Anyway, again back to the here and now, this weekend I got to go hiking again. I was eager to get back on the Shvil Israel, but one of my friends really wanted to hike the “Jesus Trail” from Nazareth to Capernaum, through Cana. As he will be leaving in a few weeks (many people are only here for the fall semester—adding to the feeling of an approaching end), I postponed my piece-hiking once again. It was an excellent decision. The full trail is easily a three-day hike, and we only had two to give, so we decided to cut that back to a day and a half of hiking with the extra half-day given to exploring Nazareth and Cana a bit, and cutting the hike end back to Mt. Arbel, on the west side of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) rather than the north side.
We arrived at the bus station in Haifa at 7:15 as planned, to catch the #430 bus at 7:30am to Nazareth, arriving at 9am. At 7:17 I saw that there were busses by a different company that would not require a transfer, and cost less, with one also leaving at 7:30am. Great! We stood between the two gates, ready to jump to the first to arrive to ask some clarifying questions. Well. Bus #430 never came. At the other gate, we began to board the 7:30am bus, but the bus driver clarified for us, “Nono, you want bus #331” Oh, thank you! We exited, checked the chart, and saw it was meant to come at 7:30…it did not come. But another one saying “Nazareth” came. We attempted to board. The driver told us, “Nono, you want bus #331.” Well. At least they agreed. This person said the ticket would cost 70 shekels, though! The Egged bus would only be 32, but it never showed.
I stood guard at our gate, keeping an eager eye out for #331 while my friend went in search of an open information booth. He returned with a smile. Bus #331 would arrive at 8am, and cost “Seventy shekels”. The kind information booth worker had written the information down for him, and there on the paper, clear as anything (how could we have been confused?) it said, 16.70 shekels. Well! So, we waited till 8:00, hopped on the #331, paid half what we would have to the Egged bus, fell asleep before leaving Haifa, and awoke to the bus driver’s persistent, “Natsaret!” with no transfer necessary. My friend and I both woke from deep slumber, and half-panicked and laughing, grabbed our things, and stumbled off the completely-empty bus as he tried desperately to wake up his feet that had fallen asleep, as well.
We visited the Church of the Annunciation that is a reminder of when Gabriel visited Mary to let her know she had some tough news to share with her folks and fiancé. The building surrounds an archeological find of a house that was standing at that time, and it may have been where Mary lived as a girl. (Or where Jesus played as a boy.)
There, as we looked at the art sent from countries around the world honoring Mary and her son, a journalist spotted our backpacks and interviewed us about our thoughts on the church, Mary, Jesus, and pilgrimages (although we told her a few times that we were not pilgrimaging ;-)). It was fun talking with her, hearing my friend’s answers, and for that matter, hearing my own. “The trees, buildings, and roads are of course different than when He was here, but the mountains, stars, and sky are the same. It’s pretty neat to know that, and see some of what He saw while growing up.”
I enjoyed seeing what artwork each country had donated, and laughed at the fact that the one from the USA was the only one with an explanation of the work (and that the explaining plaque had seemed normal to me until I realized no other country had sent one along ;-)). My friend laughed and said, "It's the only one that needs it!"
After getting quite lost, but seeing a bit of the city in the process, we had some coffee at a swanky coffee shop, and ate some breakfast we’d brought ourselves, and then found the shuk (marketplace) our friends had mentioned, up the hill from the annunciation church, walked through it, and began the trail.
The city at the bottom of the hill had seemed like any other Israeli town Above the shuk, the streets were narrower, steeper, and oh! so much cuter! It reminded me a lot of Siena, and that became our first conversation topic of the hike. :) Hi, Charisma!
We climbed, climbed, climbed up out of the city to the top of a tall hill overlooking the valley we would be traversing.
Then down, down, down into it, across it, and to a highway, beyond it, and onto more trail. On and on it went like that. Then through Zippori, smiling at the plethora of “Shalom, how are you? Where you from?” sometimes answering and other times not, and talking about our experiences in other countries where our unique appearances drew attention. I reiterated that I hope to never be famous.
We made our way across the valley, and lost the trail a bit in Cana until a kind local stopped us on the sidewalk, “You are looking for the church?” We shrugged at each other and then answered her in the affirmative. Some direction was better than none, we supposed. But of course she was talking about the church that commemorates Jesus’ first public miracle, at his mother’s request: turning the 120-180 gallons of water from the ceremonial cleaning jars into high quality wine at the wedding where the wine had all been consumed.
And of course such a site was right on the Jesus Trail, so her directions were perfect for our goals. :)
We visited the church (and it’s restroom facilities), read the story along the wall, discussed what it must have been like, why He did it, why He included it in scripture, and what it meant to people then, and to us now. And continued on the trek.
