Touring Eretz Yisrael: War Sightseeing, Hiking and Taking It Easy

We have returned from a few days of tiyuling up north. We actually camped out in tents on the grass by the shores of the Kinneret for 3 nights. We have never camped for so many nights in a row previously, so this was an real camping experience. I must say I saw more now than previously how much of an Israeli experience camping is. People who easily could have gone to a hotel or a tzimmer (bungalow) were there on the campsites in tents, and groups of teens who just as easily could have spent their money, or their parents money the same way they borrowed their parents cars and SUVs, on a tzimmer, were there camping.

People like my tiyul posts because it gives them ideas for their own tiyulim, so here goes:

Day 1:

Tuesday we scheduled to spend on the western coast, as we would have to be there later in the day for something specific. So, we toured the grottos, or in hebrew the nikrot, of Rosh HaNikra. The grottos are a beautiful site, where the seawater pounded the walls of the mountain and formed a series of tunnels, caves and inlets. You go down by cable car with views of the shoreline, and then tour the grottos and watch a movie explaining it. Rosh Hanikra is the northwestern edge of Israel and is along the border with Lebanon.

Israel's coast, viewed from the top of Rosh Hanikra

We bought a ticket combined with the museum in Akko, so went a bit further south to tour the museum when we finished in Rosh Hanikra. On the way we stopped in Nahariya for pizza. Nahariya is a very nice small town, but it had a lot of traffic during mid-day.

The museum in Akko was nothing to write home about. It was interesting, but not very exciting. And it was very hot. the best part of Akko was being next to the shore and seeing the pounding waves against the walls.

We finished the day with a short stop at a quiet beach in Nahariya next to the site of Eli Avivi's Achzivland (a country Eli Avivi formed when trying to secede from Israel). It was actually from this very spot that we began our "Yam l'Yam Extreme" hike a few months ago.

We drove back to the Kinneret finishing the day at the campsite with a barbecue. The meat we brought along in the cooler survived pretty well. We had to buy bags of ice each day to keep everything cool, but everything survived.

Day 2:

Wednesday morning it was nice to wake up and go for an early dip in the Kinneret. After davening and eating breakfast, we headed out for the Wednesday trips. For Wednesday we planned to hike Nachal Iyyoun (I think that is how they spelled it), which is a very good hike for a family with little kids. Nachal Iyyoun starts in Metula, next to the Lebanese border and is a mostly downhill hike on an easy trail. Nachal Iyyoun has three waterfalls along the trail, with the main waterfall being Mapal HaTanur.

Nachal Iyyoun triple waterfall

When I did this tiyul 20 years ago you could go into the waterfalls and cool off with a swim. Nowadays they officially prohibit swimming by the waterfall pools. We were able to sit along the edge and put our feet in and cool off with a snack, and technically nobody was there  ( just a sign) stopping anyone from actually going in.

The last waterfall of iyyoun, Mapal HaTanur, had a platform built across from the falls preventing people form going into the water, so we were able to sit there and enjoy the falls and the slight breeze and spray from the falls.

As we finished Nachal Iyyoun, the trail near the end took us by some raspberry bushes, with a few that were ripe, which I picked and ate. At the end of the hike they had a couple of pools of water diverted off from the waterfalls streams to sit in and cool off.

cool salsa stairs in the Nachal Iyyoun hike

Nachal Iyyoun is a hike that can be done either as a short hike or a long hike. The short hike starts at the end of Iyyoun, just south of Metula and just goes on the trail to Mapal Tanur and back, estimated to take about half an hour. The long hike starts at the top in Metula, and takes about an hour and a half. To do the long hike it is preferable if possible to have 2 cars, one to leave at the end and one to take to the beginning of the trail. Without two cars, someone would have to hike, or hitchhike, back to the top in the heat after finishing the tiyul in order to get the car.

the craziest part is that they actually had to make a sign telling people not to walk on the pipe. the drop is probably over 100 feet

this cool frog, hard to spot, was spotted near the raspberry bushes. he jumped when I tried to grab him

After Iyyoun we drove around Metula. We wanted to go to the "Good Fence" on the border with Lebanon, but found out that it is no longer accessible as it is now within a closed military zone. We went to the Dado Viewpoint which gave us a beautiful view of the area, from Lebanon all the way down deep into Israel.

