On Friday morning five friends and I decided to be adventurous and go camping in the Kineret for the weekend. We went to the Arlozorov bus station and as we were looking for the right bus Shayna saw a Monit Sheirut (literally, a shared taxi) headed to T'veria. They had just enough seats for the six of us as they already had six other passengers ready to roll in the 12 person van. The driver shouted "Bo'u, Bo'u" (come, come!) and shuffled us into the van. He told us it would be less than a two hour drive, an hour less than the bus would take. It only cost 40 shekels, about 15 dollars. Everything was going smoothly until about an hour into the journey we were all jolted awake to what seemed like the engine breaking. We were in the middle of the highway. The driver stopped the van (it was a stick shift and he couldn't change the gears) and said "hevreh, hachutzah!" (friends, to outside!) Mostly everyone from the van went outside and pushed the car from the middle of the highway to the shoulder. This was a little scary. We sat in the car sweating for a few minutes, and suddenly a new Sheirut headed to Tveria pulled up to save the day and we all transferred to that one. Slight problem-there was already someone in that sheirut, so Shayna had to sit on the floor in the middle between/on top of all the tents and backpacks and groceries.
That Sheirut driver eventually brought us to a campsite he recommended, right on the shore of the Kineret. We spent the rest of the day setting up the tents, making a fire, and cooking. It was a really beautiful campsite, right between steep green mountains with sheep (steep because of the Syrian African Rift, as I learned in my environment class this week) and the beautiful Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake. We ended up cooking a really delish mix of veggies and roasting hot dogs, which some of my impatient friends ate raw (Mark). After making s'mores, a lot of people started showing up to our campsite. Mostly groups of Arabs and one or two Israeli groups came to party at our campsite. They were all blasting very very loud music out of the subwoofers in their trunks. This was fun/funny for the first half hour, but we were all pretty disappointed that we came so far to be in the wilderness and we felt like we were in a club. We tried to go to sleep, although we all felt a little unsafe and couldn't sleep until about four in the morning when the groups quieted down. Oh well.
On Saturday we rented bikes from a hostel in the area and rode them around the Kineret. Once out of T'veria, it was a beautiful scenic ride right along the shore of the lake. The mountains were covered in dandelions and there were millions of colors all around us. Some of the hills were challenging, which made the ride even better. A highlight was passing huge fields of banana trees, where I thought of my dad picking bananas at four in the morning when he lived on a Kibbutz in the north. We stopped for lunch at what seemed like an abandoned campsite, and our peanut butter sandwiches, corn and trail mix were delicious. We dined that night in T'veria where I ate their famous St. Peter's fish. It was yum, especially because the waiter offered to cut off the head so Pete wasn't staring at me while I ate him. Later, we explored a bit and found a very quiet campsite away from the city and all its lights. It was a really special night, and a relaxing trip in the middle of Israel's wonderful nature. :)
That Sheirut driver eventually brought us to a campsite he recommended, right on the shore of the Kineret. We spent the rest of the day setting up the tents, making a fire, and cooking. It was a really beautiful campsite, right between steep green mountains with sheep (steep because of the Syrian African Rift, as I learned in my environment class this week) and the beautiful Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake. We ended up cooking a really delish mix of veggies and roasting hot dogs, which some of my impatient friends ate raw (Mark). After making s'mores, a lot of people started showing up to our campsite. Mostly groups of Arabs and one or two Israeli groups came to party at our campsite. They were all blasting very very loud music out of the subwoofers in their trunks. This was fun/funny for the first half hour, but we were all pretty disappointed that we came so far to be in the wilderness and we felt like we were in a club. We tried to go to sleep, although we all felt a little unsafe and couldn't sleep until about four in the morning when the groups quieted down. Oh well.
On Saturday we rented bikes from a hostel in the area and rode them around the Kineret. Once out of T'veria, it was a beautiful scenic ride right along the shore of the lake. The mountains were covered in dandelions and there were millions of colors all around us. Some of the hills were challenging, which made the ride even better. A highlight was passing huge fields of banana trees, where I thought of my dad picking bananas at four in the morning when he lived on a Kibbutz in the north. We stopped for lunch at what seemed like an abandoned campsite, and our peanut butter sandwiches, corn and trail mix were delicious. We dined that night in T'veria where I ate their famous St. Peter's fish. It was yum, especially because the waiter offered to cut off the head so Pete wasn't staring at me while I ate him. Later, we explored a bit and found a very quiet campsite away from the city and all its lights. It was a really special night, and a relaxing trip in the middle of Israel's wonderful nature. :)
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