As we left out the other side of Cana we were amazed at the beauty of the numerous new houses, and further on, at the amazing amount of new construction currently underway.
We hiked a few more hours before finding a shelter amongst some olive trees, and bedding down for the night.
We both woke briefly to hear the rain on the roof and offer some thanks for it coming at night, and for the shelter for the night.
Up shortly after the sun, we packed up, discussed the odd dreams we’d both had after the three hours of chatting between dinner and drifting off to sleep, and took a last look at our temporary homey abode. (The second day I mostly left my camera in my pack, so I will have to get the pictures from my friend for the rest of this post. :))
Less than ten minutes on the trail we came across a man setting up for the next Israel Orienteering challenge. As everyone else we encountered on the trail, he greeted us with a smile, a evaluation of our language choice, and, “Do you need anything? Water?” For the first time, we accepted the water and chatted briefly with him while we replenished my camelback. It struck us that every person that met us on the trail immediately offered water. What a revealing cultural norm! And what a beautiful one. :)
Along the way at one point we missed a turn, ended up at a gas station, where I kept to my tradition of visiting bathrooms any time one is available when I am living outdoors. We looked over the map and decided to go forward and catch the trail up ahead, rather than retrace our steps.
Confident…then looking around…then doubting when we would find the trail…then searching southward for it…and finally stepping off the road at another gas station to discuss our next step, we were headed through the parking lot toward what looked like a trail that could get us to another orange marker southward, my friend exclaimed and pointed. We could see on the map that the trail had to pass over the road, so we knew if we stayed on the road we couldn’t miss it. And we knew it wouldn’t pass over until the cement barrier in the middle of the highway had a break in it. But the trail should be right around here, and we could see no break…and then my friend pointed with wide eyes at the path under the road that we almost missed! And surely would have if we had not stepped off the road at the gas station. Phew! The packs were starting to make themselves more present on our hips and shoulders, and I was enjoying moving forward on the trail, not revisiting the few kilometers we’d already detoured from the conventional trail.
Under the road we went, over some more hills, past many resting fields, and finally to the Horns of Hittim. This extinct volcano gets its name “Horns” from the shape that the two peaks with the crater between them gives it of horns sticking up out of the land. Hittim is the Hebrew word for wheat. In 1187 Saladin defeated a Crusaders’ unit at this site, beginning the end of Crusader rule over this little piece of very popular oil-barren land.
We stopped for a little lunch, but started up again soon as the dark clouds coming our way and two drops we felt (we were not sure if they came from the sky or our tangerine) inspired us to move toward the edges of the fields surrounding us and possibly to a building or two. Thankfully the clouds held onto their moisture, because the trail still had far to take us before coming anywhere near manmade, water repellent structures. Even though we were pretty sure the cliff we saw before us mostly east and only slightly south was our destination of Mt. Arbel, the trail turned decidedly north.
My classmate endured the whines I gave voice to on behalf of my feet, hips, and shoulders, and we trudged on. It was well worth it. Over the hills and through the groves, beside the creeks and horses, up hills, and through dales…well, I’m not sure what a dale is, but we probably when through some.
At one point the road we were on came to an abrupt end. We scrambled down with some hesitation and great caution, thankfully not only not breaking or spraining anything, but also not falling in the damp mud.
We spent hours chatting, singing, quoting scripture, laughing, philosophizing, and just a bit of dancing along the trail. Yes, the whining increased on my part; the patience grew equally on the part of my hiking buddy, thankfully. We made it to the top of Mt. Arbel to find the national park closed for the day, and dusk descending on us with a chill.
So, we walked a bit around the park, and down another side of the mountain to a nearby moshav. There we met some locals who pointed us the way to the highway after I summoned up my best Hebrew once again, “Yesh autobusim po? Lo? Okay, um, rehov gadol? Ken…ken…ani mevina, toda raba!” We arrived at the bus stop about five minutes before the bus to Haifa, just in time to high-five, get our money ready, and rejoice at a wonderful weekend.
We glowed our way back to Haifa, and tried not to move too much on the crowded bus so to spare our fellow passengers our outdoor, unwashed aromas, and split up at the central bus station, he to the university, and me back to my apartment. Just as I boarded the bus, the clouds let out a sigh, and I freed my umbrella from my backpack, ready for the walk from my bus stop to doorstep. But by the time I stepped onto the sidewalk, the sprinkling had stopped and I walked home closed umbrella in hand and goofy grin across my face. The outdoor had called me on Friday morning, and now the shower and sheets called me home Saturday night. Lion and lamb, as it were.
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