Saturday, October 4, 2008

Riding with Bikers

Route: From Beit Oren Junction to Ofer Forest
Distance: 12.5 km / 7.75 miles
Time Waited: 15 minutes

The Story: I was waiting at an intersection lacking a bus stop, which broadly speaking, isn't the best way to find a ride. The American reader needs to understand that although I was on one of Israel's main highways, at this point it consisted of a mere one lane in either direction and lacked any engineering spiffiness generally associated with highways.

The driver (Assaf) was actually heading to my exact destination - Ofer Forest. I'd decided to hike, camp out and continue the next day, but hadn't decided which trails to take. He was heading to the forest to bike. According to his calculations, he had exactly 1 hour and 15 minutes to pedal before he had to return home for Shabbat dinner. I glanced at the car seat in the back, noted the ring on his finger, and wondered how his wife was coping with him taking off right before dinner. To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they'd been invited out.

Assaf dropped me off in the middle of the forest, and pointed me towards a nice trail. I ended up going a different way, but still got a wonderful 4k hike in before deciding that camping at the beach was a much better idea. Turns out, my friend was hosting a reggae festival at the beach, but since I don't particularly like reggae, I passed. More on this issue to follow.

No comments: