On Hiking. And Obama.

I spent the last two Saturdays hiking around the Dead Sea. Both hikes were challenging - one mentally, the other physically.
The first one was south of the Dead Sea. We woke up long before sunrise, threw together our gear and headed east as the sun began to rise. We drove the entire width of Israel, through Jerusalem, through Jericho and on to the border with Jordan. (This takes little more than an hour.) The sunrise was incredible, stretching ribbons of red and orange on both sides of the road. 360 degrees of horizon were rainbowed with color and when the sun finally showed her face, we were driving straight toward its blinding rays.
At edge of the Dead Sea, we turned right, heading south and I fought to stay awake and watch the desert scenary. We passed through the checkpoint just before Ein Gedi, and our of the territories. Soon, Masada was beside us, and we kept on southward until the southern shores of the Dead Sea were in sight. Beyond the sea, we turned east again, and parked among the wadis and foothills of the desert.
We were a group of about 15, and the trail was a 9 km loop up, then down and finally along a river bed.
There were many other hikers and campers around, but the trail wasn't overcrowded. By 9:30 or so we were on our way. It felt great to be outside in the desert, with Jordan and Israel both clearly visible around us. There was an amazing view down to the river below before we scrambled down a steep canyon wall to reach it.

I had been warned in advance that it was a water hike. I wore waterproof hiking sandals and had packed rain gear and quick-dry clothing. At the start of the river bed, it was dry. Here and there were murky, algae-filled pools that could easily be circumnavigated. By this time, it was afternoon, and we were glad to be dry. We figured the water had dried up in the last week and that we could avoid wading after all. As I watched a teenage boy play in the green-tinted pools, I was happy to be dry.
But soon, very soon... the terrain changed. For the next few hours, we, too, had to wade and swim in the festering pools. We would toss our bags across the water, of send them across a rope from one side to the next, but for us, swimming was the only options. The pool bottom was mushy and a deep, foul smelling mud greeted us at the banks of each pool.
I wish I could say I got used to it, but the day was waning and soon I got chilly. With each new pool in sight, I longed for the end and wished to avoid jumping in. Still, it was a new experience, and I'm glad to have had it.
Just before dark, we reached the end of the wedding and took a trail south and back to the car. Stinky and wet, we crawled into the comfort and warmth of sweats and stopped in the West Bank for a feast of hummus and pita during the drive home.

This week's hike, with Hug Elad, was less eventful.

It was beautiful and challenging - physically. Today, I nearly fell out of bed as my legs protested any further use. I was excited that a former Tevanik joined us. We hiked with the "easier" group on both days, which was well worth it for the difficult second day that included over 800 meters in elevation gain.
We hiked north of Ein Gedi, and could see Jerusalem from the 400 meter peak that we summited on the second day. We wove our away south along the Dead Sea and a bit east to the Yehuda Desert. The dunes were gorgeous. Remnants of seas that had covered the terrain thousands of years previous were everywhere - shells and water lines, plateaus and land formations all spoke of the geological history of the area. The quickly diminishing Dead Sea could be similarly observed. With a declining depth of nearly a meter each year, the shoreline is ringed with the watermarks of each previous year. Along the shore are sink holes, also causes by the diminishing water, as a salt later beneath the service collapses abruptly, at times bringing with it cars and even houses.

One shocking site during the trek was the river of black, bubbling and utterly-foul sewage that we had to cross on the first day. Heading down from east Jerusalem and draining into the Dead Sea, for me this black river spoke monuments about some of the differences in facilities given to Arabs and Jews. The sewage was from Arab villages and settlements, and yet, it was littering all of our planet, and the sea in which we swim, as it curled through the canyons and raced toward the Dead Sea. It smelled really, really bad.

The moon was just past full so we watched it set in the early morning and rise a few hours after sunset. We finishes the hike early on the first day and encircled a campfire - all 80 of us - sharing one large pot of soup and songs led by a single guitar. I felt just a little bit like a pioneering kibbutzik under the starry sky and amid the date palms, singing Israel folk songs with people of all ages.