Pesach: Seder and Yam L'Yam

Passover this year was certainly the most exciting and interesting and adventure-filled Passover I've ever had.

Seder was on Wednesday night, and as far as I know, Ashley, Kesha, and I were the only Nativers to stay in Yerucham for it. Ashley went to her host family, while Kesha and I went to Buruyah's, my gan teacher. It was so sweet of her to invite me, and even nicer of her to allow me to bring a friend...she's really taken care of me. Kesha and I showed up and sat down at a huge table set for somewhere around 30 people. Buruyah's daughter, who is about my age and (luckily) speaks English, sat next to me...I'm pretty sure she was under clear instructions to make sure I was okay that night. The whole Seder was in Hebrew, so although Kesha and I could follow along and look at the few pictures there were in the Haggadah (the story that is traditionally read on Passover telling of the Jews' exodus from Egypt) we couldn't really understand what was going on. Most of the food was very good, but there was no matzoh ball soup, and there were some foods that I wasn't used to on my seder table - including lungs, which I was told are traditional Passover fare in Israel, although I opted not to try them. The Seder was over fairly quickly, with the second half being done by only a few men at the far end of the table while everyone else talked and played with the kids. Overall, everyone was really sweet and it was definitely a cool experience to see what Seder was like in a home full of native Israelis.

The following day was still part of the yuntif (a religious holiday that is similar to Shabbat observance-wise) and so the three of us went to Ashley's (American) host home for lunch. I was happy to be going back there, since I've been there for dinner before and I love the family - the parents are really sweet and the kids are adorable, and it's also comforting to be surrounded by a family that speaks English and serves foods that I can recognize easily. They are really wonderful and it was a lovely last meal before my Pesach break adventure began.

That night we left for Yam L'Yam - literally translated as Sea To Sea - which is a hike from the Mediterranean to the Kinneret, or for those of you who aren't familiar with the geography of Israel, from the Northwest side of Israel to the Northeast side of Israel. The adventurers partaking in this insanity were me, Ashley, Kesha, Misha, David...and Shai, our dog. We had been preparing for sometime, each of us equipped with a sleeping back and a backpack filled with the food we would need for the 4-day trip, a minimal amount of toiletries, and a minimal amount of extra clothes. We knew hiking with everything on our backs was going to be difficult to say the least, and Dad and I did have a small altercation about my lack of space for rope (or my lack of rope, period), among a few other things (I also didn't have room for the hunting rifle he wanted me to bring). But we were prepared to rough it...so just the bare necessities. Also, Dad's head would have exploded had he known that we only went with a road map, since Misha couldn't find a hiking map of the track we were doing.

Kesha, Ashley, and I left Thursday night, taking a bus to Be'er Sheva and then a train from there to Haifa, where we met Misha and David and all of us slept on the beach. The next morning we were up at 5 to catch a 6 AM train to Nahariya and the Mediterranean, which is where the trail started. After taking a sheirut from the train station to the Mediterranean, we commenced looking for the trail, which, as the name of the very famous hike done by thousands of people every year, implies, is where we thought it would start. We spent about an hour walking back and forth up on strip of highway looking for the path. We asked several people, a few of whom told us that it was just up the road, and a few of whom told us that we were crazy and that there was no such thing as this hike and that they'd never heard of anyone doing this before, and one of whom offered to drive us to the Kinneret in her car, since it was 'way too far to walk.' Finally, we called our staff (thank goodness we have wonderful Nativ staff who have nothing better to do than field our questions all morning...). We were informed by the staff that we could start hiking there, through fields and brambles and wilderness, but the actual trail started about six kilometers inland. After spending 20 unsuccessful minutes trying to hike through the wilderness, we gave up, found another sheirut, and put our staff on the phone with the driver to tell him exactly where we needed to go. The sheirut took us the the start of the trail (a completely nondescript dirt path in the middle of a field, unmarked by anything...how were we ever supposed to have known to go there? why wouldn't the sea to sea hike start at the sea? excellent questions.) and finally, 4 hours after we started, we were off!

The first morning of hiking was beautiful. The trail we were doing was through a lot of shady woods and flowing streams. It was perfect weather, sunny but not too hot, and there were tons of people on the trail - almost all of whom wished us a 'Boker tov' (good morning) and a few of whom even offered us coffee. We stopped fairly frequently to sit in the sun by the water, rest, and eat. Shai LOVED it - she ran around without her leash, following us and generally just enjoying being in the outdoors - although we did find out that she is not a water dog, as she did not like crossing the streams. I did like crossing the streams, however I wasn't as good at it as Shai was - there was an incident in the stream that ended in me and most of my belongings getting wet. Thankfully it was sunny and warm enough out that everything was soon dry. Parts of the trail were close to parking lots, so there were tons of people on the path, with little children swimming and playing in the stream and everyone picnicking. We stopped and rested for a leisurely lunch, and it was altogether a lovely day.

