On Tuesday, September 29th, eight of us set out on our adventure from Tiberias around noon. Kelsey and I started a little later than the rest of the group because we arrived in Tiberias a bit late, but we were able to catch up with everyone down the road. For most of the first day, we walked on Highway 90 heading south. We thought that there were trails that went along the water, but we found that we would be walking along the highway most of the time. On the first day, the road stayed very close to the lake and was quite enjoyable. After we looped around the southern point of the lake, we found a bike trail heading north alongside a couple of kibbutzim. Our group naturally maintained formations that mimicked the cyclist teams in the Tour de France as we hiked. We even started to call our hike the “Tour de Kinneret.” Just before sundown, we found a campground just north of the En Gev Kibbutz. The campground had a lovely, rocky beach that was directly across the lake from Tiberias and Arbel. The sunset over the lake was beautiful and winds sweeping over the water were breathtaking. Everyone was exhausted and went to sleep shortly after the sunset. The first day was wonderfully filled with marvelous views and great conversation.
The next morning, we woke up with the sun, doubled our socks in attempt to relieve some of the pain from our blisters, and set out north on Highway 92. The first couple of hours were fine. We were going at a good pace and the heat wasn't too bad even though we lacked shade. We stopped at a beach for a quick swim break and then continued on the highway. That's when things started to get rough.
From then on, we were walking on highway. The further north we went, the further the road moved away from the lake. Throughout the day we saw little more than kibbutzim, tour buses and asphalt...infinite asphalt. It was getting really hot, and there was absolutely no shade. In addition to that, everyone was started to get exhausted and our feet were throbbing.
We finally made it to the junction of highway 92 and highway 87, which headed southwest to Tiberias. We had a choice. There was a restaurant near the intersection. We could eat there or keep going several more kilometers to a nearby beach. We were tired and low on water, so we
decided to stop at the restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but most of us just bought a drink and ate the granola and fruit we brought with us. Our leader, Ben, decided to keep walking and find something else to eat further down the road. That was the last time we saw him before we made it back to Haifa. That story will come later. :)
The stretch after the restaurant was even worse than the earlier part of the day. We were still on the highway, and though we could see the lake in the distance, it still was very far. For the most part, we could handle the weight of our backpacks, the fatigue, and the heat, but blisters were unbearable. Our “Tour de Kinneret” formation had mostly dissipated. Kelsey was wearing Converses and had some of the worst blisters in the group. She eventually decided to take a sherut (shared taxi) to a beach up road to give her feet a break. The remaining six of us finally crossed the Jordan River and had a brief moment of celebration. Not too long after that, Kate and Madison decided to catch a sherut to Tiberias and go back to Haifa. I don't blame them. It was getting really difficult. Ben was near Migdal when he heard that Kate and Madison were going back to Haifa. He misunderstood and thought that all of us were going back to Haifa, so he found a sherut and went back too. Later, we found out that he went most of the way to Tiberias without finding food. It's nice that we can look back on these things and laugh. :)
So only four of us kept on hiking. Our morale picked up as the road finally came closer to the lake. We were pretty exhausted though and were talking about stopping for the night once we made it to where Kelsey was. One problem though... we couldn't find Kelsey! We planned to meet Kelsey at a beach that was on our map, but we never saw a sign for it. In addition to this, we realized that we were all running out of water. Seriously running out of water. I am pretty sure we had less than 12 ounces of water left between the four of us. We kept walking and walking and never saw the beach. Since we couldn't find the beach or any other landmark, we weren't sure where we were or when we would find water.
Finally, we made it to the Orthodox Capernaum site. It was such a blessing. The site was pretty much abandoned, but shortly after we arrived a man who knew English pulled up in a truck. He lived near by and just happened to come there to go on a walk. He told us there was a campground several kilometers further, but said we were crazy for hiking all this way. :) He began his walk and we went down to the site to find water.
Things were much better. We had directions and water, but we still didn't know where Kelsey was. We decided to just keep hiking. Once we found somewhere to stay for the night, Kelsey could meet us there.
From the Orthodox Capernaum site, there was a cobblestone trail that headed east through the other Christians sites. We were so grateful to walk on something other than asphalt! As the sun began to descend, we periodically were able to walk in shade. We walked for about an hour on this trail passing the Roman Catholic Capernaum as well as. We called Kelsey and found out that she was at a beach called Hakuk. Apparently, the sherut driver didn't know the beach we planned on meeting her at, so instead he dropped her off at this beach. She told us that there was a place to camp there as well as swim. On the trail, we bumped into the man who had given us directions, and he informed us that the Hakuk beach was still several kilometers away and once again assured us we were crazy for hiking there. We were still very encouraged. We knew where Kelsey was, we knew where we could sleep, and we knew we could get there before nightfall.
Eventually, we made it to the final stretch... Mount of the Beatitudes and finally Tabgha. We didn't stop at any of the sites. By this point, we were all exhausted and just focused on making it to the beach and campground where Kelsey was. It became harder and harder to keep going after after each break. When we would start going again our muscles and feet would scream until we walked enough for them to go numb. So, we stopped having breaks. We just kept walking.
