Shvil Israel: Maktesh Ramon

After a good nights rest in a bed in Eilat, Ari and I headed up north via bus to Mitzpe Ramon - the town overlooking Maktesh Ramon - the Ramon crater. Our plan was to start hiking at around 4PM after the peak hours of heat. We took our time walking around and we went ot the supermarket to get food. We found out that the heat was not nearly as bad as it was in Eilat and there was no problem starting to hike at 3PM. We started the hike along the boardwalk which offered fantastic views of the crater. Once we made it down the 400 meters of elevation the view was less impressive. Not so shortly thereafter we noticed that we were not on the correct path. We got back on trail and calculated that we had unnecessarily hiked an additional 5 kilometers. Once back on the trail we continued hiking towards THE (emphasis on the word 'the') noteworthy item of the days hike. Within the hiking book it points out the highlight of today was THE tree. Yep, the highlight of the entire day was THE tree. Not a tree, but THE tree. Despite the fact that the desert has been blooming - there is plenty of agriculture in the negev desert, there seems to be a need to make note of trees to the point where they need ot be highlighted as highlights. There must be something wrong if I ask someone if they saw THE tree and they know exactly what I'm talking about. By now its probably clear that this hike was something dissapointing if I'm spending this much time talking about THE tree I bet your wondering what THE tree looks like by now. Well I'm going to build up the suspense!

So we got to THE tree, took a few pictures, rested a bit then continued on our way. We hiked another mountain (120 meters in elevation in 0.5km) and then went to bed as it was dark. In the morning we hiked 3 or 4 kilometers to the main highway and hooped on a bus to head back home. After the 2 day hike from Eilat this hike did not compare. The views from the cliffs were much more impressive than those from inside the crater.

hiking total: 13 km plus 5 for having gotten lost

Now you can rest at ease, here is a pic of THE tree. I hope you didn't cheat and scroll down here without reading the blog post. SHAME!

For these few days of hiking that we did we managed to hike about 44km of shvil Israel which is 4.6km of the entire trail. It looks like I have a lot more hiking to do if I want to complete this trail one day.

Shvil Israel: Eilat

In the story of passover, it says that the Israelites were liberated from Egypt and started what would be their 40 year journey through the desert to the land of Israel. In this I saw a challenge. Since I had got to Israel, I had always wanted to do hiking, and there is one famous trail called Shvil Israel (the Israel trail). This trail crosses the entire country from Eilat in the south all the way up to Kiryat Shmoneh in the north. The entire trail itself is 953 km and takes about 40 days to hike. Well, I don't have 40 days to hike the entire country, but I did have about a week to hike with a friend. Our plan was to go down to Eilat and hike a few days there starting from the beginning of the trail. Then we would catch a bus up to Mitzpe Ramon and hike into the Ramon Crater along the same trail.

Day 1:

We started our journey after shabbat ended. I took an overnight bus into Eilat which got in at 430AM where I met my friend Ari. A third friend was supposed to join us but unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute. We had planned on getting an early start to the hike but were delayed beacuse the friend that couldn't come was the one who was bringing the maps. We had to wait until about 9AM and search for a place to buy maps. I ended up buying a fantastic book with the maps and directions for the entire shvil Israel. It gave us fantastic directions once on the trail, however I ran into some problems as we attempted to start the hike. Looking at the maps there were 2 places to start the hike. The real start of the hike was about half a kilometer north of the border crossing with Egypt (the most southern point in Israel). The secondary starting point was a few kilometers north. I expected there to be some sort of large sign saying something along the lines of 'Welcome to the beginning of Shvil Israel, good luck!'. There was nothing aside from the painted route marker on a rock. The problem was that the red and white marker on the rock was indicative of the secondary trail, and I was looking for an orange/blue/white marker indicating shvil Israel. we asked people where the trail started and nobody seemed to know exactly. Something just didn't make sense. The red and white trail seemed like the only logical trail to take, but the colours didn't fit what it said in the book. We ended up continuing south for a few hundred meters until we got to the Taba border crossing. We had clearly gone too far. We walked back to the red and white marker and figured that this absolutely had to be the beginning of the trail even though there was no sign at all.

