three days of fruit and pita

Time for some journey updates. This is going to be long. I'll start at the beginning.

Saturday night I took the bus to Nazareth. I managed to change buses alright, and get off the bus at the right stop (in general, I am now on better terms with Egged and their website), however, once I got to Nazareth I was completely lost. Googlemaps totally failed me on this one, and I literally ended up wandering around the square in front of the Church of the Annunciation for like 20 minutes while trying to get the hostel and/or Lilach on the phone to tell me where to go. Finally, the hostel answered and they sent one of the volunteers (this hostel is also a GoEco site) down to get me. Apparently the volunteers here do a lot of ferrying people to and from the center of town, and now I understand why - trying to find the Fauzi Azar Inn even in daylight is like trying to find the Island without the Lampost, and I was doing it in the dark. It is in the thick of the shuk (the market) down a tiny alley with a little door in the wall. No seriously, the door looked like it belonged in Wonderland. However, once I got there, it turned out to be one of the coolest hostels I have stayed in. It is actually a 200 year old Arab mansion, and the people there were incredibly nice. There was none of this paying for linens or internet crap, and there were even shampoo dispensers in the shower!! It was pretty awesome. Granted, I could have stayed with the Sisters of Nazareth for even cheaper (and that would have been fun, to say I slept in a convent), but for 75 shekels it was a still great deal so I can't complain.

In the morning I decided to see a little of the city before I took off on the trail. The funny and ironic thing about Nazareth is that 2000 years ago they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff and now there is practically a church on every corner. It's like the Bible Belt of Israel. So first I headed to the Basilica, which is supposedly built where Mary received the vision that she would give birth to Jesus. Its kind of a cool church, and around the outside they have mosaics from all over the world depicting her. I wandered inside, and while I was kneeling to pray this priest walks up to me and asks me which Miami I go to (I had on a UM shirt) --but side note here, people need to learn that while there are two Miami's, there is ONLY one U....which was clearly indicated on the shirt....anyway, he then invites me to join them for mass in the chapel in a few minutes. I'm thinking to myself, I am definitely not dressed for church, and I really should start hiking, but then I said what the hell, its Sunday and I'm in the Holy Land. Let's go. So I go to mass, and end up the only independent traveler in the church with what appears to be a big mother/daughter tour group. Things that happened during this mass that I have never seen in a mass before: (1) Evolution was mentioned, (2) Mary's womb was called a uterus, and (3) someone threw up the peace sign to me during the passing of the peace (this one made me chuckle). Anyway, afterward this motherly-looking woman behind me invites me to join them for their continuing tour, so I decided to delay my hike a little longer. First we went down into the grotto where Mary and Joseph's house was, and then to the synagogue which is supposedly built on the site where Jesus first preached. One of the girls who was about my age started asking me about which school I went to, and when I asked her the same question, she told me she was a "consecrated woman." Apparently this is what they are calling nuns these days - yeah, who knew. (Sidenote: For like, two days after this I kept thinking that was a really bizarre thing to call a nun until I realized I was confusing consecrated with consummated....big difference.) After the synagogue I was getting ready to peace out when the motherly woman asked me about my plans, if I was traveling alone, etc. She said she would worry about me since my mother wasn't here to, and asked me my name so that she could pray for me. I told her, and asked her hers. She said it was Mary Beth. I smiled. Tell me now that I'm really traveling alone.

After all of this I finally got on my way. The first part was semi miserable because I was just walking up flights and flights of stairs through the Old City, and really wishing Jesus could have picked a less hilly place to live. Once I got out of the city it was nicer, although some of the trail markers were tough to spot and I missed a couple of turns and had to double back. Hiked through a lot of farmland, and about midway through made it to Zippori National Park, which houses the ruins of one of the major administrative cities from Jesus' time. Ran into none other than the priest from the morning in the park, who recognized me (I guess not many people go to mass wearing a UM tshirt and a giant red backpack). Went through Mash'had, which is where Jonah (of whale fame) was born, and that night I arrived in Cana, which is where Jesus' first miracle (the turning water into wine) occurred. Here I ran into the same tour group again, which I had to laugh about since I'd been walking all day and they just were on a bus for maybe half an hour. Checked into the hostel, which was very nice, and then went out to find food (I had been traveling with water, a couple pitas, a few pears, and a banana). This is when the madness began.

