Road Trip

  Even before coming to Israel, I was warned about the music on the radio. My Hebrew TA warned that in so small a country, with so few artists, the top-40 effect is vastly increased. Whatever is deemed popular at any given time is just about all one can hear on every station. Granted- my TA is an alternative sort of guy (by chance he and I were two of about a dozen people who showed up for Doc’s late Saturday night screening of Dogtooth)- but renting a car with some friends this weekend, and being exposed to the radio here for the first time, I immediately felt what he said to be true; every station had minor variations on the same trashy dance pop Israeli song, or occasionally trashy dance pop American song.
     Especially for this first part of our trip, the music worked out fine. Frat music fits with the irrepressible buoyancy innate to the beginning of a road trip. Five of us rented a car to drive north for the weekend, planning to spend Friday riding bikes around the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret to locals) and “camping” (more on that) and Saturday stopping by the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa before heading home to get started on our papers due Monday.
     We got off to a slower start than planned on Friday morning (the first day of our weekend) due to complications renting the car. We arrived in Tiberias, the main city on Lake Kinneret at about 1 PM, leaving us five hours to get around the lake- exactly the estimate for the 77km circumference. The man who rented the bikes taunted that Americans never make it all the way around, being such a lazy crowd. We laughed him off, slathered on the sunscreen, and set out in the appointed direction (clockwise makes for a nicer ride).

