The Hiking Itch

One of the things I like most about living in Israel is the ease and fun of going hiking. I hadn't been hiking since I gave birth and the itch was growing, so we took Edden to her grandparents' house for the day and planned a trip to several natural water springs in the hills of Jerusalem. The hike was wonderful, but like many things in Israel, not exactly what we expected.

We printed out a map and a few points of interest, packed a few snacks and bottles of water and we were ready to go . Since this was not a circular trail, Ariel's father was nice enough to drive us to the starting point. Ariel was reading through the directions and saw a sign for the first spring. "Great dad, stop here." Of course, only after we got out and his dad drove away did we realize that we were not in fact at the starting point of the map. No worries- within 20 minutes we were at the first point of attraction- a huge wall of stones that looks very much like the western wall. This wall, however, was used as a dam in the Roman time and was connected to a series of aqueducts to bring water to the fields.

A few minutes after leaving the wall we arrive at the first spring called Ein Chendak. Most of the springs that you will find in Israel have a mere trickle of water, but this one was chest deep. Since the water is in a cave, it was also freezing cold, which is a nice respite from the summer heat. After a dip we headed up a hill and as we were walking by the edge of a moshav we saw an Indian Restaurant. While there are Indians in Israel, this moshav is mostly inhabited by families of Kurdish and Moroccan descent. What is an Indian restaurant doing here? We go in to investigate and end up staying for samosas and a cold drink. The restaurant is owned by an Israeli couple who spends half their year in India studying philosophy and the other half in Israel, saving up the funds through the restaurant. Random, but then again, this is Israel- a country full of surprises.

Next stop is a Monastery in honor of John the Baptist who apparently hid from the Romans in one of the caves with a fresh water spring. The grounds were beautiful and there was a Christian group there who seemed very touched by their experience.

Back to nature- this time our destination was the Sataf spring. This spring is well known and well traveled, however, most people hike down to the spring and then back up. Since we came from another location we trekked up a ridiculously large number of stairs. By now it is close to noon and the sun was relentless. When I was inside the cave I dipped my hat in the water and put it back on my head to help me cool off. On our way out there was a large group of kids waiting to come in. When they saw that I was dripping from my hat they were sure that they would be covered from head to toe in water; I didn't bother to correct them.

Every so often we would stop and consult our map or description of the places and then Ariel would put the pages back in his pocket. After hiking up to the top of the Sataf we rested on a bench and wanted to consult the papers before we made our next move. Ariel checked his pockets, and then our bags but the pages were gone. He retraced his steps a little, but we had just walked up a mountain and he was not about to go back down. After doing a second search with no luck we decided to continue. We had another map of the area and knew more or less where we were going. Besides, we weren't so far away from civilization that no one would be able to find us. It took us about 20 minutes to find the trail that we thought we needed and continued.

We went on to the spring at Tzuba, through grape vineyards and down to an Arab village called Ein Rafah. The last part of the trail actually took you down the main streets of the village, which I thought was a little odd, but then again…this is Israel. At the end we saw a taxi going by, flagged it down and we were back in Jerusalem in 15 minutes.

After 6 kilometers, 7.5 hours, 4.5 liters of water and copious amounts of sunscreen, we had finished our hike for the day. Even after 5 years of living in Israel I still get such a high from hiking here. It is amazing how many different kind of things you can see on one hike- archeology, history, religion, agriculture, Arabs, Christians, Indian restaurants, up hill, down hill, water…this hike had it all.

So, where should we go next week?