By 1130AM we started our hike with all the necessities for about 3 days of living: sleeping bag, food, warm clothes for the cold desert nights and 11 liters of water. In total my backpack weighed 22 kg. The closest town was about 40 km away and there was no civilization or water along the way. The hike was quite challenging, as we spent a lot of time climbing upwards into the Eilat mountains. We got some fantastic views of Eilat and the Red Sea. The weather was really hot and by 130PM we had no choice but to stop hiking and wait out the hottest part of the day. After a 3 hour rest, it was still very hot, but we continued trekking on. We past a number of hikers along the way and even some bikers, but for the most part we were totally on our own with the desert. At 2 points in the afternoon we passed by 2 army posts set up as they were guarding the border with Egypt. We managed to rest there for a few minutes and even refill out water. By the end of day 1 we had made it to a campsite on the side of the highway. Once it got dark at about 730PM there was nothing for us to do. We ate some dinner and crawled into our sleeping bags and got a good night sleep after a full day of walking.

Day 1 stats: almost 12 km of Shvil Israel plus a few other kilometers getting lost and trying to find the start of the trail. Fairly mountaneous climb, scaling over 300 meters in elevation.

The Shvil Isreal path marker

Day 2:

We woke up early at about 630 in order to hike before it got too hot outsite. We started by hiking up Mount Shlomo, which gave us a great view of more desert, sand, rocks, and moutains. We saw a lot of that on day 2. What was interesting was that when we got to the peak and started to hike downwards we saw a plaque on the ground at an intersection between 2 trails. One trail took us down the mountain and the second one was shvil Israel which continued around the mountain ridge. We decided to go down the mountain because we wanted to make up some time because we had set out late the day before. It ended up cutting out about 3km. The plaque read 'This peak which you pass is the meeting point between Mount Yehoram and Mount Shlomo. It is one of the only places in the world where you pass 500 million years.' Mount Shlomo, which we had just climbed was a dark red moutain and Mount Yehoram wich was right in front of us was more of a light sandy mountain. As we followed the trail down the mountain we constantly were crossign between the darker rock path to the lighter sandier path, which was pretty cool. In the picture below you can see what I described, Shlomo on the right and Yehoram on the left. The second picture is one taken from a distance.

Day 2 stats: climbed 3 mountains. about 11km. climbed to a highest elevation of 706 meters. Steepest climb of about 30% for a distance of one kilometer.

The view from mount Amram - elevation of 585 meters.

Day 3:

Another early start to the day. We started our walk down mount Amram, and it was all downhill from there, which was a nice change after a day of lots of ups and downs and some very steep ups. We walked all the way downwards until we reached a turnoff to the town of Be'er Ora. This was the best spot to get to the main highway. From there we were going to head up to Mitzpe Ramon to do some more hiking. Once we detoured off from the main trial, we came to a ghost town which we thought was Be'er Ora. It was kinda creepy because it was in the middle of the desert and it looked like a really creepy ghost town you see in the movies. We passed the ghost town and around the corner we finally saw the real town of Be'er Ora and was a bit more relaxed. All we had to do was then walk around the entire town because it was fenced off. We finally got to the highway and we tried to catch a lift or a bus up to Mitzpe Ramon. After 2 hours of waiting we decided to call it quits and go to Eilat for the day and from their head to Mitzpe Ramon the following day.

Day 3 stats: 8km of the mail trail plus an addition 5km or so to get to the main road.

Once in Eilat we found a nice appartment for the night so I was able to sleep in a bed. Then we immediately went out to eat shwarma. After living off of matza and dried fruits and nuts for 3 days - it was passover so I wasn't really able to eat much else - it was great to have some bread and meat. For dinner I had a nice pizza.

