Blogger Notes

I have just returned from another trip to Israel, at the moment we are doing week long stints and this was my second visit there. We travelled round the country a bit and saw, discovered and experienced lots of strange and interesting things. If you are thinking about taking a trip which involves sight seeing, hiking and people watching, I would like to share some of the things I learnt and some of the things that I am still wondering about.



1. Jerusalem - one of the places which I find the most fascinating in the world. The type of place where you could just stay in one position for hours and hours on end watching the wide variety of people, cultures and religions and just soak up the atmosphere which just seeps history from every pore, no matter which angle you are looking at it from. One question though that I have brought home with me from here is this: When you are at the Wailing Wall and you see all the very Orthodox Jews rushing to pray or to go and study, why oh why do they look so serious and miserable? Surely, for them, they are living the dream, living and learning and praying at the holiest site of the Jewish people. Should they not be skipping around with the hugest smiles all over their faces, rejoicing in their good fortune? Answers would be greatly appreciated as I really cannot work this one out.



2.Hiking - When you begin a hike in 40 degree heat, make sure you take another person with you to carry a rucksack big enough to hold 100 gallons of water. Also make sure you know exactly what the hike involves. It is sometimes a little bit too late when you are half way up a mountain and look down to rediscover your fear of heights. It's also not a great position to be in when the path down looks too scary and the path up takes you higher. Also, who carved all those stairs into the side of the mountain? A nice sloping path would have been much more appreciated but an escalator would have just been wonderful!

3. The Dead Sea - OMG it really works!!! For someone, (me), who does not do water, not because I'm worried about messing my hair up but because I'm not a great swimmer and panic when surrounded by too much water, it was the first time ever in my whole life that I floated. I didn't have to flap around and I could breathe without hyperventilating!! I just lay there and my whole body popped up!! It is something that at some point in life everyone who can't float must do!

3. Long Drives- It's amazing how much water you drink during a 3 hour hike in the heat. A word of advice, short drives are much better to stick to for a while afterwards. So we were driving from the Dead Sea to Tiberius, which was about 2 and a half hours. The guide who drove us decided to take a road where all the settlements are and some Palestinian villages, which was fine. Until not even half way there, the 100 gallons of water that I had drunk on the hike decided it had hydrated my body enough and wanted to leave. Now the road we were driving on is not somewhere you really want to stop, and no, there were no petrol stations, no restaurants, no nothing.

Now, I haven't really led a hugely princess lifestyle, (much), and I have never been in that situation before - becoming one with nature. But it looked like my big moment had arrived! For me it was a matter of pure desperation or our guide having a newly installed swimming pool in his car - now he was totally not happy about having to stop anywhere on this road - but stop he had to. So the nearest place to pull in was the entrance to a Palestinian village. Did I care? No - just get me out the car!!! Was I mortified? Totally! But across a little field I ran, into a gutter, behind a thorn bush, which decided to wrap its long tendrils of the sharpest thorns ever round my body. Then I had to figure out how to do this!! Men - you don't know how easy you have it! As I'm behind my new friend, the thorn bush who now knows me intimately, I hear these two men coming towards me, OMG!!! but those 100 gallons just kept on coming, the guide has rushed out the car, 'hurry up, hurry up!!!' Just not happening. But those voices kept getting closer and closer and enough was enough, so armed with a little less dignity and a whole lot of thorns, I raced back to the car. Only on route did he then tell us that people get kidnapped along this road. My advice, stick to the safe roads with loads of petrol stations and toilets!!!



4. Extreme Excursions - Always note that the word Extreme really does mean extreme. Not fun or exciting but death defyingly extreme! Think of a cave at the top of the highest mountain you can imagine, ok, not Everest high, but you get the jist! Now imagine the roof of the cave has collapsed and all that is left is the arch at the front of the cave. Now imagine you tie a rope to a tree and you are meant to hold onto the rope and leap off a rock and slide down the rope, miles down to the bottom. Then you have to climb back up the mountain along a treacherous path full of narrow ledges and rolling stones. Extreme? I thought so. My advice? If you go splat you're not covered on your life insurance and everyone you leave behind will be destitute. So either tell your life insurance company before hand or just don't do it!! I would go with the 'just don't do it'!

So that's just a little sample of some of my latest experiences. It's taken me a week to recover from a mad, mad week but look at all that I've learnt!!!