A Tale of Wonder and Woe

Our camping trip up north started with semi-preparedness and a can-do attitude. Really, how bad could it be?

Reader, I must confess: This summer was a bit of a workout hiatus for me. My lack of exercise wasn’t purposeful; in fact, it was part and parcel of not having hit any real workout stride prior to the summer. I didn’t mean to abstain from routine movement; there was our move, a plantar fasciitis flare, my work schedule, blah, blah, blah. All things that said “standing all day and walking here and there is movement enough.” However, I didn’t let this lack of physical preparedness and endurance deter me from venturing out on a hiking and camping excursion in a foreign country. 

The impetus for our adventure was none other than Tamir’s birthday. This overnight trip was proposed, of course, by the birthday boy and backed by Alexa, both of whom are far more outdoorsy and experienced campers than Brooks and me. Sure, Brooks and I had been on long walks and beginner-level hikes, and we’d spent time in tents. Brooks had gone on a proper camping trip as a kid; I’d assembled and disassembled a tent that could fit up to six numerous times and gone camping upwards of a dozen—all inside the comfort of the cellarium in my childhood home. Not to mention I’d spent countless hours as a youngster foraging in my yard to make stone soup and had built many structures in the snow.

We said yes without hesitancy. (Really, could we say no? It was a birthday wish after all.) Plus, Alexa assured us that Israelis do this all the time; people camp on a whim because it isn’t really camping. There are toilets and running water, and civilization is always lurking close by.

A day or two beforehand, I checked the predicted forecast: rain. Not 40% chance, not 60%—a solid 98% chance. The one day it was raining was the day we’d decided to go camping. Us being in the Holy Land and all, maybe we should have taken the rain as a sign? Hesitancy started to creep in, and I innocently tried to hint at the shitty weather in the hopes the birthday boy would take a literal rain check.

Not a chance. I gotta hand it to Tamir. He’s up for anything; nothing phases him. A little rain, no problem!

With the camping trip locked in, I tried to forecast how to best cope with the sogginess that would come with sleeping outside. It would only be one night, and, even though it would rain, it was hard to predict for how long. In addition, the north promised more warmth than we’d felt in Jerusalem since we arrived. It would be an adventure!

The eve before we departed, we packed up a few pairs of warm socks and additional layers, along with multiple decks of cards for entertainment, and set our alarms to rise and shine in time to leave the house at 8:30 A.M. The morning of, we dressed in clothes we’d spend the next 24 hours in while Tamir went out to get us waters and canned goods.

No, we did not make our scheduled bus time. Between mushing the cats inside and trying to fit the two tents; sleeping bags; cans of beans, pickles, and more beans; pitta; and half a dozen large water bottles into the bags we had, our 8:30 A.M. departure to catch a 9:00 A.M. bus soon turned into a taxi ride to the bus station, some quick breakfast bourekas,¹ and us sprinting to catch the 10:30.

Where exactly were we camping up north, you ask?

The only fluent Israeli speaker, Tamir, knew the exact location we were headed for. The three American amigos, on the other hand, were left in the dark. All we knew was we were going north.

Desert vistas soon lost their sandy homogeneity and grew lusher, turning into palm trees, banana farms, windy roads, and haze. We passed through the seaside town of Tiberias, driving parallel to the Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Tiberias or Kinneret—one lake, so many names), to arrive in a land less like desert, more like desert oasis. (There was probably another bus somewhere in this first leg of the journey, but transferring buses at that point was becoming second nature, to the point multiple rides felt like one and the same. Regardless, we were definitely somewhere new.) The bus doors hissed closed and there we stood, in the middle of nowhere.

The following sign greeted us:

We looked across the road, hoping to see something friendlier. On a large plot of land was a park enclosed by a green barricade with a rectangular white sign (no barbed wire in sight). At first glance, it appeared to be a reserve of sorts. As we later learned via Maps, one of these fenced-in areas was an Israeli territory and the other fenced-off area was, supposedly, a Syrian territory. (You take your guess at which one was which.)²

We soon came to the realization that the park Tamir had planned for us to hike through, the one gated in green with a long driveway, was closed for the “winter.”³  Turns out, this was supposed to be our point A to hike through in order to get to our point B, the still mysterious place we’d be camping out for the night. Thrown off a little but still cool as a cucumber, Tamir hadn’t come with a planned alternate route, nor was he able to persuade the guard to let us pass through. He did, however, persuade her to let Alexa and I use their lavatories before we continued on our way. While we peed in gratitude, Tamir searched for a no-longer-alternate-but-must-take route. Bladders emptied and a new plan in place, we about-faced to get back on another bus.

