So, Saturday afternoon I rejoined K at the Abraham Hostel (wonderful place, btw, if you're ever in Israel - there's also one in Tel Aviv and Nazareth, as well as Jerusalem).
We did my laundry and walked down to the Ben Gurion Street area for dinner, and then back to the hostel to put me to bed early. I had woken up Saturday with a pretty bad cold/cough, boo. All week various fellow tourists on the bus had gotten the bug, and despite my handwashing and EmergenC taking, it got me. So Friday night I was tossing and turning, first overly hot and sweating, and then cold and shivering, and just miserable. Saturday morning I woke up achy and congested and coughing, with the accompanying headache and sinus pressure when I bent over. Ugh.
But I had also realized that the preceding day I had been very neglectful of my hydration, so I jumped on that, and immediately started to improve. I'm writing this on Thursday morning, and it's still not totally over, but it's getting better each day...
So, I went to bed early Saturday night, and we were up Sunday at a decent hour. We took our suitcase/duffels down to the luggage room, had breakfast and chatted with a nice couple from North Carolina, and then loaded our packs and boarded the lightrail out of town. We transferred to a bus to the hospital where we'd left off, and then walked down the road a bit to meet the trail coming up one side of the highway and continuing on the other.
"On the Shvil again, we can't wait to get on the Shvil again, lalalalalala..."
The INT overlapped here with Springs Trail, so we passed by a number of natural springs captured by ruins into little pools here and there, and we climbed up the side of the hill for a few kilometers in the morning cool.
When we arrived at the sheep (yes, the sheep are a landmark), we took a short break and then turned off the trail to climb climb climb up to the Kennedy Memorial. Apparently JFK is loved here, too. The memorial is built to look like a big tree trunk, and each pillar around it represents one of the US states and territories. Inside there is the eternal flame, and outside there are nice breezes and views. :)
After a nice break in the shade at the top, we headed back down down down the hill to the trail and continued on our way.
It was more down down down...and then left on a nice wide dirt road. K had updated me about her two weeks during dinner the night before, so now it was my turn to share about my last two weeks. It was lovely walking along the wide slightly declining road talking about the tour...but then something felt off. So we pulled out the map and description of today's hike; K pulled out her compass; I pulled out my GPS...and we discovered we think we missed a turn. So, back up the road we turned.
We met a fellow hiker who also had missed a turn. We told him what we thought and all three of us turned back up the road...until we got back to a marker. So then we knew we were back on it...and turned back down the road...but then we'd gone too far again - should we turn back up? We kind of waffled for a bit until we spotted it -- on the side of the hill we saw the marker that indicated to northbound hikers to turn our direction; that meant we were meant to turn left there.
Upon closer inspection of the apparent cliff off the side of the road, there was indeed a little trail! Down we went!
We spent the rest of the day hiking with our new friend. He was just out of high school and preparing for the military, and Israeli (they're like mountain goats, these guys!), but he was incredibly gracious to us, well me, as I painted along and practically crawled up and down the mountains -- okay, they're hills, but wheezing through my cold symptoms and dragging my pack behind me that I hadn't touched in two weeks, they felt like the freakin' Himalayas. But they were pretty, and speckled with various animals and flowers and whatnot. I enjoyed them with my eyes even if my heart and mind were a bit distracted at the effort of converting air into oxygen my muscles could access for the climb.
At one point I made us stop so I could catch my breath and slow my heart a bit. Our new friend sweetly offered me something he was searching for in his pack. K thought it was going to be pills. I wondered if he had an inhaler. And out pops his hand with...a granola bar. lol. And he kept asking how my legs were. I'm like, "My legs are fine, thanks. I can't breathe. And, I dunno, somehow that's bothering me."
But, Le'at Le'at, slowly slowly, we did make it eventually to our destination - and even before sunset, at that!
Down the hill to the town below, and as we approached the gate, wondering how we would get in, a car drove up and the driver got out and opened the gate to leave town for the night. Perfect timing! We walked in and asked directions for the synagogue (our hiking buddy needed to go do evening prayers).
K stopped off at a Makolet (grocery store) for a snack, and he and I continued on - I wanted to use the bathroom at the synagogue. The second people we asked for directions were in a park nearby playing with their kids, he asked (for me) if they thought I could use the restrooms at the synagogue. The lady wasn't sure if they'd be open, so being Israel, she waved him on to the synagogue and waved me along with her to let me use her home! I never cease to be amazed at Israeli hospitality. We walked to her house and chatted about why her English was so fluent. She grew up in Seattle, it turns out! :) I used the fellow PNW's bathroom and then met back up with K on the steps outside the Makolet to wait for our new friend.
While she'd been waiting, someone had spied her pack and asked if she had a place to stay for the night. And when our hiking friend returned from prayers he said the folks in the park had given him their number and said if we ended up without a place, to give them a call. Mata rocks. :)
We called our Trail Angel for the night, got directions to their place, and meandered over for a lovely shower, dinner (vegetarian shnitzel!), and a good night's sleep on mattresses in the living room. Treat for me: they also had two dogs -- Bahna and I made friends, while Tor was more hesitant, but still sweet. After dinner I NyQuilled myself and plopped down for a good rest.
