Fulbright Tour to the Northern Galilee

Looks like Sonoma County but it is really Northern Israel

Even though I only just arrived in Beer Sheva...it turned out I was just in time to join many of the Fulbright people on a whirlwind 2 day tour of the Upper Galilee.  This just shows you how darn small this country is.  I came from Beer Sheva and met the bus in Tel Aviv.  We drove through Haifa (Hi Mike Garvin!) and toured the North all the way towards the Lebanon and Syrian borders. Back to Beer Sheva the follwoing day.

Our first stop was this most amazing Spice Farm (The Spicy Way Herb and Spice Farm) in the Upper Galilee. I could not help myself and bought enough spices and teas to last me at least 4 months.  They must have had 6 different types of hot paprika.

We visited Kfar Kama near Mt Tavor that is home to about 4000 Circassians who still speak the original language.  The Circassians were great warriers who managed to maintain a 58 cm (~23 inch) waistline (These are the things I seem to remember from tours)...oh and also that when a baby is born after the 9th month, it is strapped into a cradel for a month or two more to maintain the womblike condition (yes there is a hole cut into the cradle for wastes)..  They still do this and find no ill effects. I don't know...something to think about.

A Circassian cat

Drove to Mt Tavor (this has much biblical history) and had lunch in Sejera which was the first Jewish settlement in the lower Galilee. Great food in the house in which Ben Gurion lived as he worked as a farm worker.  The restaurant served only fresh organic food grown in their farm and it was excellent.  Don't have a picture of the food, but you can picture the salads (Vibrant green red and yellow) serves with a pasta with walnuts and sundried tomatoes, and their were lamb kabobs and chicken cut into thin strips in a seseme oil.  The Circassians did not eat here.
Off to the hulu valley to view the annual bird migration,  First you hear them and then you see them and it is truly humbling to be amongst all of these fine cranes, pygmy cormorants, and all sorts of water foul.

So if you look at a map...the yellow marks the border of Israel, you can start to see where we are, The Hulu Valley extends North of the Sea of Galilee (my friend's hand is on the Sea of Galilee).  We will drive further North (Not quite to Metulla; way up on the finger that borders Lebanon) to stay at a Kibbutzim called Kfar Blum. 

Now, I read in the itinerary that we were staying at a Kibbutzim, I pictured bunk beds and early morning chores.  I'd clean the stables for exchange of bed and food. So when we pulled into the Pastoral Kfar Blum Hotel, I was a bit surprised.  Not so much by all of the cats walking around (I am getting used to this) but at the spacious grounds.  My room was probably 800 square feet witih a 200 square foot bathroom.  And the room came with an espresso maker!

Cat comes with the room

I slept great, breakfasted and off for day 2.  Most of this day was spent walking through a nature reserve, Tel Dan and looking at archeological ruins.  Obviously a lot of biblical history here in the Northern Galilee that I am not going to cover.

Not a great picture but as we were driving North, we passed a wired off area with signs signalling the presence of land mines.  So we aren't supposed to cross those lines but there is no problem lettting cows graze.  Maybe this is a way to find the land mines.

Oldest Arched Gate in the World that we know of

Pistachio tree looking out to Syria.

It was extremely interesting to be walking through this beautiful lush nature reserve nestles in between borders that are so very conflicted.  So much violence surrounding such tranquility. This tour was great for showing me the countryside, but I could have easily spent one or two days in any one region.

There was a pretty big storm that came through bringing windswept sand from the Sahara Desert. That is why many of the pictures are hazy. When I returned to Beersheva, the air was thinck with fine particles that you could actually taste.  Does not make for a beautiful skyline.  This mornign however, the sky is blue and I will walk to the lab (40 minutes) where I will drink an espresso with my labmates and finish a manuscript!

For a link to all the pictures Click Here