"We don't see things the way they are, we see things the way we are."
-The Talmud
We left at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, and arrived pretty early, around 9:30 at Mt. Arabel. I was very happy about that, because it was the first word I was able to read without having to check my notes to make sure I had correctly. So that mountain will stand out in my memory as my first real Hebrew vocabulary word.
You have to remember, in Israel everything is fairly exaggerated concerning geography. A mountain is really a set of large hills, and a river is more like a stream. The river Jordan which I kayaked for example had only two areas we came across in an hour of boating where I may have been underwater if I stood straight up.
Now that being said, the cliffs of Mt. Arabel were pretty impressive. Especially since at the start an armed paramedic joined us. You know, just in case while there one of us fell.
From that cliff we made our way slowly down until we came to a near-impassable area, and used chains that had been hammered into the side of the cliff to make our way down in a zig-zag manner. It's probably the most danger any of us have been in while here thus far, and I was happy to follow right behind our guide to continue our conversation. I like that- if I can I try to be the first in anything, it its something I care about. And I have always loved rock climbing and bouldering.
Across from us was another hill, within it were many holes, most man-made. Thousands of years ago hermits who were Jewish, and later Christian who came and lived out their days there. Oddly, the fortress the Jews Josephus had written about, the last of the Hasmoneans to hold out within the fortress in the cliff, is often what is credited to be where the Hermits lived, but they actually dwelled in the large hill and cliff across from the fortress. We got to walk under the fortress, and though we could not enter because of its likelihood of collapsing on us if we had, it was still impressive.
Reaching the base in what was a largely Bedouin town that was also surprising modern we boarded the bus. Surprisingly our guard joined us; he was to stay with us for the duration of the tour. Those in our kibbutz elected the song 'Cheerleader' to be the song of our kibbutz. I'm not really sure why, especially since I had never heard it before. We went to a small stream, well, at least a stream from where I come from in the states, it was rather pompously called a river, when in truth the water barely went above our knees at any point in it, and was only 500 meters or so. The only really notable thing that happened to me concerning it was at the end I noticed my toes touching stones; which was odd for the athletic shoes I was wearing. Apparently all the stones on the bottom had torn through both shoes, leaving my feet basically garbed in cloth with the soles completely ripped to shreds. This is important because they were the only shoes capable of being in water with me, and had been instructed to leave my sandals behind. So, I was in a bit of a pickle.
After that we went to a very interesting military complex in the Golan Heights.
It had been captured during the Six Day War back in 1967. From the Israeli standpoint you could see the Israeli-Syrian border.
The very fertile land of Israel; sprawling farms, trees, towns, gave way to desert and ruins very abruptly at the border, creating a stark contrast between verdant life, and clear death.
We then went into the bunkers, what was most interesting to me when going in was at one point there is a very vivid splatter against the concrete wall that could have been something else, but seemed more pretty much blood to me; namely because of how it streaked down the wall from small concentric red splotches. We were maybe forty feet underground, so there was no wind not even really light to wear it away from the stone, whatever it was.
After that we traveled to the hostel in Metulla, the northernmost town in Israel. the hostel was of the same name. To be honest, all of us expected something out of the hills of Europe in the horror movie based on Hostels; instead what we got was closer to a three or four star hotel, excellent food and flat screens TV's with air conditioning. What was a tad concerning when we arrived in the parking lot the entire front of it was burned out. Some flames were still going, but apparently fires are very, very common in that part of Israel. To the point you could set an entire front lawn on fire and no fire department would come because of how normal it was considered.
Later that night we stood outside looking over the landscape of the Galilee when we looked behind us to Mt. Hermon which in the dusk was also covered by very interesting clouds. We were all marveling at how cool they looked, obscuring the mountain when our manager of the group, a wizened man named Ilan walked up, and when we pointed at the clouds he remarked; "it's a fire; Sreyfa, wildfire.
That kind of made the whole evening close on a somewhat dramatic air, at least to me.
Decided to add this, I suppose as motivation to get my arse in gear to learn in Hebrew.
Words Learned In Hebrew July 21st;
Esh-Fire
Sreyfa-Wildfire (Fire that burnt shit from my cousin Amanda an editor at the Jerusalem Post)
(My blog for martial arts can be found here; http://zenjael.blogspot.co.il/2015/07/what-is-master.html
And http://zenjael.blogspot.co.il/)
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