The Start of the Trip

Friday: We woke up to our first beautiful view of the kibbutz. While we had a little trouble navigating to breakfast through the winding paths and beautiful nature of the kibbutz, we enjoyed a breakfast buffet of veggies, toasted breads, and cereal.

We then headed to a mountain in the Golan Heights, and hiked across streams and down steep rocky paths. There were beautiful views and flowering vegetation.

At the bottom we came to a beautiful, refreshing waterfall and went in for a swim. We were able to take our first group picture in the water, which was very exciting. 

We then trekked up to the bus on a short and sweet climb up broken rocks that served as a natural staircase. It was beautiful.

We arrived for lunch at a shopping area in katzerin. The first restaurant on the strip was excited to see the bus load come in and they were happy to serve us felafel, shwarma, and schnitzel. Not everyone ate there though. There were other restaurants for hummus and a small shopping mall too.

We then drove to the top of Mt. Bental where we spoke about the conflict in Syria and our responsibilities as Jews and Israelis in resolving this conflict. One of the biggest challenges between Israel and its neighbors is trust. We were able to both see the cease fire line and hear rockets in Syria but we felt perfectly safe on the top of the mountain with the UN soldiers standing by watching from their large binoculars.

While our schedules said kayaking, we arrived at what we would call rafting. We splashed, crashed, paddled, and floated our way down the Hatzbani River into the Jordan River, which was not as wide as we expected it to be, at least where we were.

We passed families having dinner in the water on the banks of the river and kids diving into the water from swings. There was one small rapid to add to the beautiful hour and a half lazy river-esque trip down stream. We learned that there are only four working kibbutzim in Israel, where everyone who lives there works on the kibbutz and shares everything. Now most of the kibbutzim are used for housing families (people now work outside of the kibbutz) and tourists (as hotels like where we are staying). Some still have farms, but they are different from how they were when kibbutzim first began in Israel.

We made it back in time to clean up and welcome Shabbat together. We sang a few prayers and enjoyed dinner together at the kibbutz.

Photo Credits: Header Image-@ctrivelpiece, Image 1-@jmepit, Image 2-@rachelannette8