Off to the North!

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So this last weekend I headed to the north to experience some of great outdoors. Since I've been here at the university studying at the ulpan here, I've had the amazing opportunity to meet fellow students like myself from all over the world. So on this adventure I teamed up with two ladies from Germany (Anne & Aleine) one from Sweden (Corrin) and another from France (Sara). I liked the odds I must say.

The ladies decided to rent a car and we all took off Thursday afternoon. They asked if I would drive and I happily said "yes". As we left the dorms trying to head toward the highway somehow within the second block I got us all lost . . . ha, it was a great way to start the road trip.
Oh my . . . Israelis only follow the "stop at a red-light" law here. Driving in town was crazy! Luckily I managed and adapted quickly to the nonsense of it all.

As we headed north pass the Kineret it became dark and the place we were going to camp out at the road was blocked. We traveled up and down roads looking for a place then we finally found one . . . but as we strolled down the dirt path we came upon a sign stating: Danger . . . FIRE ZONE

So with a little back tracking trying to avoid the numerous military shooting ranges in the area we found a place to camp out. Once we all settle down and laid out the sleeping mats the craziest thing happened. Corrin was walking away from our campsite to throw some trash away then all a sudden sirens started going off . . . we all froze stone cold, I shouted to Corrin' "Turn off your headlamp" and she duck and dropped to the floor, we all followed the same pattern. Then on these loud speakers someone one started shouting in Hebrew over the sounds of the sirens . . . we were like, "oh sh*t, we're being attacked from the north". Cannon blasts started going off in the distance, we all looked at each other and was like . . ."Oh well, what can we do?" Then we figured it was just some night shooting the military was conducting since we were surrounded by firing ranges.

We slept under the stars and watch a meteor shower and in the morning we woke to an amazing view with no one around. We packed up our stuff and headed to the Yehudiya Forest.


If you ever plan on doing the full hike at the Yehudiya Forest reserve, make sure you start early in the morning, no later than 8am, because its common to spend about 8 hours hiking this trail.
Also, its advised that you are good shape/health.

The trail starts off taking you through an abandoned Syrian village and then drops you down the canyon to where the river is. There are two spots where you have to climb down some crazy ladders and then jump into a body of water in order to get to the other side. This can be difficult, especially if you are carrying a bag. All I have to say is that swimming with a bag above your head is not as easy as it might seem - I felt like I was in boot-camp.

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Photos

Driving
Driver: Hoops
Navigator: Aleine

Fire Zone
We figured we shouldn't camp here once we saw this.

Yehudiya Falls
The first drop off

The Crew
(Right to left in photo)
Sara, Anne, Aleine, Corrin and Hoop.