The guest house we stayed at last night is only about 10km from
Tiberias, but of course we had to take the long way here,
circumnavigating Yam Kinneret. It was still only about 51 km, and
being more or less flat we rode it in about 3 1/2 hours. We got online
this morning and reserved a room in a hotel here. We came into town
riding along the shore of the lake, and our hotel sits way up atop a
hill. It was a very long, steep climb, and we had lots of impatient
and aggressive drivers honking and passing way too closely. I was
starting to lose my temper and was feeling myself get ready to have a
confrontation with the next person who tried to bully me aside, so I
pulled off onto the sidewalk and we walked the rest of the way up.
We got here about 1pm so had to shower quickly and head out in search
of food since everything closes around 2 or 3 pm; this being Yom
Kippur Eve. The front desk clerk told us all the restaurants were back
down at the bottom of the hill (of course!) so we rushed down there
and believe it or not we ended up eating at a McDonalds, being one of
the few places still open. The menu is a bit different here and we
ended upo having a “Big New York” and a “Big Texas”. They are both
huge burgers at 250grams of meat; a bit over a half pound. The place
was closing as we ate, so we left there and walked back up the hill to
our hotel.
It’s about a quarter to five now and I can hear only a few vehicles
out on the street. We have been listening to what sounds to us like
some loud religious music through our open window, but it has just
stopped.
We had been planning to go to Zefat (Tszfat, Safed, pick a spelling!),
which is a Jewish holy city, but tomorrow being Yom Kippur everything
will be closed, and we don’t want to be those insensitive cloddish
tourists that make the locals feel like they are an exhibit on one of
their holiest days, so we are going to skip it. We just made
reservations at the Shlomi Guiest House, which is just east of Rosh
HaNikra, the northernmost town in Israel along the Mediterranean
coast. We plan to take advantage of the fact that nobody will be
driving tomorrow and ride without worrying about which roads have the
least traffic. It looks like the country between here and Shlomi is
hilly, but it is only about 65km.
Oh, I almost forgot. While riding around the Sea of Galilee today we
discovered that there is a bike path along the south-eastern part of
the sea. Road cycling seems to be a rather new phenomenon in Israel,
and it seems they haven’t quite figured out how to integrate it. We
were riding along the shoulder of the road and noticed the beginning
of a bike path to our right, but the path didn’t actually connect to
the road. We had to drop off the curb, ride across some loose gravel,
then climb up the edge of the bike path. The path also ended a couple
of times at locked gates, forcing us to turn around and find a way
back out to the road. And in one section, the path was completely
overgrown with overhanging palm branches that we had to bull through
with our heads down. It made a simple cycle path quite an adventure!
Jodi just got back from a trip out to investigate the music.
Apparently many of the towns people are dressed in their finest and
walking to temple.
Allen & Jodi