After Metula, we drove down to Kfar Blum for kayaking, which is always fun. The little kids were scared when we got splashed by other kayaks, but overall kayaking is always a great event in the hot summer. the water was ice cold and the flow was pretty quick. The Jordan River was much higher than i remember form previous years.

After kayaking we debated whether to go back to the campsite for an early evening with dinner and swimming in the Kinneret or to do som "Tayarut Milchama" - war sightseeing. The warfreaks won out and we decided to drive out to the border with Syria. We chose the area of Baqaata, a Druze village just south of Majdal A-Shames, near the northeastern side of the Golan. We chose Baqaata because from what I had understood that was the prime place to be able to actually hear or even see some of the war in Syria.

Driving through Baqaata was an experience. the place is filthy, with sewage running in the streets.  That was surprising  because many of the houses were fairly large, and there were a lot of expensive cars in the town. It looked like an affluent town with poor living conditions.

We drove through Baqaata out into the fields to the east and had a great view into Syria. We followed the roads up towards Har Vered and found a high place to stop and look around. We were not going to get any better view than that unless we went to the top of the Hermon. It seemed pretty serene. We did not hear the sounds of war in the distance and we saw nothing exciting, even with binoculars. I guess Assad was busy killing his people in other parts of his country that day.

  
We finished the day with a late return to the campsite and a light dinner. We actually then had to go into Tiberias for something important that came up at the last minute, and that is always difficult this time of year. It is difficult to find parking, traffic is bad, and it is a pain in the neck. What made it even worse was getting stuck behind a chefetz chashud and what should have been 25-30 minute trip ended up costing close to 2 hours.

Day 3:

For Thursday we had scheduled some morning Kinneret time, along with the Meshushim Pools hike and the Majrassa water hike.

Somehow the Meshushim has been an elusive hike for us. We keep planning it in our itinerary but have yet to actually hike it. For some reason it keeps getting cut out at the last minute. We thought this year would finally be the year, but, alas, it was not meant to be. Everybody was a bit irritable on Thursday morning, and a bit worn out. We decided to take it easy and relax before heading home, and we cancelled all our hikes. Once again, no Meshushim for us (we have done the Majrassa in the past).

We went swimming in the Kinneret and relaxed. Eventually we packed up our stuff at a pretty relaxed pace. We decided that we would leave and go to our favorite waterfall spot - Eyn Ayub next to Tabgha. Eyn Ayub is not a hike, but there is a great waterfall. Along highway 87 just east of Kfar Nachum is a sign for Tabgha - it has something to do with the Christians of Kfar Nachum - a monastery or something, I really did not pay attention to that. but right next to it is something with a small sign pointing to the National Park of Kfar Nachum - Eyn Ayub. You can park either alongside the edge of the highway on the other side, or there is a dirt parking lot above the highway, if it is not full.

You cross the highway and go down the stairs and as you approach the Kinneret to your right is a powerful waterfall. This is runoff from the rivers and streams of the Golan and Upper Galilee dumping into the Kinneret.

While we had noticed earlier that the level of the Kinneret is significantly higher than it has been the past few years, here that was very stark. Having been there each of the last 3 years, it was very obvious that the water level was much higher. the edge of the Kinneret actually came up almost to the edge of the pools formed by the waterfalls. Eyn Ayub was crowded, but everybody was pleasant, and people were enjoying cooling off in the powerful waterfall of ice-cold water, and just sitting on the rocks in the water and having a nice time.

After sitting for a couple of hours at Eyn Ayub, we went into Tiberias for lunch and then drove home.

Overall a good vacation, we did not overdo it this year with strenuous hikes. Took it easy and had a nice time. And we came back home just before anybody actually killed a sibling...


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