First of all, everybody here is wayyyyyy into the Mundial (the World Cup, for you non soccer fans). Israel of course has no team, and there does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the way these people decide who they are supporting. Germany is very, very popular in Cana and I just happened to be there on the night they played (and beat) England. Here is the picture: lots of people, in their cars, flying giant German flags out the windows, constantly honking, driving in circles around the town. It was insane. People were yelling and honking and honking and yelling in the streets for over an hour. After a couple failed attempts at finding something worth buying in a market that was open, I ended up at a little pita shop ordering some beef kabob. The man at the pita shop was one of my favorite people on this trip, sadly I do not know his name, but he was a very round, very bald, very happy Israeli man. He was very happy to talk to me and told me all about how he loved the Mundial, and how he didn't normally open on Sundays because he was a Christian, it was only because of the Mundial, and how he would put his tv outside his shop so people could come and watch the games. Anyway, as he was grilling my kabob we were watching the tv, and the music video for Shakira's new song (the one for the World Cup, where she does the african dancing) comes on. Round, bald, Israeli pita man is like "It's Shakira! You like Shakira? I love Shakira!" and then proceeds to start imitating her african dancing while flipping the kabob on the grill. I about died, it was priceless. Afterward he invited me to come back and watch the Mexico-Argentina game, but I went to the hostel and passed out. Thanks, pita man, for your hospitality, entertainment, and a great beef kabob. I will never be able to look at Shakira the same way again.

After a good nights rest I got on my way around 8:30 am the next morning. On the way out of town I stopped at the market and picked up more pita and a couple of apples. In retrospect, I really should have gotten more food, but that's beside the point. Day two is supposed to take you to Kibbutz Lavi, about a 15 km hike. There isn't much along the way, except a lot of farmland and the Roman Road, which I apparently skipped due to a missing trail marker. There is also basically nowhere to refill water, which is not indicated on the map. About 3/4 of the way in I ran out, and after starting to get very dehydrated, ended up stealing some from a jug I found sitting in an orchard. It was very hot and very stale, but it was water. Then I got to Kibbutz Lavi, and decided (for better or for worse) not to stop. There were two reasons for this: (a) It was only 2:30pm, and (b) the only place to stay there is a hotel with rooms for 400 shekels and up - a lil bit out of my price range. Looking at my map, I knew there was basically nothing between Lavi and Moshav Arbel, which was another 16 km away and supposed to be the stopping point after Day 3. I made the (somewhat terrible) decision to go for it. I figured if worse came to worse, I had a pillow and blanket and could sleep on the trail, and according to the map there were a couple of shortcuts I could take. So I kept going. Along the way there were many, many times I considered stopping to make camp but for some reason, call it blind determination maybe, I just kept walking. Water also kept appearing out of nowhere, which was awesome since this was the longest segment without a place to refill (literally, a guy passed me in a truck and gave me a liter and a half of cold water, god bless him). Anyway, I get to the point where I know I'm close to Arbel and its starting to get dark, so I call to the hostel to make sure they have a bed available. The woman there says that she does, but that I should hurry since its getting dark and that she'll pick me up on the road if I call once I make it there. This is at 8:15 pm. I started to move faster and took out my flashlight, since it was getting harder to see the trail markers, and then it got dark real fast. Also, Arbel is on a hill. The trail leading up to it is in the valley below. Basically, the last 30 minutes of Day Two ended up being me pretty much sprinting blindly uphill in the dark. You don't have to tell me, I know it wasn't safe, I know it was stupid, so trust me this isn't something I plan on repeating. I felt like I was doing some sort of crazy Iron Man Hike or some ridiculous crap like that. Suddenly I hear this man shouting at me in Hebrew asking me who I am, but I can't see where he is. I'm exhausted, in pain, hungry, and desperate and I'm freaking out about this other person who's out there, so I can't even begin to put together a sentence that isn't in English. I'm just shouting back that I can't speak Hebrew and I need to find Arbel and a hostel, and we're basically yelling back and forth at each other in different languages as we're running at each other. I was at my wits end at this point, and then suddenly.......there's a street light. I see the man, and I ask him (in Hebrew this time) if he knows where Arbel is. He's like.....this is Arbel. I almost fainted. I called the hostel woman, whose name was Sarah, and she drove out and picked me up. After chastising me for hiking so late, she showed me my room and I basically collapsed. I stopped to look at myself and I was sunburned, caked in mud from my shins down, and my feet were bleeding. I took a shower and limped to bed, where I stayed for 11 hours.

