INT, Day 2

The next morning, I woke early (goodness, we’d gone to bed before 8pm!), to two strange sounds I could not identify through my sleeping bag. The first day we had spent many hours discussing politics, current and historical, war tactics and effects, and other topics of this genre. Through my bag I heard a quiet but constant humming, like many plane engines far off in the distance? And a periodic distant explosion sounds that seemed to come from down in the valley. Explosions? I waited and listened for a bit. Then peeked my head out and tried to focus my eyes on my companions—if there were concerns, I was sure the IDF trained vet would show some subtle signs.
They were both fast asleep. I sat up and waited for my head to clear as sleep fell away. Finally my brain came free of the dreamy fog and I was able to better perceive and interpret the sounds.
I blushed. Five feet above my head hung hundreds of pollen-laden flowers with thousands of bees busily at work long before the sun even peeked over the horizon. Not distant powerful planes, but proximal minute “engines” at full throttle just going about their daily business despite my presence. I watched them for a bit and continued to wonder about the periodic distant popping sounds.
The guys woke up just as the sun rose and we each proceeded through our individual morning routines. Our friend treated us with some tea—we had not brought any heating apparatus, since we would only be out for two days and a night, and could go without the extra weight. And we discovered that I was down to my last half-liter of water, and my classmate was empty. We dubiously looked over the map for any sign of a possible fill-up place on the way, and though we saw no hope of it, thought the only thing to do was to get on the trail and see what would be. Our friend shared some of his water with us, and I noted we were all pretty quiet, and not drinking anything for the first hour.
Most of our conversation centered around, “Oh, that would have been a good place to sleep” and “Yeah, but maybe we wouldn’t have seen in it in the dark, anyway. Our little campground was cozy.”

It was a little maddening to know that that morning I had looked down while sitting in my sleeping bag and seen houses and gas stations just down the mountain, surely just bursting with drinking water—a few kilometers away on the map, but hours away by trail.
We were able to distract ourselves by discussing the distant popping. Apparently the valley was strewn with fish farms, and beside the ponds they have some kind of mechanism that fills with air and then pops, to deter bird from stealing the fish. They also have covers for the ponds, and I’m not sure what goes into deciding which deterent to use when.

We passed two places with water, but since Israel is very big on using “gray water” for crops and whatnot (recycled water not fit for drinking, but okay for crops), we thought it would not be wise to risk filling our bottles from unmarked pipes. ;-p

We saw a building at the edge of one ridge, and I hoped as we drew nearer that they might have some water we could buy or something, but the closer we got, the more it looked abandoned. I thought maybe when we turned the corner we’d see it was just the beginning of a village or something. Coming out on the other side showed us just how in-the-middle-of-nowhere we were, and I think all our spirits dropped a bit. We trudged on.

I was looking up at the empty building (marked by a kind of mailbox type post) now on our left for any sign of pipes or people, and saw a big white cylindrical thing with big Hebrew writing on it. As I am fascinated by Hebrew, and excited when I can sound it out, I set to. . . when I had successfully identified and combined the letters, it was all I could do to hold back my excitement. “Wait! Does that say drinking water?”
Our friend turned back to me, “What? Where?”

It sure did! As we climbed the little hill up to it, I just prayed it wasn’t empty. And held my breath as we turned the lever…and water trickled out into the bottle. A big sigh of relief and we all pulled out our camelbacks and any other empty containers we had to fill.

The tank was covered with people’s “thank you”s, mini-stories, and pictures. Nearly all were in Hebrew, so I decided to add my own in English, and signed it with "USA". I always like to see on things like this from where people are coming.

We filled our canteens and bellies, and head back on the trail a much more relaxed, laughing, and talkative trio.

We took the rest of the day at a nice pace with several breaks to enjoy the scenery and chat. And the scenery definitely was worth enjoying! We continued along the mountain ridge for a great deal of the time.
And thoroughly enjoyed the climb down a wadi and up the other side of it again.
The end of “Day 2” in the guidebook is at a memorial place for those who gave their lives in a battle. It’s sad how many sites like this there are all around the country. What a history there is here.
We kept laughing whenever the trail would lead us far east or west and then back to almost where the sidestep had taken off. The down and back up the wadi had placed us back on the road perhaps a hundred meters down the way. But the climb was well worth it.

Again, we climbed up quite a steep hill, took a look at the map, took a brief nap, and scrambled back down it to see we’d made about fifty meters southward. But the view, again, was well worth it. The Israeli National Trail is not just about getting from Dan to Eilat, but about seeing the country that spans the land between the two. And it is well designed. :)

Much of our second day was spent trying to decide when my classmate and I would break off from our new friend who was thru-hiking the trail. We were trying to determine from the map where we might be able to stop and find a way back to Haifa. It all depended on how good of time we could make…which all depended on the terrain we would cross…which was hard to predict from the map, but it looked promising. Down off the hill, we could see that at least the next bit was very flat…although it still called for close attention to where you stepped, as we were clearly sharing the way with the cattle.
As the sun began its decent, we were aiming for a settlement called Dishon, where we thought we’d be able to get a cab, or bus, or at least a ride from someone in the community heading somewhere a bus would run.


Our friend decided to stop when he found a good spot at dusk. As he was to stay another night, and needed to stretch his energy over six weeks rather than two days, like us, we left him there, said our goodbyes, and my classmate and I thankfully made it down the ridge we were on before night fell. We had to trudge about an hour in the dark, but thankfully it was over a trail large and flat enough for a vehicle (I suspect it was a fire road or something), and we made it to the road, were able to catch a ride with a patrol car, and caught a bus back to Haifa. Part One of the trail, done. :)

Since then my weekends have been jam-packed, and two of my other classmates and I had planned to head back out there next weekend, but now the weather forecast is calling for rain. We shall see what will be. :)