A Piece of Milk

Gush Halav. Where we hiked this past Saturday, and the name of the place literally translates in English to "A Piece of Milk." Don't ask me why, but it is an Arab Christian village in the Northern District in Israel and it was very beautiful.



We hiked with Dekels friend, Elad, and his girlfriend, Michelle- who are hiking pros. He is a hiking tour guide here in Israel for tourists, school groups, etc- and he studied the history of Israel for a couple of years and knows all the right places to go and how to go about them. Dekel and I came prepared with 3 liters of water, toilet paper, snacks and a camera.

We all stopped at a local bakery that morning to buy pita with za'atar (an Israeli spice) and then at a grocery store for cream cheese and hummus and chips.







We began our hike around 10 and stopped near a herd of cows/ horses for eat a bite and have some sweet tea. Then continued on. It was not the most beautiful hike due to the dry, sweltering hot summer we have had, but it was so nice to be out in nature and get a good work out. At one point we were literally scaling a mountain and I wore Nike running shoes...slipping and sliding all over the place.

























We ended our hike around 3 and drove to a Miyan (a natural spring of water), it was like a little water hole in the middle of nowhere, and Elad and Michelle hopped in to cool off but I chose to lay out and tan and Dekel was just ready to eat. So we went to a middle eastern restaurant and ordered hummus with lamb meat and they served tons of little salad plates, like salsa, eggplant, spicy salad, oilves, pickles...and we had fresh lemonade to wash it down.

It was a nice ending to our weekend. Hiking is such a great release of energy. Seeing as I dont work out, I feel like I especially appreciate our hiking trips. I will randomly just take off sprinting down the path or up the mountain, or choose to turn the iPod off to take in the nature sounds. In other words, I love hiking.