The next morning I could barely walk when I got up (I guess that's what I get for hiking 30+ km in one day), but somehow I managed to get myself out the door and on my way. The minute I stepped outside, I knew it was going to be bad. It was hot. Yeah, I know this is Israel, it's supposed to be hot in the summer, but the first couple days on the trail were actually pretty nice. This one was not. Anyway, I only got 20 minutes in before I had to stop and drink, and that's pretty much how the rest of the day went. Day 4 (or Day 3 in my case) is supposed to be about 17 km. It takes you over the cliffs of Arbel National Park, then through the caves of the Maccabbean revolt, Migdal (the hometown of Mary Magdalene), Tabgha (the site of the feeding of the 5000), and to Capernaum and the Mount of the Beatitudes. While in the park I happened upon a tour group and ended up following them for a bit, since I was a little confused about which way the trail was going. Although they were nice to let me join them, the tour guide was rather nasty about me hiking alone and I kinda just wanted to tell him to shove off. Anyway, the funny part about this is that this segment is actually the most difficult part of the Jesus Trail (you literally climb down a cliff holding on to cables and handholds that are cemented into the rock), yet this was what the tour group of middle aged, not particularly outdoorsy Jewish men and women decided to tackle. Being the first one down I got to watch them attempt this feat, and got a pretty good chuckle out of some of them and their reactions. After making my way down the rest of the mountain I stopped and rested with them for a while, and then continued on my way.

This was the point where I started coming to the realization that I was not going to hike the entire trail. I had essentially no food, very little water, basically no cash (since Sarah at the hostel said that she could accept credit cards then proceeded to demand I pay her my last 100 shekel note instead since it was "only 100 shekels!"), it was approximately 95 degrees, and my body was still exhausted from the day before. I was approaching a place where the trail intersected with a main road, so I decided I would either have to catch a bus to a hostel in Tabgha and walk to Capernaum or bus to Tiberias for the night and then take the bus back to Capernaum in the morning. Because of the cash situation and the fact that the nearest ATM was in Tiberias, I decided on the latter. This was probably the best decision I made all week. I got to the hostel in Tiberias, and although they didn't accept credit cards either, they were super nice and told me to rest and just pay when I had a chance to get cash. I was put in a room with a nice 50 year old man named Al, whose response to getting laid off after 23 years was to rent out his house and travel the world for six months [There's an idea, Dad! :)], and a guy my age named Jack who (no joke) lives in Coral Gables, rides his bike to Mark Light Stadium, likes to do yoga at Green Monkey in Sunset, and goes to UCF. (Sidenote: Why is it that when I travel my world seems to shrink?) I rested for a bit then went to find an ATM and food. I found the ATM, but it was too hot to look for food.

There are great and terrible things about Tiberias. One of the great things is that you can find almost anything you want there, including a reasonably priced new digital camera and about twenty different flavors of slushies. I took advantage of both of these, particularly the slushies, which are awesome. They sort of help with the terrible part of Tiberias, which is that it being there is basically like being in Hell this time of year. In the 24 hour period I was there, I had three of them. Anyway, I returned to the hostel until the sun had gone down, and then went back out at dusk. Explored the promenade, ate some pizza, and took some pictures on my nice new Canon PowerShot A480, which I am NOT going to lose OR break anytime soon. (I should also mention that I unfortunately have no pictures from the trail on day 2 or 3 since the battery reader on Lilach's camera apparently decided to stop working. I have like, the worst luck ever.) Afterward it was back to the hostel, where we ended up moving rooms because Al discovered ours was infested with little mini roaches. Yuck. Took a shower, then met this kid named Alex from Austin and had an awesome conversation about life, God, traveling, and Donald Miller. Can I say again that I love the people I meet in hostels?

In the morning I got up and walked to the bus station to attempt to take the bus to Capernaum. This was highly unsuccessful and I ended up taking a taxi, which was unfortunate but I got him to give me a pretty good deal on it. Sadly, he got confused and dropped me off at the junction and not actually the town, so I had to walk for a ways. First I went to Tabgha, then I stopped at a park along the way and jumped in the Sea of Galilee (which really doesn't deserve the title of Sea, but whatever) in my underwear because I was really hot. Continued on to Capernaum and stayed there for a little while, saw the ruins of the synagogue and the church that was built over Peter's house, which looks like a UFO. I'm so serious, this has to be the weirdest looking church I have ever seen. After a very long walk back to the junction I got on the bus to Tiberias, where I promptly changed into my swimsuit, bought a slushie, and sat in the Sea of Galilee drinking it for the last hour and a half before my bus ride back. (Honestly, it was like one of those days in Miami in August where its so hot you can't even stand to be on the sand, you just have to be submerged in the water in order to survive.) Ate some falafel for the first time on my way out, since Jon has been demanding I do so, and headed for my temporary home.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to do the trail. I am also glad I decided to skip the last 8 km of it. I have a new appreciation for Jesus walking all that way, as well as the verse about not taking any food or water or extra clothing with you when you travel. If you are interested in doing it someday I would recommend that you take your time and not do it in summer, and if you're not feeling hardcore just hike maybe a day or two of it, because a lot of it is very similar. And maybe pack something to eat besides pita and fruit.