Hiking in the Jerusalem Forest.. Wait, a FOREST?

For several weeks, Meredith, Rebecca, and I had planned on a trip to Masada/Dead Sea for a night tongiht. We would catch the 4:15 bus to Eilat (the driver would drop us off at Masada), check in a hostel (or find a place to sleep on the beach...?), spend the night, then get up. We would climb the snake path to watch the sunrise, walk around, and get down by 8 AM to catch the 8:30ish bus back to Jerusalem. We would stop at the shuk beforehand in Jerusalem to put together a picnic dinner.

All sounds good right? I even checked the Egged site this morning.

Unfortunately, the traffic ran very slow in Jerusalem that we got worried about missing the 4:15 bus (and we really needed to go to the shuk for food). So Rebecca called Egged to see if there'd be two buses running and Egged responded that the last bus for Eilat had already left for the day at 1 PM! We could not believe it!!

Quickly, I came up with an alternative plan that would fit in our timing- a hike in the Jerusalem Forest! So we went to the shuk anyway, and got our picnic dinner of pitas, eggplant, tuna, burekas, and some fruit. Then we walked over to the bus station to find a bus that would take us towards Ein Karem or Yad Vashem but we ended up taking a cab in order not to waste any time (it was already 5 PM). The driver dropped us off in middle of the forest...

We hiked for about an hour before settling in for dinner. The view was just beautiful- you were always looking out towards the south of Jerusalem. The forest reminded me of Maine so much with all the trees!!! I missed Maine at that point. It was hard to believe that we were even here- hiking in a real forest in Israel! Most people think Israel is all desert with some shrubbery here and there but... not a real forest. Actually, JNF (Jewish National Fund) was responsible for making Israel green with all the tree planting. The 1950's saw a lot of that (see the movie Sala Shabbati)

We found an old wine press- thanks to Rebecca the Archeaologist! Rebecca and Meredith explored a cave and found evidence that someone had slept there. That creeped both of them. We had considered just camping out in the forest for the night since we were supposed to spend overnight somewhere in the Dead Sea. Meredith was all picky about what kind of ground she wanted to sleep on but I told them that I'm kind of afraid of the dark in a forest and don't really want to do it. I was sure that it'd be lots of fun just getting away from the apartment with friends but not in a forest.

So we stopped for dinner- found a picnic table. We watch the sun set- it was beautiful!!! We decided that this was just as good as going down to Masada and the Dead Sea- only without the costs and just enjoying the hiking. It didn't even really feel like we were in Jerusalem since Jerusalem generally was visualized with the Old City.

Afterwards, we hiked about 30-45 minutes on this road. We didn't know where we were or going so we just followed a road up the hill, figuring that it had to lead us to somewhere. We all had our flashlights since there was basically no light exept on the other side of the valley, where the residential area was. We were very surprised to be walking past, below, Yad Vashem!!! It was a bit fightening to see the museum looming over me.

We managed to catch the bus. I joked with Rebecca that if she ever wanted to hike, all she'd have to do is catch a bus to Yad Vashem and just walk back down that road instead of taking a cab!!

Upon returning to the apartment, exhausted, we all took refreshing showers. Then the three of us just chilled while the other Meredith and Danielle went out to party in the city. The two planned, with their friends, to stay up until the sunrise since Israelis party so late. They never did- they collapsed by 3:15. So anyway, Meredith, Rebecca, and I played cards for nearly 2 hours until 1 AM. We felt pretty high... I think just a little excited to be awake on a Thursday night of being sleepy and I had forgotten how much I love just being AWAKE in the middle of the night, like the rest of the world is sleeping, you know?