August 17, 2000

Some of my old friends and I decided that tonight was best for our "Midnight Hike" in Wadi Kelt! I talked Yoni and old friend of the Youth group's into taking us on one while I was here on my visit. We ended up having 30 people go out there with us. The only down side was that Marianne had to leave for England tonight to be with her brother, who is about to get married! (I wish I could have been there, too.)

My friend, Shoshi, called me and asked if we could have dinner and hang out in town around 5 p.m. The hike wasn't scheduled until 10 p.m. I agreed. I wouldn't have missed it! It had been so long since I had a chance to sit down and just talk with Shoshi. She had been in the States until halfway into MY trip, so we had to make time to see each other before I left.

I met her at 5 and we went to a place called "Hillel Café" which had really good food. We had a light dinner, but something with enough substance to get us through the night for our hike! I had the avocado sandwich with veggies! Yummmmm!

We talked for quite a while which was so nice.

We had to get back home by 8 p.m. so that I could change for our hike. She visited with me and my family for a while, but had something to do before we met again that night. At 10 p.m. she picked me up, and we headed over to the place that we were meeting. We were there on time, but by the time we were all ready to go, it was 11 p.m. We headed out in a caravan of about five cars to a settlement called K’far Adumiim, about 20 minutes away from the city. We parked there and then began the hike at the top of one of the hills of Wadi Kelt, which was just behind the settlement.

The hill that we walked down to get into the valley was pretty steep. I think we were hiking along the goat paths, which are fairly narrow, and it was pretty dark out. The moon gave off quite a bit of light, but just in case, a few people had flashlights with them. There were a few times when I felt really unsure of myself while trekking down the hill, but once we got down into the Wadi/Valley it wasn't bad.

We followed a creek through about four different hills. We were headed for a very old Monastery, but, sadly, it had been occupied by a Bedouin family, and was closed off to the public. We did, however, manage to wake up their vicious sounding dogs, which we later found were also closed in.

Because we couldn't visit the Monastery, we sat inside a small cave and Yoni, our guide, told us a little bit about the history of Wadi Kelt. Supposedly there were about 100 different monasteries or more that were built there throughout the years, but this is one of the only ones left. It was occupied by a monk up until the 70s, I think, when he died, and no one else has lived there since.

Anyway, we all had a great time, even though we couldn't see the Monastery. The hike was pretty tough, but I was glad that I did it. I finally got home at 4 a.m. and ate nearly everything in the refrigerator!

Photo: My friend and I on the hike. ~
Photo: Some of our group resting, before making the trip back up the hill. ~