to sit very carefully, and then it turned out that the lid wasn't attached to the seat, so as you're in close quarters, doing, ya know, your private business, in the other room they all hear the lid as it clatters onto the ground and slides across the room. Then they hear a flush. And then a minute later they hear you trying to get out. Unlocking the door. Trying to open it. Trying again. Checking the lock. Pulling the door again. Pause. Snicker. Relocking the lock. Unlocking it. Push, pull, phew!

We laughed about it several times. The boys didn't seem to get it as much. Or maybe they were trying not to laugh out of politeness. It was pretty funny.

Tuesday we had a leisurely breakfast of our leftover pasta and then hit the trail for our last day down to Arad! (And then one more to pick up the day we'd had to skip before Jerusalem.)

Almost there!

Day 13: Lahav to Meitar (9 km+2)

While the first stint of our hiking was dominated by mud, the second by wheat fields and sun, and the last day by fog, this day was characterized by wind. We watched all morning as the wind whipped up the dust from the desert to cover the sky until all the air was a brownish yellow. Driving up in our friend's car, I could nearly look straight at the sun through the dust clouding the shine so dramatically.

Somehow I hadn't really contemplated what it would be like to walk in this. We got out of the car, and our hair and clothes immediately whipped all around us. I put on my bandana at least to hold down my hair, and we set off. At points it was so strong we had to actively lean into it to make any headway. And my pictures during the start of the day of anything slightly in the distance are seen through a haze.

We walked most of the day along the West Bank wall. It was odd to see gaps where the concrete stopped and the border consisted only of fencing (of course barbed and doubled, but still very different from the solid wall).

When we climbed to Kibbutz Sansanna we lamented not staying there, since they have a dorm-type room especially for hikers, but it was far too early in the day to stop for such a reason. But we waved as we went by (okay, not really, but socially speaking we did). And we took a miniature break at one of the outdoor living rooms along the way, ha.

The eastern road into the kibbutz apparently went out of use long ago as an entrance, so they have cleverly used the pavement for a great repurposing. :)

Coming back down the hill from Sansanna, it was back into the wind, and the trees proclaimed the consistency of this weather in the area!

We were just a few hills away from our stop for the night, Meitar, when I saw the rain clouds coming up behind us. We kept going, but eventually a few drops fell, and we quickly (not *quite* panicking, I'd say ;)), dropped our packs, ripped out the covers and our jackets, threw them all on, and held our breaths for the storm to hit. (When I lived in Haifa, I experience multiple times feeling wind and then just three or four drops before the sky opened up in a flood - I was sure we were in for it.)

And we waited. And we walked. And we waited. A couple last hills and Meitar was in sight. It finally did rain just a little bit, but we were relieved when it stopped in just a few minutes, and it hadn't even been a downpour, just a little shower. But oh, don't be misled by such a name. The marks left on our jackets, bag covers, water bottles...anything uncovered were shaped like raindrops, but they'd clearly been dustdrops. Perfectly shaped little dried up puddles of dust all over us, cars, windows, the whole town. Welcome to the edge of the desert.

We stopped at a gas station on the edge of town to bathroom, refuel (Mmmm, Cornetto) and call our Trail Angel for directions. Then it was another kilometer or so to her house. She met us on the porch, took us in just to drop off our things, and then led us back to the Purim party she'd been at. It was great to meet everyone (originally from all over the states), eat the yummy Purim feast, and chat about the goings on in the world, and then we went back to our place for the night, showered, blogged, and mentally prepared for the 23+km day on the morrow. Two days to Arad! How surreal!

Day 12: Pura to Lahav and Shabbat in Be'er Sheva (17 km)

Friday we had a short day planned because we needed to be finished by 2pm in order to catch a bus to Be'er Sheva (Beersheba) before Sabbath set in. We had thought to walk to Kibbutz Devira, but with our newfound speed, that would only take us a few hours, and we were leaving at 8am. So we stretched it out to aim for the next interchange, just past the next kibbutz, Lahav. As it turns out, these two kibbutzim make all the dumpsters in Israel; cool, eh?

So Friday we added six kilometers and made it to highway 358 long before Sabbath concerns. :) It started off with a mystical foggy morning -- I think this was the day I got a little sunburned. Those "short" days with fog and cloud cover'll getchya every time, won't they!

We'd left the wheat fields behind and traded them in for some rolling hills of dirt (probably former wheat fields) and what I think was parsley! Mmmm, parsley.

And then it was a hike up one hill and down the other side, and then up and down the next. K was reading me the description, and just after I described it as a roller-coaster day, the book did, too. And we were both right. :) That pretty much describes the day. Up a hill, Oooooo, pretty view...of...the next few hills. Then down that hill to face the next. In memory it kind of feels like bobbing in the waves at Long Beach when I was little. Uuuuup to the crest of the wave, aaaaannnnnd doooowwwwwwn to the valley, and then uuuuuup, and dooowwwwwwnnnn...

No trees to speak of, so we were a bit creative with our bathroom breaks. ("Um, that piece of hill is a little higher than the rest. I'll use that...") Haha

And of course the insects and little flowers here and there sprinkled the day with little highlights along the way.

When we got to the bus stop, it was about an hour before our ride would come, but we had so much to do we didn't even try to hitch. K made phone calls to potential trail angels for the next week, and I searched transportation and weather information and did a little blogging.

We caught the bus down to Beersheba and spent the weekend with the family of one of K's local interpreter friends. It was really great to hear more about the interpreting field here as well as about the classes she is teaching in the new interpreter education program here. And she and her husband took us for some sightseeing in and around Bersheva -- to an outdoor art museum...

An old train station built by the Turks,

And a museum Calligraphy art installation.

We rested a lot Friday night and Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning. We showered, did laundry, relaxed, caught up on some Facebook, email, grading, videos, etc., and chatted and laughed and played with the dog and kids and new friends. Then Sunday early afternoon, our friend (she's my friend now, too :)) drove us back up to the Lahav Interchange, and we continued on the Shvil toward Meitar for the next night.