Hiking and Rafting

May 21^st

 

We began the day hiking through Nahal Zavitan, a beautiful nature reserve in the Golan Heights. First, we visited Pan’s temple. Pan was a god that was brought to Israel by the Romans. They carved a huge temple into the rock for him and we walked through the ruins and remains. We then went on a two-hour hike to see a waterfall. We first passed an ancient flour mill. The rivers used to flow with more force but with consumption over time, the mill wheels went dry. As we were walking I had great conversations with our tour guide, Shiran, about the differences between Israel and America. From dating cultures to hostile negotiation tactics; we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

After Pan’s temple, we went to the Gadot lookout. This is a mountain-top army base at the very top of Israel. From the lookout you can see the Syrian and Lebanese border. It was amazing to look at another country’s cities right across the border, especially in countries with such conflict amongst them. The peacefulness of our day was disrupted with the arrival of a UN peacekeeping unit. It turns out that the president of Fiji was visiting the Gadot memorial at the same time we were. He is not allowed in Syria and he came to Israel to thank the Fijian peacekeepers stationed in Syria. They met the president just over the border and we got a short glimpse of this interaction. It made a very enjoyable ending to the morning.

In the afternoon, we drove to the eastern border of Israel to go river rafting on the Jordan River! We had four people in our raft as we launched off and started floating. The rapids had much to live up to. Class I is a huge overstatement; think more on the level of a babbling brook. We coasted down the river for a few hours, bumping off rocks, logs, and the walls, splashing other rafts and pulling people into the water. It was very relaxing except for the bugs.

That night, we went out in Tel Aviv and experienced the Wednesday night party scene. It was less than stupendous. There was one bar that was very popular but it was a private party and we were turned away. We found another bar farther down the boardwalk that seemed great. We went in and ordered a drink. Any time you ordered a rail drink like vodka and sprite; the bartenders gave us grey goose and charged us $10 a drink. That killed the mood a bit and we decided just to smoke hookah instead. We just chatted and sat around until heading back to the hotel. The only misfortune of the night was that the hookah coal spilled on my foot and I got a small burn. I guess I can’t travel without bringing home a battle wound or two.