Tiyul in the Golan

The woman who taught our girls to read Torah for their Bat Mitzvahs recently passed her tour guide exams and received her official license as an Israeli tour guide.  Here in Israel that is considered a very big deal.  The exams are tough and all tour guides are regulated by the Ministry of Tourism.  Unfortunately for her there is no tourism here because of COVID.  But she graciously decided that as her gift to the girls she would take our family on a tiyul (trip/excursion) to the Golan Heights, which was really cool because we had never been there before.  The plan was to go cherry picking since they are currently in season (and quite delicious i might add), to see the border with Syria and view the entire plateau from one of the lookout points, to stop by the De Karina chocolate factory, a gourmet chocolate factory started by an oleh (new israeli immigrant) from Argentina about 10yrs ago, grab lunch at a cafe in one of the local wineries, and then stop off at a local maayan (water hole, natural spring) to go swimming.  
The plan worked well – we caravanned up north on highway 2, turned right to drive across the northern Galilee eventually reaching the Kinerret (Sea of Galilee), then finally crossed the Jordan river north of the Kinerret into the Golan.  

The scenery was beautiful.  We met at a lookout point and discussed the geological formation of the Golan plateau (we talked about plate tectonics, volcanoes, etc. She had the kids mesmerised 😀)  

Then we drove to the cherry picking.  They gave us little plastic cartons, the kind you’d buy cherries or strawberries in at the supermarket, and we walked off into the cherry orchard.  We filled our cartons and could eat right off the trees all the cherries we wanted.  Personally, i’d never seen a cherry tree. It was very pretty and I think I ate 10 lbs of cherries directly from the trees!  (and a few days later, i noticed many of the cherries in the local supermarket here in Ra’anana were labeled with the same label from the same orchard where we were)

Then we drove up one of the nearby extinct volcano calderas for a 360 degree view of the entire region.  The views were breathtaking.  You could see well into Syria, the entire Hermon mountain range (of which Israel only has the southern tip), and even back towards the Galilee.  The strategic value of the plateau was abundantly clear at that point.

Later in the day at the maayan (water hole) we swam in the cool water.  That was a surreal experience.  We literally just pulled over in middle of the road, turned off into a makeshift parking area among the weeds, then walked down a beaten down path through the weeds for about 10 minutes until we arrived at a clearing.  There were a random assortment of Israelis there with backpacks, some with food, some with coffee, just hanging out, taking turns jumping into the pool.  The pool itself was a circular structure made of stone bricks, 2/3s full with water.  You couldn’t see the bottom (someone said it was 15-20ft deep but i don’t really know).  Some of the bricks around one side of the pool protruded out into the pool in a curving pattern such that they formed steps, like a spiral staircase out of a pool.  (the water level was well below ground level and without those steps it would be very hard to get out.)  The water was cold but not freezing.  She told us that it had actually been built by the Syrians pre-1967 for the Syrian soldiers to bathe in.  Apparently there are a bunch of similar pools in the golan which are frequented by Israeli youth in the summer, (but not very often by tourists).

 We parted company after that, and we decided to have dinner at a restaurant in a local Moshav (small, enclosed community).  About halfway to the restaurant our car “HAVE ENGINE SERVICED” light came on.  We were about two hours from home at that point, still in the Golan.  Our first instinct was to ignore it but when the engine developed a strange vibration and the automatic clutch wouldn’t seem to shift correctly, and then we began to actually smell gasoline, we realised that we were not going to be able to ignore this one.  We just made it the rest of the way to the restaurant, parked in the parking lot, and began to consider our options.  We explained our situation to the staff at the restaurant and they were extremely helpful.  I found our car insurance policy which i thankfully had scanned and could access from my phone (it was in Hebrew) and found a number to call, but of course the offices were closed.  I searched for another number for emergencies somewhere in the policy, and eventually (i don’t know how) waded through a telephone automated menu system, in Hebrew, picking out one word here and there, but eventually got a person, conversed in Hebrew and ordered a towing service to come get the car and bring it to the Citroen dealer back in Kfar Saba, right next to Ra’anana.  By that time it was clear that we were going to have to spend the night there because it was already too late to secure a rental car.  So again the restaurant staff helped out.  Val had found a nearby resort which would have required us to take two rooms and would have been very nice but very expensive.  But the restaurant staff gave us a paper with a number written on it and the name Yossi, and said call him, he might have a room for you.  So we called Yossi. He offered to pick us up and take us to the room. He arrived in his pickup truck after the tow truck finally came to get our car.  As I watched our car drive off, on the back of a large flat bed truck, with a driver who I could barely communicate with, i thought to myself, will I every see that car again?  But one of the restaurant waiters came out and helped us translate.  Thankfully it worked out and the car did in fact arrive a day later at the Citroen dealer.  Anyway, after that, Yossi arrived in his pickup truck.  Val and I sat in back, and all four kids sat loose in the flatbed.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  It wasn’t a very far drive to his place on the Moshav and the kids had a blast.  It turned out Yossi had a small hotel consisting of a bunch of (15 or so) small wooden cabins; simple but very nice inside, that he rented out to visitors.  It worked perfectly, all of us fit on one cabin.  

The next morning, Yossi met me at 8am.  I went with him in the pickup truck along with his daughter and grandson.  First we dropped the grandson off at the local school in the Moshav.  Then we headed halfway back around the Kinneret (the restaurant was on the Golan side of the Kinneret, with spectacular views of the sunset behind the lake) to the city of T’veria (Tiberias), the closest big city.  He dropped his daughter off at work, then dropped me off at Hertz car rental.  I walked in, but they didn’t have any cars that would fit all six of us.  So the kindly gave me walking directions to Avis, just a short walk away. Luckily they did have a car, which I rented and drove back around to the Moshav to get the rest of the family.  We then drove to the nearby resort (the expensive one that we didn’t end up staying at); had lunch there (it was quite good, had a really nice pool with equally spectacular views of the Kinneret) and then drove back to Ra’anana.  

All in all the tour of the Golan was really fun, and even though the car trouble was unexpected, everything worked out in the end.  And by the way, the dealer checked the car, took apart some canister involved in aerosolising the fuel before its injected into the engine, couldn’t find anything wrong, put it back together, gave us back the car, and told us to drive it around for a week and see if anything else happens.  So far so good.  Seems weird to me, but whatever…)