For our third weekend in Israel, six of the Ecos decided to go on adventure. We only knew that we were leaving sometime Friday morning and we had to back by Tuesday morning. The rest of the details were incredibly fuzzy. The night before Anna and I were hanging out in the Zula with two of the co-adventurers. Anna wondered aloud "What time are we going?" and I asked "Wait, where are we going?" and then another voice shouted "When are we going there?" In short, we were a mess. We only knew one thing: we wanted mangoes. A former Eco participant who has been staying on the farm had been talking about abandoned mango orchards in the North and by Week Three they had taken on mythological proportions similar to that of the promised land. This former Eco had alternative plans, so he could not lead us to this promised land.
We set out fairly early in the morning for some type of hiking excursion in the North. I was fairly in the dark and I relied on others to secure rides for our trip. We all met up at a reservation near Kibbutz Gazit, near Ein Hod, around 2:00 p.m. The site was majestic, it was a relief to be surrounded by tall mountains instead of a rocky scrabbly landscape. At 2:00 p.m. we descended as a group down the trail into the valley of the mountains. For some reason, we believed there might be a spring, even though we are at the end of the dry season (there is no water). We ran into a slew of bikers, who thought we were crazy Americans and assured us there was no spring. Now we had to climb back up with limited water resources. By this point, I was tired and dehydrated, until we stumbled upon a couple of Pomegranate trees. We dove into them and I felt reinvigorated enough to scout out the land. Still hoping for water, I climbed down a path towards a dried up stream and we found our a nice respite from the heat under a canopy of trees. We hesitated sightly, worrying about the mosquitoes which the mud might attract. That night we had an amazing time beneath the stars, sheltered beneath the trees and surrounded by wandering cows.
We slept together in a row of sleeping bags, a line of former strangers, now a sort of patchwork family. In the middle of the night, I heard all types of noises. Cows crunching sticks, Hebrew music blaring from the kibbutz and wait was that the baying hyenas? I felt fear from the tips of my fingers through to the bottom of my toes. A paralyzing fear. Hyenas! Why were we camping openly in this precarious spot? My friend next to me was awake, and we determined that we both terrified. He turned to Anna, whose eyes were wide with fear. All three of us clung to our fear. What should we do, could we run away, or stay and wait for the onslaught. We decided to wake up E, who is the more rational group member. We theorized that if he was not afraid, then we should also abandon our fear. Anna woke him up "Hey, are you afraid? "Of what." "Hyenas" "Hyenas, that's beautiful!" he exclaimed, Once he was fully awake, he was slightly angry with us but laughed at us until we were no longer scared. We joked about who would be eaten first and debated the dangers of city life versus the wild. If only there was magic button that would rescue us, exclaimed Uncle Avvie.
The next morning, four of us walked down the long winding road from the Kibbutz to the Junction. From there, our destination was Mount Tabor and food. Mount Tabor rises from a beautiful Arab village called Shibli, where all the front gardens were covered with date, fig and lemon trees and the sidewalk walls are covered with passion flower vines. We stumbled hot and weary into a sidewalk falafel bar where we could choose eight or more condiments for our sandwich. By far, it was the best falfel I have had so far in Israel and I have consumed a lot. After lunch, armored only with a handful of figs and water we started the hike upwards. Except we did not follow an established trail in the woods, only a long winding road, where car after car passed by us. The view was amazing as we climbed. There is a monastery at the top, where I promptly thrown out for indecent clothes (taboo bare shoulders). It was very touristy but at least we had the pleasure of the view along the way. On the way down we stopped for some homemade pizza, my first in years. We tried to char with the boys who served, but we must have exhausted their English, since they told us “English no more.” But I told them that their pizza was tayim. And life was good.
We hiked back to our camping spot. Earlier in the day, we had called our wise leader Nadav, who is a nature specialist, more or less. Anna called him up and asked "Nadav, what do you know about hyenas?" After a small debate about the noises we heard, we were told that we had only heard jackals and that they were more scared of us, then we are of them. That night we slept soundly.
The next morning, I had plans to head to Tel Aviv but then I fell out of a tree. It was terrifying, and at the sane time quite stupid. The fall hurt my back so I decided to just head back to the farm and restore my energy. It is Week Five and we still we talk of those fields of mangoes that we have yet to visit, even though their season must be past. Perhaps there is an abandoned pomegranate orchard waiting to be harvested.
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Simply amazing!
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