Hiking in the Galilee

Imagine the following:

You sign up for a weekend hiking trip in the northern Galilee with 40 other ulpan students, the majority of whom are somewhat vacuous undergrad students. The beginning of the first day, your throat is scratchy and you have a low-grade headache because of a headcold. Never-the-less, you finish the three-hour hike without too much trouble and make it to the campsite.

Then the waiting begins. For the food to be prepared. For camp to be setup. For the 39 college students to get their act together, which is a little bit like trying to herd cats.

By the time dinner actually starts, your head hurts so bad you can hardly eat. You nibble a bit, then retire early to your sleeping bag, which is basically on a patch of rocks surrounding by a barbed-wire fence -- the Israeli definition of a 'campground'.

Then you writhe around in pain for 45 minutes because of the headache, which is now a full-fledge migraine, before jumping out of your sleeping bag and throwing up all over a bush five times. Nice.

You have a fitful sleep until daybreak, at which time you wake up -- still congested with a sore throat and a headache -- to discover that your Teva walking shoes were apparently close to the pile of vomit, which apparently attracted some little critter who managed to completely gnaw off one of the straps. The strap that actually affixes the shoe to your foot.

If all this were to happen, you actually not feel to bad about bailing on the next day's hike, which turned out to be 12 km over 8 hours in 112 degree heat. That's right, 112 degrees. Two people in my group apparently got sunstroke and barely made it down.

That's what I am told anyway. I spent those eight hours stretched out on the long seat in the back of an air conditioned bus, alternately reading an Isabel Allende book, napping, and getting great Hebrew practice listening to the driver talk about Israeli politics.

All in all, a pretty good day.