Pretty quickly I began to wear out. Some combination of the sun, my general lack of physical fitness, and potentially my bike (am I just so accustomed to a road bike that a mountain bike seems prohibitively friction-creating?) slowed me down from close to the start. A pleasant passing cloud dropped big rain-drops on us, wetting the ground just enough that hot steam arose for the next couple miles. Frustrated and realizing my frailty relative to the group, I decided I would give up a quarter of the way around the lake, then head back. One friend joined me, the other three bent on completing the challenge. A curious divide- what makes some people more comfortable with failure than others? Having been the one hyping this bike trip for days, I was still the first to give up most easily. Partly it was the recognition that I truly wouldn’t make it under those conditions, particularly with such a close deadline. Partly, though, it seemed like the force driving half our group forward was sheer stubbornness. Admirable? Not? Still unsure.
       Having given up well within what I perceive to be my limits of exertion, to my dismay I nonetheless began to fell dehydrated. Ugh! Despite my best precautions, since coming to Israel I have been repeatedly confronted with newly developed physical frailties. The day of the bike ride I had eaten breakfast, drank water (so much water!), put on sunscreen, wore a hat (As my mom can attest, none of which I typically do), and still ended up feeling rather scorched and nauseated with a pounding head. My main annoyance is the frequency with which this sort of thing seems to happen to me here- I’ve developed an exceedingly skittish stomach that objects variously to food, water, sun, buses, Russian pilgrims (just kidding!). With any luck I’ll return to normal once I get home, but for the time being it’s kind of a hassle, especially when I have so many better things to do.
    I had a chance to take it easy for a bit once the more energetic group moved on. With time to kill we visited the Greek Orthodox church at Capernaum (pink domes, peacocks), and got a pickup truck-cum-taxi back to Tiberias. Our friends didn’t have time to make it all the way around either, but just past half. As it got dark we all joined in Tiberias to track down some food to bring to our planned campsite, a beach on the northeastern corner of the lake. Beach camping appears to be pretty popular in this country- many sites charge by the car (about $15 for 24 hours) and offer bathrooms, showers, beach, grills, campsites. Particularly young people looking to have a loud good time flock to this sort of place, but also some civilized family-looking groups. It was among the latter group that we ultimately parked the car and tried our best to convert it from clown-car to suitable sleeping environment for five people. We almost succeeded- feet were stuck out the open trunk and there was a lot of elbowing for room, but at least some shut-eye was attained. As it turns out camping in a car is a splendidly thrifty and funky way to spend the night- not ideal for anyone attached to any of the comforts associated with a place to sleep, but a good option for young rugged travelers caught up in the experience. You can’t beat $3.
     Even with maps in hand, though, we had a hard time reaching this beach campsite. I have often experienced this problem in Israel where a sign clearly points left and says “Ramot” (In Hebrew, English, and Arabic), but ultimately the indicated direction does not lead to where it clearly marks. How can this be? How can a country function like this? My angst heightens with my headache. The road indicated by the sign to Ramot begins a meandering ascent gulping alarming chunks of altitude at a time. There are no lights and the road is completely dark, but also wide and empty. It curves back and forth right along the edge of a steep precipice. I’m sure the view is incredible, but in the dark we can only see shadowy looming outlines of the mountains. My head begins to really pound and I hold it against the window as our trusty driver frets about the strength of the engine and the backseat frets over a cryptic map.
    All at once we get to the top, realize where we are, I think to open my window and gulp fresh air, and Mary Claire tunes the radio by chance to a classical station. It was this really glorious moment of impressions of an incredible view, fresh air, elated piano music, and my head sort of pounding in rhythm to it all. Suddenly overwhelmed, I laugh, and all the hardship built up through the day disappeared. It just took the fortune of an unexpected sonata to put into perspective my thoughts of the seemingly irreversible inertia of the situation.
     We listen to the piano music all the way down, as my head relents (altitude evidently was a primary instigator), and we close in on the beach-campsite. We get out, I wolf down the pasta I brought, take a painkiller, drink water, and am renewed. A wonderful night of stars and conversation and humid sleeping ensues.
      My positive feelings verging on immense gratitude toward Israeli radio from the night before carry through to the morning. We wake up, I wash my head under a spigot, pita is consumed, and we hit the road ready to get to Haifa by noon to get to the Baha’i Gardens before they close. Unfortunately the illogic of Israel strikes again as we find we can’t leave the campgrounds because a bike race is occurring until at least 1, in 4 hours. How strange. Didn’t we see the announcement on television? the officer asked. I guess he forgot it was a campground we were trying to leave. We worked through the possibilities and came up with an alternate plan just in time to be alerted that we could actually leave at 10, so long as we closely stick to the careful police-led parade to an intersection up the street.
     On the road on schedule to reach Haifa in time after all, we enjoy the ride across the countryside in the now pouring rain playing our fond classical radio station. As we near Haifa and the sun starts to peak out we hazard to change the radio station and unearth a sort of shocking mishmash of possibilites. The first seemed to play exclusively sappy American pop ballads from the 1960’s. What! Do Israelis listen to this? What could be more wonderful? Another station revealed Yiddish folk songs, another 70’s funk, another James Taylor’s Israeli doppelganger. We caught the tail end of a Rosemary Clooney song as we entered Haifa and went into map-consulting mode. Between the sun, our surprised timely arrival at our destination, and the continued happy surprises provided by the radio, I was in extremely high spirits.

     Our 11 o’clock arrival in Haifa is rewarded by just enough time to ascend the lower gardens, hastily drive up to the middle gardens and location of the Tomb of Bab, then frantically take a shuttle to the upper gardens to slip through to the last call for the noon tour. We learn that the Baha’i faith is less than two hundred years old, espousing a furthered form of our familiar prophet-based monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam). While Christianity has Jesus and Islam adds Adam, Moses, some others, and importantly Muhammad, Baha’i adds Bab and Bahaullah. Three core principles of the unity of God, religion, and humankind form the basis for the rest of their beliefs. The tour we took included a brief overview of the religion, a history of its presence in Israel, and a walk down the upper gardens. The couple hours we spent in Haifa were exactly right, and soon enough we piled back into the car for a matzah and hummus snack and the ride home, accompanied of course by gleeful radio scanning.
     For better or worse I think popular radio stations reveal a lot about a country. Whatever other frustrations I have about the navigability or gastrointestinal friendliness of this country, the radio stations remind to look for unexpected surprises: pink churches, compliant weather, utopian religions. Any of these serves as sufficient reminder that my reasons for being grouchy can always be easily outweighed.