Negev Desert, Israel

On the way back from visiting David's uncle Oded in the desert, we finally put in a couple of good days on the bikes. We passed by the tents and shanties of bedouin villages on the way to Be'er Sheva. We admired the herds of goats and camels and met this one by the side of the road. Apparently Hannah didn't have anything good to offer him. Hard to guess his tastes--if you look too close at the photo you see he was nuzzling around the grass under the decaying remains of another camel that ended up as roadkill.

We needn't have worried that bicyclists on the highways would be a strange sight in Israel. Pedaling down from Jerusalem we first crossed paths with a sunburnt Australian wearing a keffiah who'd bicycled from China. He'd been on the road for two years and we were the first cyclists he'd come across. Then, in the afternoon, we met up with about a hundred lycra-clad roadies from Tel Aviv. They told us cycling has really taken off in Israel in the last ten years.

Oded's Jeep tour business is booming--check out his tours at http://sabajeepeto.co.il/index.html.

Laying Low in Silicon Valley

... Israel, that is. Most of the first week we spent recovering from jetlag, repairing our bicycles, and enjoying the wonderful hospitality of David's cousins.

David first tries reading Hebrew with Noam and Leor:











Then he finds a scholar closer to his level:










Thanks to all who expressed concern over the bombing in Tel Aviv on the day we arrived. We'd already got to Ofer's house in Tsoran, a suburb northeast of the city, which apparently translates to "silicon." It's near the offices of Intel, Microsoft, Amdocs and the other high-tech companies. As we ate pancakes on the back porch with Ofer's wonderful family, I felt confident that we were an extremely unlikely target for any terrorist action.

Israel seems harsh, kind, beautiful, fragile, new and rural all at the same time. For instance, camping spots exist but there's garbage everywhere. People enjoy camping but they don't bother to pick up the trash. But every cloud has a silver lining. People's tendency to leave dog crap on the streets has prompted a new program: Municipal workers will register each dog and collect a sample of its DNA at the same time. Then, they can identify a sidewalk dropping by its DNA and apprehend the owners. Hm, maybe some work for David?

Bicycles are more common than we'd expected. Even in Tel Aviv, there are bicyclists zipping among the scooters and taxis and cars. The winner for suicidal transportation was a rollerblader, holding on to the back of a scooter, crossing a busy intersection in Tel Aviv. Us on our bicycles with helmets and hand signals are pretty tame, in comparison. On a more serious note, both bicycle commuting and mountain biking seem to be newly popular in Israel. There's even a Criticial Mass ride happening this Friday in Tel Aviv.

Next we travel to Jersusalem and then to the desert, to meet up with David's uncle Oded. Bicycles and sand. This is how the parts manufacturers stay in business.

The Trip Out

Well, it is high time to update the website. Hannah has held me back from filling it up with excrutiating detail of every leg of the trip so far... considering we have just started.

In short, the drive down from Seattle to Santa Cruz went better than could be expected. We stayed with Ilana and Steve and Caitlin in Portland. They've got a very cute little place that they're working on as a sort of lifetime hobby. Ilana happened to be celebrating her birthday, which we celebrated over omelettes, and we heard about Steve's volunteering at freegeek.org. A very cool-sounding outfit. I encourage everyone to check them out.

We were teased by promises of a sunny south but got a deluge of rain. We stayed with Robyn at Wilbur Hot Springs, which is now just a bit harder to reach, down a rutted and nearly washed-out dirt road. The place is as calming as ever and Robyn was kind enough to find us a plush room and cooked a fabulous breakfast. Afterour usual dawdling, we made it to Arn's place in Marin and he was game for rolling into SF to meet up with Hannah's Santa Cruz schoolmates. Arn and I let the girls do their thing while we dropped by Krzysztof's place. Nice pad in the city. Man.... a block from the mighty Ocean Beach, in the cool and quiet part of SF. We managed some dim sum before meeting back up with Hannah and crashing back in Marin.

We finally made our way to Santa Cruz. Through more torrential rainstorms, winds that threatened to blow over our little truck (thank god we left the kayaks in Seattle) and multiple highway closures that forced us to backtrack. To think we haven't even left the country.

Anyhoo, a lovely Seder, a bit of surf and lots of trip prep. We got ourselves onto a plane and then settled into acouple or more long flights. Hurrah to BA for treating people like customers instead of cows to the meatpacking plant. Sadly, tragically, we weren't able to make our connection in Heathrow, a terrible airport by the way and you'll thank me if you avoid passing through that place, and had to endure an extra seven hours of stale airport air.

So, suddenly we find ourselves at 5am local time in the new, improved, swanky Ben-Gurion airport. It looks strange to me, this new yuppie Israel. Hip, global,wealthy, it's such a contrast to the news which features regularly and almost exclusively the continuing violence and the miserable conditions ofthe Palestinians. But, let us leave this for now. Ofer very kindly picked us up and luckily had a van. It's a miracle but all our baggage, including the bike boxes arrived with us. Baruch haShem :) Now to see if the bikes survived...

We've slept. Hung out with Ofer and Ginat, and the children, Leor, Noam, Yuval and a little shy boy. We've put together Hannah's bike, played a little basketball and settled into dinner with Assaf andNirit who live only a few blocks away. They also have a wonderful boy, Royi and a baby girl, Daniel. Everywhere, children and growing famillies. Wonderful, a little noisy but fun. Today, we'll see. We all go to Haifa for Noemi's birthday. First though, Hannah and I will bike to Caesarea and meet up with Ofer and fam. Our bike wheels didn't survive unscathed so we'll stop by a shop on our way and see what can be done.

Our Rusty Steeds

No, in response to many people's questions, we're not going to ride the antique tandem bicycle from our wedding on a bicycle tour. We actually bought a couple of used cyclocross bikes. Cyclocross, if you don't know, is a masochistic sport where people ride extra-tough road bikes on trails and then, when they get to an obstacle or a pond, get off the bike and carry it on their shoulder. This has absolutely no appeal [David would like to give it a try]. Anyway, more importantly, cyclocross bicycles are fairly light but quite rugged, so they're well suited for touring. We changed ours around a bit--added high volume tires and wider rims to accommodate a heavier load, attached full fenders and racks, and got handlebars and saddles that will (hopefully) be comfortable for hours on the road. In the end to quote our current bike guru, "The type of bike you ride doesn't determine the type of tour you have."

Here are some photos. It's a bit embarrassing that they're so similar, red for Hannah and blue for David. What's next, matching tracksuits?

Before leaving David dismantled the bikes and packed them in cardboard boxes for the plane trip. They survived relatively OK other than a wobble in the wheels. We'll have to take them to a bike shop to get the wheels trued [translation: adjust the tension in the spokes]. Luckily cycling, and especially mountain biking, seem to be a new fad in Israel and we should have no problem finding a shop as soon as Passover… passes over. -H & D