Of the entire trail, I completed 2 days (stretched into 3) of it and hiked about 31 km, or 3.25% of the trail. Due to the heat, and the heavy packs we were carrying it was a fairly difficult and challenging hike. It would have been easier had we done it from north to south. I felt like an infantry soldier carrying everything on my back, and I got an appreciation of how much it sucks to be in infantry :-)

Passover in Israel

I caught a bus from Jericho to Jerusalem to my sister's appartment so that I could drop off what remained of my belongings. On Friday I went to Tel Aviv for the weekend. My friend Jon had come in from Toronto for his sister's wedding that day. I went to the wedding and it was a beatiful affair. It was a nice outside afternoon wedding with the ceremony overlooking beatiful fields. After the wedding we headed back to the hotel on the beach. We played some beach volleyball until the sun went down and in the evening we went out on the town. Saturday we went to Jaffa and had a nice brunch on the port and then walked around the city.

After shabbat ended I headed to my cousin's house. Passover was starting on Monday night and I was spending it with them. I came a bit early because they needed my help. I got to his house at about 1030PM and his neighbour was starting to barbeque. He was making all the food that was not kosher for passover so we had a nice feast before getting to work. For those who don't know much about passover, cleaning for the holiday sucks. We are not allowed to eat bread and many other things and out houses must be cleaned thoroughly in order to rid them from the contriband. We had a lot to do before the holiday which started on Monday at sundown, which basically included cleaning the entire house, with extra emphasis on the kitchen and cook an entire meal for 15 people. So after the BBQ at about 1130 we started to get to work. My first task was to clean the fridge. At 230AM we called it a night and headed to bed. Sunday was a full day of cleaning and entertaining the kids (ages 3 and 5), and then cleaning after the kids. My sister also arrived in the afternoon to lend a helping hand. After the cleaning was done they went shopping for food. Monday was the cooking day where I was the designated potato peeler. The passover seder (the traditional meal eaten on passover) was a lot of fun. There was great company, and great food. At some point I had some sort of hamster (I think of it more as a rat-mouse) thrown on me. Don't ask - and no it doesn't have anything to do with any judaic passover related rituals. Having eaten seconds and thirds of just about everything (except for the wine which was four helpings) I was plenty satisfied. The next day it was another delicious carnivourously themed BBQ where I ate even more delicious food. It was a good thing that I had skipped breakfast.

The following day we went on a nice hike with a few families including my cousins and a whole bunch of kids. After the hike, as if I hadn't had enough BBQ, we had another one! Just as delicious like the last two.

The next day I headed back to Jerusalem and went on a nice tour of the first community built outside the old city walls of Jerusalem, Mishkanot Sha'ananim via Segway! It was really funny to be riding around on a Segway and having every single person on the street staring out me like I'm riding a space vehicle of some sort. The tour was really interesting, we got some cool views of the city and I had got a chance to see some things that I hadn't seen before.

My release from the IDF!!!

Sorry for this post being 2 weeks late, but I have been busy (lazy). So on April 14th I left my kibbutz with all my remaining belongings and headed to base to get discharged. Now that I'm out of the army they stop paying for me to live on the kibbutz so I had to leave. A day earlier my battalion had finished with their stay in the base in the golan heights and headed over to Jericho where they are to be for the next few months. So me with my 3 massive bags of stuff had to figure out which busses I needed to take to get to the new base which is somewhere near Jericho. Luckily once I got to the bus station in Jerusalem I saw someone from the battalion and he told me where to go. Once I got to the base, nothing was set up and nobody knew anything (not that that is anything new). I found the office and said I was here to get released. They asked me if I had filled out the form where I had to return all my stuff and I had told them I had already done that a while ago. The next thing they asked was if I was doing reserve duty (with mahal I don't have to do reserves) so there was a bunch of other paperwork that I didn't have to fill out. Next I gave back my uniform and my kitbag. Lastly I cut my ID card in half - I got to keep the half with my picture on it as a souvenir :-) And thats it; officially a civilian again. They gave me a bus ticket so I could make my way back home. I said goodbye to the few people that I knew that were on base, ate lunch and then headed to the bus! Very anti-climactic and non eventful.

Moments after the cutting of the ID card and my official release!

So what the heck do I do now that I'm out of the army. Great question (continue reading my blog to find out). I can't get a job here beacuse my visa doesn't allow it. I don't have a permanent place to live, so I am jumping from place to place every few days. I'm in Israel for another 2 months so I'm bound to do some interesting things which will be blogged about.

Travelling Israel for free!

On my vacation I have been doing a fair amount of travelling. From my kibbutz I took a number of day trips to some relatively far away places up north. Since I get free public transportation I went to visit the places that are far away, and thus expensive to get to by public transportation. While I have the opportunity to get to these places I needed to travel at least 3 hours in each direction with multiple bus/train transfers to get to some of these sites. I would return to my kibbutz at the end of the day so I wouldn't have to rent a hostel in that area. The places I visted had discounted entrance fees for soldiers, but since I was there on my own they were nice enough to wave the fee entirely. Additionally I think they were shocked that I had decided to come on my own without any direct means of getting there. All of these things I did didn't cost me a single shekel so I was very happy to have this opportunity to see a lot of things and not even have to think of how much it would cost me.

In addition to the travelling, I have continued my relaxing on my kibbutz and frequenting Jerusalem to visit my sister and friends. Another reason for going to Jerusalem is that once I get released from the army, they stop paying for me to live on the kibbutz. Therefore I need to start moving my things out of the kibbutz. I have waaaay to many things in order to make the move in one trip. Every time I went to Jerusalem I would take a large bag of things and leave it at my sister's appartment.

I have broken the post down into the following sites. You can click on the link to jump to that specific part of the post. If your lazy and don't want to read you can jump right to all the pictures I uploaded on these 2 pages here and here.

IDF Naval Museum in Haifa

Ghetto Fighters Holocaust Museum in Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta'ot

Rosh Hanikra

Yehiam Fortress, Kibbutz Yehiam

4x4 Offroad Tour

Nimrod's Castle

Banias Nature Reserve

1. IDF Naval Museum in Haifa

Very interesting museum which had a lot of artifacts including a battleship and a submarine that we were able to walk through. The museum discussed the history of the Navy from how it was established to the present day operations that are declassified. The Navy started with a single passenger ship - its crew were not military personnel but anyone who knew anything about boats or water became part of the navy. The few guns and cannons they did have were not intended for boat use and were extremely inaccurate. Fake dummy guns were mounted to the ships so they would appear to be powerful.

I had always thought that the living quarters on a ship/sub were really crappy - very cramped, small spaces, etc. Now having walked through the two ships all I could think was look at all this space! From the perspective of someone who lived in a tank, a ship didn't seem that bad in terms of living conditions. The only downside I could see is that in the navy you can spend 3-4 weeks straight at sea.

2. Ghetto Fighters Holocaust Museum in Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta'ot

The kibbutz was founded by holocaust survivors and those that faught in the Warsaw ghetto uprising - hence the name of the kibbutz which means ghetto fighters. It was an excellent museum with many artifacts. In the museum ther was a large section specifically devoted to the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto. I tagged along to a tour that was in process and there were two fantastic stories that the guide talked about. The first one being about the Treblinka extermination camp. A model of the camp had been created by one of the founders of the kibbutz who was one of only 70 people to ever escape the camp. The tour guide described the entire process that the nazis used to exterminate the Jews. Over 700,000 Jews were systematically killed in the gas chambers in under just one year. The camp was designed as a killing machine in order to kill as many jews in the most efficient way possible. The process was streamlined and attention to detail great in order to keep the Jews fooled as to where they were heading until the very last minute. When the train pulled into the station the Jews would disembark and be led to beleive that they needed to take showers before being processed into the camp, when in fact once they got into the 'showers' they were gassed. Towards the war once the Nazis realized that they were going to lose they began to destroy all the evidence of the secret camp by burning the bodies instead of burring them and completely erasing any evidence of the existance of the extermination camp.

