Ein Gedi

Another night of waking up every hour led to a sleepy arousal at 7:20 AM. Meredith woken up a little before that but I took a snooze. Then she came back in the room to wake me up again and asked if she could make lunch for me. I said yes and proceeded to get ready.

We took the bus to the station and I led Meredith and Katie up to the ticket offices where they were supposed to meet their friend, Alexandra, who organized this day hike. We arrived a little early so I ran downstairs to grab some ice Aroma (yes!!!) and some bureka treats from Neeman's. We bought our tickets at the window and hopped on the bus. The ride was about 90 minutes from Jerusalem to Ein Gedi. West Bank didn't look as pretty as it did when my family and I went through it in spring 2007- it was very parched.

We arrived at Ein Gedi around 10:15 and slathered on sun-screen. I changed into my cool techie t-shirt from my Buffalo half-marathon to keep me cool (wicked Cool-max type fabric). We made our ascent on this moderate trail. We saw some little wild animals along the way. Alexandra and Meredith took turns helping me on difficult parts of the trail.

Ein Gedi is a natural reserve park that's very well known for its fresh spring waterfalls. It's a bit of a desert oasis with lots of faunas and floras- yes, GREEN. It also hosts a kibbutz that's on far left side of the mountain and an ancient synagogue (that I didn't have time to go to). The trails aren't too bad and can range from 2 to 7 hours, depending where the hikers want to go. Summertime, as it seems, is the best time to visit as the streams and waterfalls tend to flood in rainy seasons and can make for dangerous hikes. It has been mentioned in the Bible and rumored that David hid here from Saul (which is why one of the waterfalls is named "David's waterfall").

At one point, we stopped at one of the waterfalls and swam in the pool. It was too cool- swimming in cool water in the middle of the desert!!! The views around me were breath-taking. I wondered how come I had never been here... had I known how much fun this would be, I could've skipped some beach days in Tel Aviv and gone here instead. Alexandra and another girl (I forgot her name) jumped off from some rocks. I didn't want to take the risk... We had to share the pool with some tour group of teens, ugh. When they posed for the camera, they encouraged their guard to come in the water with them and he did- with his clothes on! I guess he figured that the dry heat would dry off his clothes.... eventually.

After swimming for a while, we moved to another fall and found a shady spot to eat our lunch. My sandwich was all mashed up but whatever. Food is food. I was starting to get nervous about trying to catch the 2:30 bus (the LAST bus to Jerusalem of the day) so I told the others that we'd better get moving. The walk back to the main entrance where we had come from wasn't too bad but not as scenic as the ascent path.

We made it down with time to spare so some people grabbed ice cream and used bathrooms (I insisted that those who didn't right away that they'd better go or they needed to drink more water). We went across the street to start waiting for the bus.

The girl who accompanied us began talking about the situation in the Gaza. Her talk of how poor the people were and she felt so bad that they had no food or water, etc. Then I said, "Well, these people wanted democracy right? They wanted autonomy from Israel so Israel gave it to them and these people voted in elections. They asked for Hamas. That's their problem if they're unhappy with the leadership. They asked for all this!" Unknowingly, I was saying all of this in front of this girl who happened to be a Palestinian with American citizenship who still had relatives in West Bank. After I realized where she came from, I took the opportunity to ask her questions about West Bank -what is Ramallah really like? How are the relations between the soldiers and the residents? It became so clear that we were standing on two very different sides and I somehow seem to tune out the fact that there are people out there who still believe that Palestine exists. I only believe in the State of Israel and its occupied terrorities and couldn't imagine Israel being broken up into two states. Anyway, I kept things non-political between us and shut up when I hear enough even though her views on Gaza really bothered me that I wanted to change the topic. Then I saw why Isrealis get so uncomfortable with this.

Fortunately, our bus back to Jerusalem dropped us off in Ramat Eshkol. Lucky for us! We didn't have to go ALL the way to the central station and then take a bus back. Phew. When we returned to the apartment, I got ready to start getting into the shower and pack for the Backs'. Only then I discovered that I dropped my keys at that stop in Ein Gedi. Having been there already, I instructed Meredith on how to call the maintinence that's on call 24/7 and explained that they'd charge it on someone's account and I would pay that person back. Seven months in Israel can bring all kinds of situation imaginable.

Eventually, I was let into my room and got ready to leave for my Shabbat weekend with the Backs. Aside from the key part, it had been a great day and I'm glad that I went to Ein Gedi- with a bunch of people! One less thing for me to do during my traveling period. But I will come back for the ancient synagogue and some more hikes!

(I don't know why this pic came out like this but Blogger didn't rotate it as it was supposed to... pretty cool!)