Israel's National Trail and I are on a break

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HP (hiking partner): "it's great, sweating like this so early in the day"
ME (glaring, angry) : "NO!! It’s not GREAT. I have a different definition to what GREAT is."


This dialogue took place at 6.30 AM. We were already about one hour into that day’s hike, climbing Mount Carmel (once again the Israeli mountains are hills) not that far from Haifa.
From this point and on it became worst: I just couldn’t stand this day. The heat and humidity got to me. The only thing on my mind was: “if it was 6 weeks ago, it would have been great. If it was 6 days ago, it would have been better, if I wasn’t carrying 6 kg of luggage on my back it would have been better, if I was 6 years younger….” I don’t know what had driven this “6” theme. All I knew was that: I just can’t continue this day. Now, what to should I do?
HP (on a second thought, it's also his initials) had continued walking like it was some type of fun. as if it was spring time. He was leading our tiny group, with a “what a lovely day” grin. I just hated everything. I’ve followed him, cursing everything. Myself for hiking, him for enjoying it, the trees for being there, the birds for singing, the stones for being there, the sun, the summer, etc...
From a distance, I’ve heard morning traffic. The trucks, the cars, thinking: “I wanna be there!! In one of those vehicles. I wanna have Air-condition and get this day over with”.

As you can understand, I wasn’t having fun. And loyal to my decision - if I'm not enjoying something - I don’t do it. I wanted to quit. I didn’t know how HP is gonna accept it - seems like he didn’t suffer from the heat as I did, I wanted to believe it’s a short heat wave, yet, it wasn’t even 8 am and I already hated everything.
We’ve made it to Isfiya , a Druze city in the Carmel. I ate some icecream, trying to lower my body temperature and gain my spirit, thinking, maybe, if we will take this day off I would be able to continue tomorrow (knowing that ‘tomorrow’ was suppose to be the pick of the heat wave) but- it didn’t work. I became more and more snappy and edgy, trying to control it for HP so he’ll continue thinking I’m a nice positive person, as I’ve deluded him to believe.
It didn’t work. I’ve called it off and we got on the first bus back to TLV. A cold shower and an air condition did the work and got me smiling again, planning on rehiking in late October…

In total we have hiked 180 km in 10 days. We have met some amazing people who’ve opened up their homes, life and hearts for us, inviting us for a drink, dinner, and to spend the night, some of them weren’t even home, leaving us the key, without meeting us. Ever. It was amazing, for both of us, to meet a different type of Israelis. Not only the aggressive rude people we meet on every day's life, but people who’ll say: “I leave you my flat, enjoy it”, “there’s food in the fridge. Take whatever you feel like; come over for dinner, etc.
I Can’t wait to go hiking again, and for the summer to be over!!

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