Day 58: Nahal Dishon to Ramot Naftali
Day 58, April 26: Short day so I took it slow with plenty of breaks. Dishon one of best wadi hikes I've seen. Met some Israelis hiking north, got some free food, dipped in "jacuzzi" waterfall, talked about New Zealand hiking. Getting hot - worried it may not cool down again. Climbed into Naftali mountains/Galilee panhandle - very nice. But too many bulls roaming the trail. Wish I had Chacos - maybe zip back from Dan to Nazareth to get them and mp3 player which I can only hope I didn't lose? Can see Hula and Golan from here. Looking forward to trail angel room - shower and hopefully internet. Thinking about next trip already. Cheapest would be central Asia so that is most likely. Hike in Nepal then make my way over Western China to Mongolia and chill there for a bit and try to find Genghis Khan's tomb. Thinking about heading from Dan to Nazareth, doing my trips to Akko, Safed, Haifa, then doing part (start and finish) of Golan Trail. I think I could use another breather from all the hiking. Then Meron to the Med and call it a trip. We'll see. Got to Ramot Naftali - room with shower, stove and a bunch of cool Israeli section hikers. 1 1/2 days to go! Just got email - Grandad died on Friday when we were in Wadi Hammam. Can't think about now while lots of strangers around.
I hiked a lot of this day with other hikers I met who told me how great New Zealand was as a travel destination. I still want to go there someday. Apparently it's quite cheap once you get there, but of course getting there costs a fortune. Also, a lot of the best hiking trails are restricted to a certain number of hikers a year and spots are hard to come by.
I stayed in another room at a kibbutz or moshav with the other hikers - this one just another dingy spare house, but I did get internet access on someone's phone. It was really strange to find out about a death in the family around a bunch of strangers speaking a foreign language. They probably would have been really sympathetic if I'd talked about it but I didn't feel comfortable, even though Israelis' self-described reputation as "prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside" is pretty accurate. Luckily, I had already been prepared to hear about Grandad for some time so it could have been a lot worse.