We did my laundry and walked down to the Ben Gurion Street area for dinner, and then back to the hostel to put me to bed early. I had woken up Saturday with a pretty bad cold/cough, boo. All week various fellow tourists on the bus had gotten the bug, and despite my handwashing and EmergenC taking, it got me. So Friday night I was tossing and turning, first overly hot and sweating, and then cold and shivering, and just miserable. Saturday morning I woke up achy and congested and coughing, with the accompanying headache and sinus pressure when I bent over. Ugh.
But I had also realized that the preceding day I had been very neglectful of my hydration, so I jumped on that, and immediately started to improve. I'm writing this on Thursday morning, and it's still not totally over, but it's getting better each day...
So, I went to bed early Saturday night, and we were up Sunday at a decent hour. We took our suitcase/duffels down to the luggage room, had breakfast and chatted with a nice couple from North Carolina, and then loaded our packs and boarded the lightrail out of town. We transferred to a bus to the hospital where we'd left off, and then walked down the road a bit to meet the trail coming up one side of the highway and continuing on the other.
"On the Shvil again, we can't wait to get on the Shvil again, lalalalalala..."
The INT overlapped here with Springs Trail, so we passed by a number of natural springs captured by ruins into little pools here and there, and we climbed up the side of the hill for a few kilometers in the morning cool.
After a nice break in the shade at the top, we headed back down down down the hill to the trail and continued on our way.
It was more down down down...and then left on a nice wide dirt road. K had updated me about her two weeks during dinner the night before, so now it was my turn to share about my last two weeks. It was lovely walking along the wide slightly declining road talking about the tour...but then something felt off. So we pulled out the map and description of today's hike; K pulled out her compass; I pulled out my GPS...and we discovered we think we missed a turn. So, back up the road we turned.
We met a fellow hiker who also had missed a turn. We told him what we thought and all three of us turned back up the road...until we got back to a marker. So then we knew we were back on it...and turned back down the road...but then we'd gone too far again - should we turn back up? We kind of waffled for a bit until we spotted it -- on the side of the hill we saw the marker that indicated to northbound hikers to turn our direction; that meant we were meant to turn left there.
Upon closer inspection of the apparent cliff off the side of the road, there was indeed a little trail! Down we went!
We spent the rest of the day hiking with our new friend. He was just out of high school and preparing for the military, and Israeli (they're like mountain goats, these guys!), but he was incredibly gracious to us, well me, as I painted along and practically crawled up and down the mountains -- okay, they're hills, but wheezing through my cold symptoms and dragging my pack behind me that I hadn't touched in two weeks, they felt like the freakin' Himalayas. But they were pretty, and speckled with various animals and flowers and whatnot. I enjoyed them with my eyes even if my heart and mind were a bit distracted at the effort of converting air into oxygen my muscles could access for the climb.
At one point I made us stop so I could catch my breath and slow my heart a bit. Our new friend sweetly offered me something he was searching for in his pack. K thought it was going to be pills. I wondered if he had an inhaler. And out pops his hand with...a granola bar. lol. And he kept asking how my legs were. I'm like, "My legs are fine, thanks. I can't breathe. And, I dunno, somehow that's bothering me."
But, Le'at Le'at, slowly slowly, we did make it eventually to our destination - and even before sunset, at that!
Down the hill to the town below, and as we approached the gate, wondering how we would get in, a car drove up and the driver got out and opened the gate to leave town for the night. Perfect timing! We walked in and asked directions for the synagogue (our hiking buddy needed to go do evening prayers).
K stopped off at a Makolet (grocery store) for a snack, and he and I continued on - I wanted to use the bathroom at the synagogue. The second people we asked for directions were in a park nearby playing with their kids, he asked (for me) if they thought I could use the restrooms at the synagogue. The lady wasn't sure if they'd be open, so being Israel, she waved him on to the synagogue and waved me along with her to let me use her home! I never cease to be amazed at Israeli hospitality. We walked to her house and chatted about why her English was so fluent. She grew up in Seattle, it turns out! :) I used the fellow PNW's bathroom and then met back up with K on the steps outside the Makolet to wait for our new friend.
While she'd been waiting, someone had spied her pack and asked if she had a place to stay for the night. And when our hiking friend returned from prayers he said the folks in the park had given him their number and said if we ended up without a place, to give them a call. Mata rocks. :)
We called our Trail Angel for the night, got directions to their place, and meandered over for a lovely shower, dinner (vegetarian shnitzel!), and a good night's sleep on mattresses in the living room. Treat for me: they also had two dogs -- Bahna and I made friends, while Tor was more hesitant, but still sweet. After dinner I NyQuilled myself and plopped down for a good rest.
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