Day 1 - February 19 - An atypical day

The title claims this to an atypical day - the reason for this is that I a "star tour" - meaning I started in the kibbutz and ended in the same kibbutz. This was as planned - the owner of the bike shop, the neighbor, accompanied me on this ride, along with a buddy of his. The destination was one of the highest points in the country - on the Golan Heights, to Mount Hermon. The weight of my two companions was less than mine and they were real racers - while it was not a competition, they were about three times faster than me, especially when going uphill.

We soon left the kibbutz and were heading first east, then north, towards a skiing resort. So, I could write hours - for the two athletes, the 33 km-long ride was easy-cheesy, for me, it was quite a different story. You see, there is an ascent of close to 1900 meters, including a descent of 300 meters - at times, I had an incline of up to 15%. As the rode kept wearing uphill, it passed a large castle and late on I was riding next to snow, snow - as far as the eye could see.

I reached a park entrance and was asked to pay around €10 - somewhat surprised a biker has to come up with this fee. Then, the last long climb started - I finally reached the skiing area long after my buddies did.

On the summit, I was surprised to see a bustling area, full of families either doing some sort of winter sport or just enjoying the snow - of which there is not much to be seen in the rest of Israel.

My buddy explained that I should have not paid the entrance fee - just should have said I was biking with him. I made a mental note of this to-do for the downhill section.

I spent an hour or so at the top, then it was time for the descent. It was a bit of a hassle, but I succeeded getting the entrance fee back - a nice lady was the manager, she helped me straighten things out. The view from above was quite spectacular onto the valley I had ascended from.

Futher downhill, at the Druze town of Majdal Shams, I had some street food, a sort of a pancake - here I noticed that the country was not going to be a bargain - it was about €10.

I now had all the time in the world - well, more or less. It got back at 5 pm and my bike had no lights - but the long climb was behind me by 3 pm, so had 2 hours to explore. I visited a Muslim religious site, wanted to enter some Roman ruins, but it has closed just a few minutes before I arrived.

The road was located close to the border with Syria, at least some sort of a de-militarized zone (DMZ). There were plenty of signs warning not to cross certain areas - I did not experiment with doing that. Might trip might have ended right there on the first day.

Close to "home", i.e. the kibbutz, was a sign to a helicopter site. I was curious to find out what it was, so rode there and found out this was a memorial for a deadly crash of two military helicopters, where 73 soldiers perished back in 1997.

I was happy to be back at the kibbutz that evening. I had dinner with my relatives, then started packing my small bags for the days ahead of me. I only had a vague plan in mind - my cousin Arik tried to persuade me to stay up north and do only "spike" tours, but I thought it might be interesting crossing the country, or at least part of it. Tensions were high in the West Jordan, so I promised not to worry make my family get all too worried and play it safe, well, as safe as it gets.