Ya, this little guy was so cute, who could resist a picture???
I love, love, love Israel. It's beyond gorgeous. It's breathtakingly beautiful. Even when it's overcast and blah, it's still GORGEOUS! I can't get enough of it. I loved going touring with Tami from Nof Tours. You may remember we used her on our last time. She is fun and spunky and overall very knowledgeable about Israel. She has a lot of energy and it's obvious she loves what she does. Traveling with me and Tami was my favorite daughter in law Zahava. (OK, so she's my only daughter in law to date. But she's still my favorite and I love her dearly. She's sweet inside and out and I'm so blessed to have her as part of my family.)
The first stop was Mt. Arbel. Now granted it's been a year, but I think we spur of the moment added it, because looking back at my itinerary from last year, it's not even on it. I think Tami just asked me if we wanted to do it. We had spoken about it two years previously, so I was like, ya, sure, let's do it! My head has a lot of great ideas, but my body isn't always on board with it. LOL.
Notice the snow capped mountain in the background? I kept trying to get pictures of it to show my husband - See! There is snow in Israel!
Let me tell you, this "easy to moderate" hike was a little more than I bargained for. Especially since back in 1999 I made an interesting discovery when we went to visit Yossi's donor in Colorado. He took us to the Royal Gorge, and you walk out in the middle of this huge grand canyon type hole and woah! Guess who found out she suddenly has a fear of heights? Yup! Me! Never had it before, and now it's followed me around. So here we are on top of this mountain and Tami and Zahava are patiently waiting for old me who is scared she's gonna fall off the side of the mountain, which thankfully didn't happen.
Didn't I tell you it was gorgeous?
After we finished Mt. Arbel, we headed to the Banias. Now this was my third attempt at going there. Since I am so laid back and have no idea of time, we got there very close to closing time. I still really wanted to see Nimrod's Fortress, so basically, we did the "Niagara Falls" version of the Banias waterfall. For those of you who don't know the story, when I was pregnant with Chanie, we went to Toronto. On our way back to the US, we stopped at Niagara Falls. We literally made a thirty second stop there ... I rolled down the window as we drove by ... we didn't even stop the car to get out. Ever since then, something that is a super fast trip is a Niagara Falls version.
So we get to the park, and we were almost running to get to the water fall. Truthfully, it's was probably gorgeous, but I was so intent on getting through it and getting to Nimrod's Fortress that we probably spent all of maybe 3 minutes there.
Sorry I didn't get the best pictures. There was a mist and I was scared my camera or phone would get ruined.
The hike normally takes a leisurely half hour to 45 minutes. We did it in under 15 minutes. LOL.
Then off to Nimrod's Fortress. Which interesting enough, isn't actually Nimrod's Fortress. Like a lot of places in Israel, I'm guessing someone called it this and the name sorta stuck? It's some really cool fortress that I have no idea why, but I loved exploring it. I was thoroughly exhausted and still, I pushed myself on to walk around see it. I do have to rate it up high on one of the really cool places I went and I would so do it again.
After that, we went to Tzefat for sunset and dinner, and then back to Jerusalem.
As a side note -- NEVER EVER EVER PLAN THREE HIKES IN ONE DAY when you are out of shape. I found muscles I didn't know were on me the next few days. The next day I was soooo sore. Going up and down the steps the second day after on Shabbos was so hard! While I was trying to cram in as much as possible, I do think maybe I over did it, although, in hind sight, it was good I did do it because my trip did get cut short.
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