As we were passing Tabgha, we saw our friend again. He had finished his walk and was driving back to his Moshav (a type of communal neighborhood). He offered us a ride to the beach. We stood in the road for what seemed like several minutes debating what to do. We were so exhausted. The sun was sinking down below the hills. We still had several kilometers to walk, but we had come so far on our own that we didn't want to give up now. The man told once again told us we were crazy and warned us that most of the way left was uphill. We eventually let go of our pride and took the offer. It was such a blessing!!! We jumped in his truck and quickly discovered that he was very right. The road wound up the side of a sleep mountain, and we would have had to walk along the road's very narrow shoulder. We all agreed it would have been miserable to hike and were so grateful for the ride. There was no way we could have made it to the beach by sun down, and I don't think any of us had the strength to make it up the hill. We thanked our friend dozens and dozens of times for his kindness.
As soon as we entered the campground, we saw Kelsey hanging out with a couple of soldiers. They were there preparing a cookout for a group of soldiers that evening. Kelsey had been waiting there for several hours and had become friends with them. When we arrived, the soldiers offered us cold sodas. We couldn't resist. We gladly took the cold, sugary drinks, laid down our heavy backpacks, and collapsed on the ground. We gently removed our shoes and peeled off our layered socks. Our feet were awful. Simon's feet were actually bleeding. He said didn't mind too much because he couldn't feel them. He even took photos of them. I couldn't bear it. We stayed there for a while practically incapable of moving. As we reflected on the day, we agreed that we were made it that far on nothing but God's strength and pure adrenaline.
We decided to go for a victory swim in the Kinneret as the sun was setting. It took a while for us to slowly get up, change, and hobble our way to the beach. It was worth it though. Our campground just had a rocky natural beach but the hostel next door had a nice sandy shore. So, we crossed over to their beach and enjoyed a nice swim in the shallow water as the sun descended behind the hills. It was lovely.
The rest of the evening was hilarious. We were all so exhausted that everything was funny. Everything. There are so many little stories from the evening; however, I know I would inevitably just end each story with “you just had to be there,” so I'll spare you.
As we walked back to the campground, we could smell the soldiers' food on the grill, and we were so jealous. The five of us gathered around our picnic table and shared what was left of our food. Our small feast consisted of fruit, bread, hummus, and granola. It was good, but the whole time we kept eyeing the soldiers' food. When the group of soldier's arrived we realized that they were all young. (All Israelis have to go into the army when they are 18. These soldier's couldn't have been much older than that.) We also noticed that there were only 30 to 40 of them, and we were pretty sure we had seen enough food for at least 50 to 60 people. So, we were hopeful that they would have leftovers.
We ate our food very slowly. We kept waiting and hoping the soldiers would bring leftovers to us. We waited and waited until we were practically hysterical, and finally Kelsey stepped up and offered to go ask (beg) them for food. She is our hero. We tried to inconspicuously watch from a distance, but I am sure we looked pretty pathetic to them. She eventually returned with grape juice and said they were going to bring us some things in a minute.
We anxiously waited in anticipation, and finally we saw them coming. Several soldiers were bringing us armfuls of food! We were overwhelmed. They brought us 10 pounds of seasoned chicken, about 100 hotdogs, a kilo of hummus, five loaves of bread, tomatoes, and several containers of tahini and other spreads. It was way too much food! We told them we only wanted some and offered to pay for it, but they insisted we just take it. They apparently were planning on throwing out what they didn't use. It was wonderful, but there was one downside. None of the meat was cooked. The soldiers had brought their own grill, but were preparing to leave, so we had to cook it ourselves.
We scouted out a fire pit and filled it with charcoal they had also given us. We soaked it in lighter fluid and waited for the coals to get hot, but really wasn't working. Eventually, the soldiers added their hot coals to our burnpit before leaving. Finally, it was warm enough to cook the chicken. Our next delima was how to cook the chicken. The burnpit didn't have a grill and the sides were pretty high. We decided it was best to make kebabs and searched the campground for useful items. We were able to find sticks and (probably used) wooden skewers on the ground. Christina also found a old “gate” behind the bathhouse. It was perfect. It's difficult to describe what we did so there is a picture below to illustrate. Basically, we laid the gate across the top of the burnpit, put the chicken on the skewers, and strategically laid the skewers on the gate. It took awhile for the chicken to cook because it was so far from the coals, but it was quite a success! It was great! We didn't even cook the hotdogs and gave all the extra food to the man who owned the campground.
We happily fell asleep with full stomachs on soft green grass beneath a cluster of palm tress. We were so tired and content that we didn't even care about the loud party at the hostel next door or the strange girls who were also at the campground.