The second story was about Janusz Korczak - a Polish Jew. He was a widely known, successful and respected figure within Poland. He was a children's author and a pediatrician and an owner of an orphanage. He continued to take care of the children when they were placed in the ghetto. Due to his public stature there were people who offered him help to get him out of the ghetto, however he continued to refuse the help unless the help was also extended to the children for whom he cared for. When it came to be for the children to be shipped off to the gas chambers in Treblinka, instead of Korczak accepting the help to escape he decided to stick with his children. Knowing that they were on their way to be murdered, Korczak dressed the 200 children up in their nicest clothes and kept the children calm as he accompanied them to their death.

3. Rosh Hanikra

Rosh Hanikra is located at the most northern point of coastal Israel. Just north of Rosh Hanikra is the border with Lebaanon. After taking the steepest cable car ride in the world (70 degree incline) to get down the the grottos where we see what the site describes as a never-ending love story between mountain and sea. Even on a calm day one can see and hear the water crashing into the rock walls. There was a fantastic view of the coast of Israel and I could even see all the way to Haifa!

4. Yehiam Fortress, Kibbutz Yehiam

The kibbutz is located close to the southern border with lebanon. I don't quite remember anything extremely interesting about the fortress (its been quite some time from the time I was there to the time I am blogging). This place was virtually impossible to get to without a car. There was a grand total of one bus that went there all day. And guess what! I missed it!!! I took a bus that took me closer to the kibbutz and then managed to catch a lift the rest of the way. Its so far in the middle of nowhere that I didn't see anyone else touring the fortress. The fortress was not overly exciting, but it did offer a great 360 degree view of the surrounding area. The fortress was somewhat of a dissapointment, however I didn't have anything better to do and it didn't cost me any money so I'm glad that I managed to at least drag myself off the couch.

5. 4x4 Offroad Tour

I spent Shabbat with relatives that live up north a little south-west of the kinneret. On Saturday we went on an offroad 4x4 trip through the fields. It was a beatiful day with clear skies and we could see quite far. After a few days of rain during the week, everything looked extra green.

Picture of me with the kinneret in the background

Another great view. The previous picture was taken from the middle peak.

6. Nimrod's Castle

I thought that the Yehiam castle was difficult to get to; a piece of cake compared to Nimrod's castle. At least Nimrod's castle was worth the trouble. A car is really needed to get to these places. Nimrod's castle is at the base of the Hermon mountain overlooking the valley where kiryat shmoneh lies as well as the hills leading up to the golan heights including the Banias. The weather was very typical for the golan at this time. Believe it or not but the two pictures below were taken not even an hour apart. There was a bit of rain and clouds for a few hours but by noon it had completely cleared up and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for the rest of the day. It was windy on Nimrods castle because it was very high up. The fortress was huge - about 500m in length by 150 meters. When the clouds were not blocking the sky the view of the surrounding area was fantastic.

Southern part of the fortress

Northern part of the fortress

7. Banias Nature Reserve

I caught a lift with a nice family from Nimrod's castle to the Banias Nature Reserve, which was only a 10 minute drive from the fortress. There was an option to hike down from the fortress, however it was a bit chilly, and I had managed to find a lift so I figured to take advantage of that. In addition, there was plenty of hiking to do at the nature reserve. Once at the nature reserve there were 4 different trails to walk. In about 2.5 hours I walked all 4 of the trails. In addition to the fantastic scenery, and the waterfall at the end of the hike there were lots of ancient ruins from the time of Herod.