ISRAEL - Galilee, Flying and Eating

Daburiyya, an Arab town in Galilee near Mt. Tabor

26 Mar, Sat - We were up at 0600 to meet Yariv at his multi-use airport; each of us flew with him. In my flight we flew over his neighborhood and the adjacent Arab village and could see the difference in types of housing and infrastructure from the air. The airport was interesting in that there were some GA aircraft, some trikes, some powered parachutes, some RC models and a helicopter all using two dirt strips or the area between. From there we followed the suggestions of the GPS to get to Mt. Tabor with a stop at lunch time in a cafe/service station in Nein just outside of Afula for an Arab lunch of pita, hummus, and several small plates of pickles, tsatziki, red relish, onions, falafel, and a kebab (ground beef? lamb?) with fries. Dessert was bahklava. We drove up the extremely winding road to launch at Tabor (tah BOR or tah VOR) and C.J. and I flew even though the wind was cross from the right (N). At first I got up but when I went south to try to fly over the monastery, I sank and had to beat back into the wind looking at a soccer field downwind as an alternate. By the time I had pushed out to the road I started finding lift and then there was more over the town of Daburiyya, enough to climb back to launch, sink out and do it again. That was enough and I went out to the LZ and landed with C.J. Bob and Heckler did not fly; Bob is still nursing his badly bruised upper arm/shoulder. They picked us up and we turned east on the main road instead of west toward "home" - we were going to give another site a try on the other side of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret or Ga-lil, as they say locally). We crossed a ridge where the east-facing Ya'avneel site was, descended to the 700 feet below-sea-level Kinneret, crossing the Jordan River at the south end. Since we could see people soaring we drove almost to Ein Gev and turned up a narrow but mostly paved road that climbed a canyon with a national park and mine field on one side. Once on the top, now on the Golan Heights, we turned south and drove a few km to find the unpaved road into the "Mevo-Hama" flying site (next turn past the Muslim cemetery road S of the kibbutz Mevo-Hama). (A smoother and probably faster route going down is to is to just take Rte 98 south along the ridge and down to Ma'agan on the Kinneret.) We had to be back for dinner with Yariv and family at 8 pm so we could only soar along the 2000 ft ridge (photo, right, Sea of Galilee looking N) for 30 minutes before spiraling down to land in the tall (!) hay field LZ near some shade structures for banana trees and maybe date palms. Bob picked us up and we drove back through really bad end-of-weekend traffic (especially near Um Al-Famm). But we managed to get back to the condo with time to shower and change clothes and still be ten minutes early for dinner with Yariv, his wife Orly, and their three children nicknamed Mimi, Momo, and Doda. They have a beautiful house in Kefar Hess, an Israeli community settled 80 years ago. We got back to the condo around 2230.

27 Mar, Sun - We had breakfast and then I walked down to the shore with Bob to check out the grocery store and get some fruit and stuff. Later B & M went for breakfast at Cafe Neto and to pick up Bob's phone. The forecast is for northerly winds continuing through the week - not good for any of the sites. Maybe it's time to plan a trip to Jerusalem. Around 1100 we took off for the Galilee stopping at Afula to visit Mike at Rahelli's apartment, and to pick up the tandem gear. (photo, left, sign marking Sea Level, Sea of Galilee still far below)Then we drove to Mevo-Hama where winds were somewhat strong on launch. Bob flew - first time since he had been injured - and toplanded (but not at all in his usual style). As we watched, the windlines on the Sea of Galilee filled in and, since we had been told by locals not to fly in that case, C.J., Mark and I packed up. B & M decided to go visit Moishe across the lake while C.J. and I got dropped off at the gateway to the excavated settlement of Susita/Hippos and hiked up to the archaeological site at the top of the hill. There were 4th cent. BC Roman ruins as well as later Hellenic/Christian ruins. There were also concrete block buildings and bunkers from when the local kibbutz had fortified the hill during the 1948 war. We found that there was a trail going down the front side all the way to the main road by the lake at Ein Gev, so we hiked down through the wildflowers (and minefields). Once down, we walked through the kibbutz to the little harbor and then back to the main road where we just missed Bob who had come back to pick us up for dinner at Moishe's. After using the cell phone to straighten that out we all joined Sherry and Moishe's family for a lasagna dinner with halvah for dessert. Yariv helped me get info on tours to Jerusalem from Netanya and C.J. and I booked a tour for Monday leaving at 0630. We got back to the condo around 2215.