We peacefully slept for a couple of hours, but then there was another unexpected surprise. RAIN. I laid in my sleeping bag for several minutes trying to figure out if I was dreaming. As my sleeping bag became cold and soggy, I was finally convinced. It was in fact raining. It still seemed like a dream. This was only the second time I had seen or felt rain since I arrived in Israel. It had only rained once before in Haifa for about 10 minutes. Furthermore, the weather forecast said nothing about rain. I was amazed. I looked around and everyone else was still asleep or intentionally ignoring it. We didn't bring a tent and all of our stuff was laying out on the picnic table. I got up and rescued the map, put our shoes under the table, and put away other valuables. It wasn't raining hard though, so I crawled back into my sleeping back and prayed it would stop. It did stop, but only for about 5 minutes and then it rained harder. By then, everyone was awake, and we took our sleeping bags to a covered area by the bathhouse. We went to sleep on the hard cement. I woke up in the morning to find that I was the only one still there. Everyone else moved back to the grass when the rain stopped. I probably would have done this too, but I slept the rest of the night without waking up even once.
As the sun rose, we all slowly crawled out of our sleeping bags and started to pack up. We ate breakfast, tended to our blisters, and prepared to go back to the road to continue the hike on highway 90. Shortly before leaving, the campground owner arrived, and we asked him to take our photo. He told us that we could hike along the water for a while and then go to back to the highway to go the rest of the way to Tiberias. We were thrilled. We were all dreading walking on the road again. We had been told that the rest of the highway to Tiberias was hilly and veered away from the water again. We were also warned that the road had a very narrow shoulder for walking. We were so excited to be able to walk along the water!
The hike was glorious! It was how we had hoped the whole trip had been. We hiked directly on the shoreline, occasionally making our way through tall grasses, cattails, and reeds. Sometimes it was rocky, but most of it was soft dirt and sand which was much more comfortable for our feet than asphalt. For the first couple of hours, we hiked with a gorgeous view of the Cliffs of Arbel and Tiberias. We were so excited and encouraged to come closer and closer to Tiberias. I think I know now how Dorothy and the gang felt when they approach the Emerald City. Everything was so beautiful that we could care less about how tired we were!
It is important to note that we hiked through places we probably shouldn't have been. We did cross through public beaches, but most of the land did seem to belong to private owners, kibbutzim, and Christian sites. I must admit that we did climb to rock walls along the way that we later realize were at Ginosaur. We weren't intrusive though. We just kept to ourselves and moved quickly. We decided that we would keep going along the water until someone stopped us and if they did, we would gladly ask how to get to the road. Fortunately, no one ever stopped us. It's amazing they didn't. We saw plenty of people, boats, and docks, but no one even asked who we were. It was such a blessing.
Being able to hike most of the day by the water was incredible. Eventually we ran out of beach and came to highway 90 again which would take us into Tiberias. We decided to take a quick swim break before continuing. We talked to some workers at the beach's campground, and they told us we could walk a while on a utility trail parallel to the highway. We were reluctant to do this because there were several signs staying “Do not walk here” in English, but we still went. It was so nice. We were able to avoid a couple of kilometers of inclined road by walking on this on level path. Eventually, the trail ended at a electric place and we were forced to climb a fence/wall and make our way up to road. It was still worth it.
Once we were on the road, we could see buildings on the mountain that were the outskirts of Tiberias. We still had several kilometers of road ahead of us. We were in the sun without shade. We knew we were all on the brink of exhaustion. We knew this was the final stretch. We just kept walking and didn't stop.
Finally, several kilometers down the road, we saw the official “Tiberias” sign. We were thrilled but were too tired to celebrate then. We walked a a couple more kilometers and stop to rest for a couple of minutes in the shade. We knew we were in Tiberias, but our adventure was not over yet. We still had to find somewhere to get ice cream. That would mark the end.
We walked toward the bus station and found an ice cream place. We sat there for an hour our so enjoying our delicious rewards and reflecting on the adventure. We were still in a state of shock. We were too exhausted to fully grasp the fact that we had hiked around the Kinneret. The Sea of Galilee! It hard to look out over the water and think I was over or near that landmark within the past 48 hours, and I walked all the way to here. We had in fact completed the journey in about 48 hours. We left Tiberias around noon on September 28th, and we arrived at the ice cream place around 1 pm on Thursday, October 1st. The circumference on the Kinneret is about 53 kilometers (33 miles). The highway route around the lake is about 66 kilometers (41 miles). We easily had hiked about 60 kilometers (37 miles). It all seemed like a dream.
As mentioned before, none of us were prepared for what this adventure would hold. I didn't know what to expect. I have been to the Galilee before and have visited some of the Christian sites, but I knew it would be so different to experience it on foot. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hike along the Sea of Galilee! What could be better than to explore the some of the land where Jesus did much of His ministry with wonderful friends? However, I did fear that my expectations for the trip could hinder hearing what God wanted to teach me there. As we hiked, I prayed that God would open my eyes to what He wanted me to learn. Throughout the whole trip, God kept reminding me of how much He loves and cares for us. He was with us the whole way and provided for our needs in abundance. It was a beautiful and humbling experience.
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