All four of us boarded, bags in tow. Meanwhile, Brooks’ passport had decided to stay behind in the dust—literally. After searching high and low, in seats we hadn’t even touched aboard a near empty bus, we accepted the fact that it had, in fact, slipped out of the crook of his armpit when boarding to remain on the side of the Israeli highway. We decided to get off at the next stop, just five minutes from the last, to plan our back-track of attack.

Brooks and Tamir hitchhiked back to the last bus stop in hopes they'd find the passport. Meanwhile, Alexa rolled and lit up a cigarette and I reorganized my bag on a sidewalk next to a freshly paved part of the highway. In the sunshine we sat, watching the cars go by. In between two plastic construction barricades, a gentleman with a black leather briefcase was trying to tremp,⁴ totally unphased by the two young girls sitting right by him. (In many ways, he probably saw us as competition.) I watched him, as he held his arm down and out, pointer finger extended, to catch a ride. He was unsuccessful at least half a dozen times but persisted nonetheless. The longer we sat there, the sorrier I felt for the guy with the black leather briefcase.

Eventually, he caught a ride, and I felt relieved for him. At least he wouldn’t be stuck on the side of the highway, too.

Communication had gone dark between the boys and us, so Alexa and I loaded ourselves up like pack mules and moved back to the bus stop from which we came to wait our men’s return. Thankfully, Brooks’ and his passport were reunited and the four of us could finally start our hike—not on a hiking path as intended, because catching a bus at that point would take hours, but on the side of the Israeli highway, taking in the cars and scenic views as we walked single file.

We walked past what we previously drove by on our first bus, traversed an intersection, walked down a side road, and arrived at our destination, which was finally made clear to us by the print on the large mahogany-colored metal sign with white a white border: Jordan River Park. 

As Brooks so poetically put it upon arrival, it felt like the start to a horror film. Us, and another large, white tour bus were the only ones who entered the park as twilight started to give way to nightfall. The park was wooded and floral with pinks, oranges, and yellows—aside from the nature, us, that bus full of tourists, a few workers, and the gatekeeper, we were all alone. We continued straight past the entrance while the bus took a right into the lush enclosure of the park. We didn’t see it or its passengers again.

The four of us walked past hundreds of camp sites and picnic tables strewn about on the property, no one occupying them. Metal sink basins, playgrounds, and open spaces with patches of grass and dirt littered with leave were all shroud in silence. The place looked like an abandoned day camp after the first days of an apocalypse. More likely, it had been untouched since the summer, and we were the weirdos camping in winter. We shattered the ominous solitude as we persisted on to find the grassiest spot we could in order to pitch camp before dark, eat our dinner, and settle in for a game of cards. All the while, we joked and laughed, relieved to finally know we’d be sitting after hours of hiking the highway. All the while, Tamir smiled.

Once we started to pitch our tents, the park became animated with wildlife. We saw cats, of course, who meowed without pause, at once startled and delighted by the prospect of our presence. Steers and cows of chocolate brown wandered through the park, and we stood as still as statues as we watched them pass by. As night fully took hold of the landscape, the jackals started to yip-yap, just as they did each night in Ora. At one point, jets could be heard zooming overhead and something like metal fell from the sky.

A couple rounds into “May I?”,⁵ Tamir managed to order a large cheese pizza and four bottles of Carlsberg.⁶ Originally, when he proposed the idea, we thought he was kidding. But then it appeared. It was like Jesus with the loaves and fishes. Our luck was turning; we didn’t have to eat the canned beans; we had more than enough water; even though there was no light, the bathrooms were still working, so we didn’t have to shit in a hole; and the rain was holding off. The cats and kittens circled us as we laughed, listened to music, ate pizza, drank beer, and screamed at the surprise of a random bumblebee that had somehow hitched a ride all the way from Ora in my borrowed sweater. The park workers played on the loud speaker, laughing and joking in Hebrew, like they were the only ones there. After finishing our last round of “May I?”, we double-bagged our food and bungee-corded it into a tree like a piñata before zipping ourselves into our respective tents for the night.