Soon after lunch the path led out onto a road, and the road led up a huuuuge hill, at the top of which was the town where we would (theoretically) be spending the night camping by a lake. Tired from an entire day of hiking and encouraged by the friendly Israelis who stopped to ask if we wanted water, we decided to try hitch-hiking - my first ever time. Although in America I would never even think of hitch-hiking, in Israel it's a legitimate way to travel, used by many, especially soldiers. So we soon bummed a ride (in two separate shifts) up the mountain. I think that out of all of us, Shai was the most grateful - she was pretty hot and tired. Once at the top of the mountain we had to play another round of the 'let's figure out where we're going now' game. We stopped several cars to ask where the lake was where we were supposed to be camping for the night (we had received instructions from our staff that this was the best thing to do), but with little luck. Finally, we stopped a car with 3 English speakers, and they were very helpful. They offered to drive us a little ways down the road, since they said that the lake was a very far walk. But there were only two spots in the car, so we politely declined and told them we didn't mind walking (lies). However, they insisted, and soon, somehow or another, five of us, our luggage, and a dog, piled into the space where only two people were meant to be sitting. They dropped us off a good ways down the road (we were glad to not be walking) and even after that it was still another forty minutes walk to the lake. After resting at the lake a while, we decided it would be best to try and find where the trail started for the next day so that we wouldn't have to do it in the morning. After several more phone calls to staff, two separate rounds of hitch-hiking, and asking directions at a gas station, someone who pulled over to help us was finally able to direct us to the trail. If we had walked, it would have probably taken about four hours up and down a huge mountain, so needless to say we were more than thankful we hadn't put it off until the morning. When we started yam lyam, we sort of figured that as a very famous hike the trail would be one nice continuous path, and would be clearly marked. Obviously, we were wrong.

We decided to walk up the trail a little and try and find a spot to camp. Unfortunately for us, most of the trail was already occupied - by huge cows, including some very intimidating bulls. We eventually found a spot that was relatively cow, and cow-pie, free, so we ate dinner and settled in for the night.

We all had a pretty rough night. It was VERY cold, so I snuggled as far as I could into my sleeping bag. I do remember waking up every hour, and alternating between being warm by snuggling down, and being able to breathe by sticking my head out of the opening. We were all counting the hours until morning, when we could get up and start hiking - at least we would be warm. I woke up to my alarm at six, and found David already standing up in his sleeping bag, just waiting for the rest of us to get up. Additionally, during the night, everything we owned had been covered in a layer of moisture - backpacks, shoes, sleeping bags. So that didn't help. We all discussed the fact that if we could find a hostel to stay in at the town where we were supposed to be camping that night, we should definitely stay there.

That morning of hiking was different, but also beautiful. We were surrounded by hills of green trees that went forever in all directions, and everything was beautifully bathed in morning light. We soon warmed up and as soon as we got to a place in the valley where the sun could shine on us, we stopped for breakfast.

We knew the second day was going to be both the hardest and the longest. For one thing, we started hiking by 6:45, so by the time we reached a parking lot in the middle of the trail at about 12, we had already been hiking for quite some time. Luckily (because I had finished about 2/3 of my water already), this parking lot had a place to refill. While the girls rested, David, always charming, had struck up a conversation with some girls who had a table set up to help hikers with directions and trails. And that's when he came back over to us and said the most beautiful thing that any of us had heard on the whole trip: "These girls live on a kibbutz next to the town we're going to and they wanted to know if we wanted to stay with them for the night." Um...YES!

After that, we resumed our hiking with restored energy - even though this was a very steep climb to the top of the second tallest mountain in Israel, and I had to rest frequently (I know you're all shocked to hear that I'm not really much of a hiker). But we eventually made it to the town, which, on Shabbat, was completely shut down. We got more than a few judgemental stares as we were inappropriately dressed in an obviously very observant community. Needless to say, we would have been absolutely out of luck finding anywhere to stay there that night. We walked through the town and were able to hitchhike to the Kibbutz of our new friends, where, as we tried to find their apartment, two other girls who eventually gave us directions offered us a home for the night - Israeli hospitality never ceases to amaze me. We successfully found their apartment, and their key (yes, these complete strangers told us where they hid their key so we could enter their house while they were still at work), and thankfully shed our backpacks and sat down.

The girls soon arrived home, and we spent a wonderful evening with them. We soon found out they were our age, even though we had thought they were much older - Israelis are far more mature than Americans. For their army service, they served as trail guides for hikers, which was extremely convenient for us as they were able to give us exactly the directions we needed for the following day. There were three of them that lived in two separate apartments on the kibbutz (which was no longer a functioning kibbutz but only a place where people lived), and one of them even slept in the other's apartment so we could have a room to ourselves - complete with enough mattresses for all of us. The girls fed us dinner and were overall just really fun and sweet. One of them said to us 'we thought you guys were crazy, because if some strangers invited us to stay the night in their house we wouldn't want to go,' which was funny because we had all agreed that they were crazy because we would never invite strangers to stay in our house. We really couldn't thank them enough, because I honestly don't know what we would have done if we had had to spend another night out of doors.

The next morning some of us hitchhiked while others were driven by our new friends, and we headed out bright and early towards the start of the day's trail. Our friend made us tea and then sent us on our way, although we were all pretty tired and sore by day 3. This day's hike wasn't as exciting as the other days, and I started to get a little cranky...so did Shai. The end of the hike, however, consisted of field after field of colorful flowers. There were daisies as far as your eye could see, and we definitely had fun taking pictures in them. We trudged through the day as best as we could, but we were all thankful to finally reach the highway. From there we took a bus to Tiberias, which is where we met the second yam - the Kinneret. There, we all did a little victory dance, took some pictures, and put our feet in the water to soothe our blisters.

Although hiking isn't really my thing, and doing yam lyam once was more than enough for me, I'm SO glad we did it - we had a really great group and we had a wonderful time together. Also, part of this year means doing things outside my comfort zone that I wouldn't normally do, so I really felt like I accomplished something special. And this, no one can argue: it was definitely an adventure.