0700. I’m woken up by my roommates Omri and Andrew. A nice Israeli breakfast spread is waiting for us in this multi purpose room on the kibbutz. “Eat a lot! You won’t get to eat again for a while!” shouts Mickey. I ate eggs and some Israeli assorted salad items, and made an egg sandwich for later. There was this awesome lemonade and plenty of hummus available. Israeli breakfast is pretty great!

We load up onto the bus and drive over to Tzfat, which is an ‘artists colony’. After walking the ancient streets a little, we sit in this nice little amphitheater tucked away in a small little alcove surrounded by old homes. In America this square would have been leveled to build more houses. Two orthodox Hebrew men make some traditional Hebrew music for us here. The men played the sitar and and some sort of huge cymbal. It was a very cool performance. I bought one of the CDs that they shamelessly plugged at the end of their performance.

Afterwards we had a lot of free time, and we were to buy 10 shekels ($2.65) or less presents for our ‘secret moses’ partner.  I was assigned Saghar, a sweet Iranian girl who didn’t really speak much English.

Devin and I go to walk around together, asking Kelci where the ‘good falafel’ is. She pointed us down some dusty avenue the opposite direction of where the artist shops were. The falafel place was deserted. We almost left but then a guy showed up behind the counter.  We ordered falafel and just as he was making it, Kelci ‘Genghis’ Khan shows up and dropped this bomb on us:

“Oh…I don’t think this was the place.”  

Thanks a lot Kelci. I silently wonder if every counsellor thinks they know where the ‘good falafel’ is. Despite this bad omen the falafel ends up being pretty good.

I bought a purple hamsa bracelet for Saghar, and Devin got gold and blue bracelets–UCSB colors–for Abbey, a fellow Gaucho. Right around the time we had to meet back at the bus we realized that we had to grab the bull by the horns and get everyone to buy more alcohol if we wanted to party tonight. Devin and I quickly rallied troops to this dusty old supermarket and we got some ping pong balls, beer, and cups for drinking games later on in the Kibbutz.

We knew now that Mickey was kind of strict about drinking, but our counsellors didn’t care. We had to be low-key about our alcohol purchases. My camelback was too small for the beer I just bought, and we were about to be late on account of buying booze–for the second time in two days. We had to improvise quickly.

I put the Corona 6-pack in a grocery bag, but it was transparent plastic. Everyone laughs at how comically useless this cover is. Through deft maneuvering of the bag, I avoid detection upon boarding the bus. I stow the beer carelessly up-top, but Omer suggests I cover them up. I end up using the brown towel my mother gave me to do so.

We drive down to the Upper Jordan River to go rafting. Some overweight South African man gave us the safety run-down and Devin, Silver, and I grab a raft. We were only three people in a six person inflatable raft, and Devin and I were tearing it up down The Jordan. Silver was in the middle and was remarking on how she doesn’t mind staring at my butt.

We took to the river like pirates, ramming whichever boats we could find, making sure to splash the occupants thoroughly with our paddles. We even tried paddling upstream and ramming people in between experimenting with standing up and paddling. We were having a lot of childish fun.

Silver proved to have terrible coordination.  We let her paddle for several short periods. She proved to quickly let the boat spin in circles. I was at the bow with my back to her and Devin, but I could always tell when she had control of the other paddle, the raft suddenly veering off-course towards some sharp branches or the riverbank.

At some point we come upon a muddy beach, and see a group had already gone ashore. It was Jake, Becca, et al.  We pulled ashore and got out to chill. Devin declared the area to be the nation of “Sachlavia” (with an Israeli accent, really pronounce the CH in it, and the at the end lavia like you were Borat). We soon started pulling the passing rafts of our comrades onto the shores of Sachlavia.

At our peak we had a population of 15 or so people. Chase the adventure man took off his life jacket and started swimming, with Emmett soon joining him. Devin and I popped off our life jackets and joined them in the river as well.

The river was nice to swim in–just the right temperature. It was deeper than my height in the middle. There was a rip current down the middle, and even swimming my hardest I could not swim against it without being pushed downstream. No wonder they told us we weren’t allowed to swim in the river or take off our lifejackets!

Eventually we had to keep going–counsellor Peggah was urging us on. I couldn’t recognize any of my comrades on account of their fresh faces being covered with hats and sunglasses. We had all spent what felt like ages together, but the reality struck of only knowing these people for just over 24 hours.  My brain couldn’t recognize any of them anymore, and it was a bit of a mindfuck.

There were a lot of strange locals on the sides of the river with fishing lines set up. The river was murky, it was weird to see people fishing here.

At some point Mickey comes in hot on a small inflatable kayak.  He terrorizes people by splashing them and then paddling away. What a fucking menace. We catch up to him and splash him thoroughly under a bridge while he tries to sue for peace.

We reach the end of the rafting portion of the river, at which point Devin realizes he forgot his lifejacket on Sachlavia. We play it sly as we come ashore with the raft, hoping to avoid detection. The staff somehow doesn’t notice so we’re good to go. We cram into this old bus and get transported back to the parking lot.

We get to the bus and find that Chase has some frosty Carlsbergs–got em from the concession stand. Tzvi, Devin, and I head over. I get this awesome saccharine ice cream bar. My mouth is salivating right now thinking of it. It wasn’t a ‘magnum’ but the other, cream colored brand.

People start drinking covertly in the back of the bus, but Mickey ends up back there explaining something about the geography of Israel. Someone foolishly asks a follow-up question and he hangs around for another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, everyone is trying to hide their beer that they bought at the concession stand. At some point Jonah’s bottles of beer fall over loudly right by Mickey–making the characteristic sound that fallen beer bottles make. Collective grimacing ensues. Somehow Mickey doesn’t seem to notice.

We make it back to the Kibbutz before sundown. It’s Friday, so we’ve got a nice shabbat ceremony planned later. In the mean-time we just hang out around the kibbutz. There’s these awesome hammocks over some lush green grass, and I decide to do a little journalling.

What a fantastic trip it has been so far.