It was warmer than I’d anticipated. I let a sigh of relief escape my lips, gratefully I was still doing so well in this game of reverse strip poker I was playing with the weather. Inside the tent, I no longer needed the sweater or winter hat I’d borrowed, and my Smart Wool socks were almost being too smart at holding in my body heat. It was nice to be cocooned inside our tent with the knowledge that I was fully engulfed by the wilderness otherwise. It was nice to have no need for a phone, just sit in my and Brooks’ conversation. And just when it was starting to get almost romantic, that’s when we heard the first drop hit the tent like a bead bouncing off a tin can.

The sky had started to leak, just as forecasted. At first, it was a slow dribble here and there. But soon our tent sounded like it was being pelted with thousands of small pebbles all at once. And then we couldn’t just hear the water, we could feel it. Although all my tents pitched prior had been inside, I knew a waterproof cover was supposed to be just that—waterproof. We frantically put on our shoes and rain slickers and crawled out to inspect our structure, trying to make repairs the best we could before retreating inside. We ended up just stuffing an empty trash bag in the back part of the overhang, what we thought to be the problem area. If the rain wasn’t bad enough, my bladder decided that from then on it would be the best time to keep peeing. My bladder seemed to fill up every 10 minutes, causing me to decide between finding something inside the tent to pee into and dump out, or to put on my muddy Tevas and wet rain jacket and go outside to relieve myself. Unfortunately, all the water bottles had openings the size of a quarter—and my equipment doesn’t exactly set me up for success aim-wise—so outside in the rain it was. I finally understand why my late dog put up such a fuss when we wanted him to go out for his last pee-pee in the rain. No matter how quick you are, it doesn’t bring more comfort squatting out there in the elements.

The night was alive. The stray cats meowed louder; the jackals laughed harder, as if to mock our misery. I tried to pee quicker. My mind latched on to each sound as I tried to comfortably share a single-person sleeping bag, unzipped fully to hopefully fit two. There Brooks and I lay, uncovered, cuddling in our soggy tent. (Why we didn’t bring another blanket or egg crate, I don’t know.) At about 2:30 A.M.—after the rain had stopped briefly, after my tossing and turning on what felt like a slab of concrete in the fetal position since 11 P.M. had begun to wane, after waking up to add more layers, change out of wet socks, put on a hat, take a piss, and reorienting myself every which way to find a way, anyway, to make my arm bend, despite all my layers, into a semi-comfortable pillow—I heard it.

A growl.

The type of growl you hear in a scary movie.

My voice scurried down into my throat and I could suddenly feel the root of every hair on my body.

“Hey!” Brooks growled back in a baritone voice.

Another growl, this time, reminiscent of a snarl. 

“HEYYYYYYYYY!” Brooks shouted back, his voice making the tent, and myself, quake.

This was no jackal. Definitely not a cat. Was it a wolf?

Earlier, Tamir had assured us Israel had no large predators, hence why all the cats were still growing exponentially as a population. It was a full moon, so I considered werewolf for a brief moment, just to try and lighten the mood.

“HEEEEEEYYYYY,” Brooks shouted, this time, more guttural than before.

Finally, silence. 

The silence hung with a tension taut enough to keep my conscious mind alert, even when my eyes were closed. Brooks rolled over and fell asleep instantly. I tried to count Brooks’ snores, count my breaths, cuddle into pockets of warmth, count the rain drops. I tried to imagine the ground I was sleeping on was a very firm couch, not compact earth. In that moment, I vowed to cherish our blow-up mattress upon our return.

Eventually, in one of my waking spurts, I checked my phone: 4:30 A.M. Almost a reasonable hour to leave. Then I turned my phone off airplane mode: 3:30 A.M. Apparently, even though Israel already had its daylight savings time, daylight savings time in the U.S. had pushed Israel back an additional hour again. Great.

Eventually, I closed my eyes long enough to be awoken by the chirping of birds. I unclenched a bit and attuned my ears to the noises outside our tent. No one else from our party was awake, but I did hear the occasional buzz of a golf cart, which meant the park boys were up and moving around the premises.

