August 27th

Note:
These last two weeks have been non-stop and I have gotten a little behind real time with my posts. Since Israel in general has slowed down for the holiday I hope to catch up with the posts that I have been meaning to put up. For the orientation period I will have posts for each day since we did so much daily. I cannot guarantee that this will be in the case as things get into a rhythm in the future.


Enjoy!

This morning we woke up nice and early and packed up our bags and the bus before breakfast. In Israel when hiking there is no such thing as too early. The country has been in an almost constant heat warning and we need to be off the trails by 11am, so early mornings are just part of the itinerary. Today the hike was through Ein Gedi, a national park area that has wonderful views and a great ending to the hike. When we arrived at the park we started out with a nice yoga/stretching session to get ready to head out. Then we hit the trail.

As you can see it was a bright day on the trail and we were all reaching for water very quickly. The trail started to wind downward slightly and we were greeted with a wonderful sight, and fun hiking conditions:

A stream! As you may or may not know, Ein Gedi is an oasis in the Judean desert. Located near the Dead Sea this area has 4 springs in it that produce water year round. This area is actually used for bottling water and irrigation. For us though it was just a fun day out in nature. The trail continued through the water for a little way, and we found some interesting obstacles - such as a series of rocks that could be climbed fairly easily by the first 2 or 3 people before our wet shoes made the climb too slick. Team working definitely came into play on this hike, by the time I got to the first rock face there was more lifting than climbing going on. (picture borrowed from Whitney)

In the back of the picture you can see climbers being helped up the first part of this rise. Thank you Whitney for taking a picture that illustrates this!

But we all eventually made it up! The trail continued to rise and soon we were once again up on the hot cliff face. At times were were climbing stairways and hoping for a tree, and other times we could see the water down below us.

Finally though we did reach the end of the trail and our main goal of the day. The true oasis we had been working towards.

Of course we all went swimming in the pool at this point. But soon had to pack up and hike back out of the park.

After a morning of hiking the bus made a stop at a look out point, so that we could have a little information session on Israel with our guide, and a first hand view of the wall that is being built through worrisome areas of the country.

The white stripe through the photograph is where the wall is, flanked on both sides by dirt roads used almost exclusively by the military to patrol the wall.

We all got back onto the bus and headed out for the Kibbutz near Jerusalem we were staying at for Shabbat, Har'el. After a quick rest period and some unpacking we got changed into skirts (well, the females at least) and headed over to the community room where some of our fellow Otzmanikim ran a Friday night service for our first Shabbat in Israel. The perfect ending to a wonderful day.