Yesterday's adventure in Wadi Jahir

Last week I signed up for a day hike, which was described as follows:


The spring of Ein Jahir, near the start of this hike, is unknown to almost everybody except the Bedouin who come here to water their flocks. From the spring the path winds down to the valley floor and follows the rocky stream bed to the spring at Ein Fusail. Again, the trail involves some light scrambling down the eroded watercourse. 


The hike is no more than five kilometers, but this must be one of the best walks in Palestine for observing birds and wildlife. There are gazelle and ibex here, as well as hyrax and desert foxes. The long legged Buzzard, the snake eagle, and the Lesser Kestrel all nest in the cliffs above the valley. The whole valley feels quiet and remote.

Requirements: Good/comfortable non-slippery hiking shoes, a hat, sunblock and bring some fruits and/or energy snack bars, light lunch with you,and minimum 3 liters of water. 

So I am thinking to myself, "light scrambling," "five kilometers" ... shit, I can run that in under 30 minutes and I definitely don't need to carry 3 liters of water. The mental image I had of this hike could not have been more removed from the reality I was about to experience. After not sleeping all night, I gathered myself and got to the meeting point by 7:00am. It turns out there were only five of us signed up: all women, all foreigners, plus the guy organizing the excursion. There was one tidbit of information that the organizer shared that morning that should have cued me into the rest of the day... "I've never done this hike before, so it's good we have a small group to test it out." 

So we roll out of town and pick up our local guide, Fadi, in the village near to where to the wadi where we're hiking, and drive on out to the trail head. The trail head was not at all what I expected. At 9:00am, we jumped the highway guardrail and found ourselves looking down a steep hill that ran down to the stream bed. We zigzagged down the hill, following the goat paths, and it took about an hour to get down to the stream bed. At this point I was thinking, I am already tired and I think this hike has just started... and I wish I would have brought more than one liter of water.

Break #2 after reaching the stream bed

Terrain just after reaching the stream bed

More of the terrain

The going was pretty slow down the hill, but it got even slower once we reached the boulders and steep areas that required our guide Fadi to catch or support each of us as we passed. Unfortunately I didn't get any great pictures of the ridiculous outcroppings we had to traverse down. Probably because I was too scared for my life to grab the camera, or so thankful I had just survived the passage that I didn't bother to think about snapping a picture. Anyway, the scenery and remoteness of the place was amazing. 

We were having to take breaks every 20-30 minutes because of the heat and exhaustion that everyone was experiencing. Everybody probably thought I was a huge bitch because I was getting really cranky about the breaks. I was looking at my one liter of water, which was about a quarter of the amount I should have brought with me, and thinking, we need to get the hell out of here. Everybody else was either out, or close to being out of water by about 1:00pm. At break number 4, Fadi made us tea with some wild sage he found along the way. 

A very flattering picture of Fadi making tea at Break #4

Just after tea time, I was really excited to find our first furry creature of the hike. It was a hyrax, but it was acting very strange.  I thought maybe it had snagged its leg between some rocks, but after convincing our guide to come rescue it, it became more clear that this thing definitely had rabies or something of the like. Maybe this little hyrax went on a hike with some of its hyrax friends and ran out of water. Is this going to be me?

Rabid hyrax - Still cute despite the fact it was barking at some hallucinations under this rock and its eyes were rolled back into its head.

Skipping ahead a couple hours. Finally it seems that we're coming to the end of this hike. Thank god because it's the heat of the day and I'm looking around at this group thinking, we're not all going to make it out of here if we don't get a move on it. Our guide says the spring has to be just ahead, so I took off with him, the trail opened up into more of a field, and saw the sweet, sweet oasis in the distance.

Trees ahead!

I took this selfie to document my satisfaction with seeing the trees

I felt kind of bad, because I had no idea where the rest of the group was. I literally abandoned them, ran up to the spring, and took my shoes and socks off, chilled in the spring, and waited for them to arrive. (Haha. Ok, in retrospect, it sounds even worse.) Everyone finished around 2:30pm.

Chillin' in the spring - There were so many tadpoles in here!

After we got out of here, we headed back to the village where we had an amazing lunch of roasted chicken, salads, rice, and watermelon. I think I drank about a liter of Spite. 

Today, I think I'm still dehydrated and every part of me hurts. While I never want to go back to Wadi Jahir, I can't wait for the next one of these adventures into the countryside.