After the rest of our party arose, brewed coffee, and stretched, we packed while regaling our night of terror and trying to fend off the cat in heat that endlessly meowed and brushed up against our legs, tail twitching. The food we'd hung up in the tree? The bag was absolutely torn and carried to one of the paved roads—all the pita and granola gone; just the dented cans remained. In between cigarettes, Tamir smiled the smile of a kid who’d had a peaceful slumber in the great outdoors.⁷ With our packs slightly lighter, we walked back the way we came, out to the highway we'd hiked the day before. Thankfully, this time, we could get a bus from a closer bus stop—or so we thought.

Cut to us sitting, once again, at a bus stop on the side of the highway, waiting for a bus that would never come. Apparently, the buses around Lake Tiberias (aka the Sea of Galilee) don’t run too frequently in the winter. So, there we remained. As time went by without any breakfast or lunch or any idea of how to get back, the hunger regurgitated that “I told you so” I longed to spit up. But the sheer hilarity and horror of our situation settled my stomach a bit.

We sat fatigued, offering up different courses of action. We could tremp, but four young people covered in mud, faces twisted in exhaustion, and carrying lots of big backpacks don’t exactly inspire altruism. Our last resort was to call a cab to take us to the bus station in Tiberias, from which we could bus back to Jerusalem. After some calls, haggling, and some more calls, we managed to get back to civilization via taxi to get on another bus back to Jerusalem. (My apologies to all the people aboard that bus for the way we smelled; I know pita filled with falafel and lots of onions and spicy sauce isn’t exactly the best meal to bring aboard a bus, especially when it’s being eaten with mouths emanating morning breath, only made worse—I can imagine—by our unbrushed teeth.) I felt like Jesus after forty days and forty nights in the desert, only my camping test clocked in, realistically, somewhere under 40 hours.

And that’s the story of the first and last time I went camping.⁸

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For photos that coincide with this piece, visit my Instagram @yo_marge.

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1. These Jewish pastries can be sweet or savory. Potato, mushroom, sesame-encrusted, cheese, raspberry jam, chocolate—all of them are so tasty and filling! They make the perfect breakfast or snack. By the end of our trip, I’d eaten so many bourekas that even the mention of one made me full.

2. The borders within Israel get a bit dicey because they’re always shifting; this is why it’s important to look for signage and to be aboard a bus or in some mode of transportation you trust.

3. I put this in quotes because winter in Israel is probably the most pleasant temperature-wise. Why more people wouldn’t be camping this time of year is beyond me.

4. Tremping, the slang for hitchhiking in Hebrew, is something super common in Israel. As an American, who grew up learning the phrase “don’t talk to strangers”, the thought of getting into a car with a stranger or offering a ride to one made my warning bells go off. It was especially interesting to see the trust people put within one another in a county surrounded by such danger (at least to the eyes of an outsider). Two young girls were the ones that volunteered to pick up Brooks and Tamir and take them back to the bus station (unheard of in the States!). I came to learn that Israel, as a country, is far safer than the United States in many ways; ironically, Israelis are far more united than those living in America. Aside from people commonly hitching rides and offering rides to complete strangers, kids in Israel—Jerusalem specifically—are just free to take public transit and wander the streets without a parent or guardian. I saw kids six or seven just out and about, solo. Kidnapping is virtually nonexistent, possibly because of the high-volume of religious folks and because of how insulated the city is.

5. “May I?” is also known by some as Continental, Continental Rummy, and Double-deck rummy. I only learned this after a quick Google search. Whatever you call it, it’s a family past time in Brooks’ family and anyone who has the pleasure of spending time with them will inevitably learn the game and come to love it.  

6. When we pressed Tamir to reveal how he achieved such a feat, he said he told the delivery driver “Oh, my wife, she just got off the plane from America, and she is starving.” Apparently, this faux plea garnered enough sympathy for a meal in the middle of nowhere.

7. We later came to learn that Tamir and Alexa hadn’t heard the snarl, but they did hear what they thought was an Israeli man (i.e., Brooks) yelling and training his dog in the middle of the night. Unperturbed, Tamir immediately left his and Alexa’s tent to go to the bathroom.

8. All jokes and hyperbole aside, I vow to try camping one more time…in the form of glamping.