I can’t blame him. These lush jackal- and
boar-haunted woods are a world away from
the arid desert of the south, and through
them runs Yam le Yam, a 47-mile ‘sea to
sea’ trail that starts on the Mediterranean
coastline and arcs south to the Sea of
Galilee; a route that’s finally on the verge of
international attention.
“I was 14 the first time,” continues Daniel.
He, like many other Boy Scouts have done
for decades, trekked it during Passover as a
sweaty rite of passage that binds the boys to
the country of their birth. “It’s a short trail,
but it connects you to the land emotionally,”
he says, as we make our way to the start.
In Hebrew, halach — the verb ‘to walk’
— encompasses many meanings: to grow
and go forward; to flow or be poured out as
water (about which I later learn more); and
to walk hand in hand with God. It would be
just the two of us — Daniel, my guide and
a former forest ranger — on this four-day
pilgrimage of sorts. We probably wouldn’t
be holding hands.
Israel has long been a destination for
pilgrims. Movement flows through the
bloodlines of its people, not least in the
lore of the ancient exodus out of Egypt led
by Moses. Today, most pilgrims — nearly a
million of them every year — make their
way to the holy city of Jerusalem, but this
would be a journey of a different kind. One
through nature. For out of all Israel’s 6,000
miles or so of hiking trails, Yam le Yam
is the greenest. It weaves through the far
northern valleys of Upper and Lower Galilee;its ripples forged by the Great Rift Valley
that starts in Lebanon and cleaves ever
southward to Mozambique.
The night I arrive, a third of the country’s
annual average rainfall plummets from the
sky. Huge, plump raindrops flood the streets,
causing parked cars to float and swelling the
rivers. Forget cats and dogs, this was rain
on a biblical scale. But the next morning,
the sky is blue and combed free of clouds.
I grin at Daniel, full of hope. “Bad news,”
he counteracts, dourly. “Big chunks of the
trail are flooded.” I point to the sunny sky
in confused protest. “Doesn’t matter. Look.”
He leads me across the road and points to a
reed-studded lake. “That’s meant to be the
start of the trail.”
We retreat back across the road and down
onto the sand. Cantering toward us are the
feisty rollers of the Mediterranean. A few
early fishermen stand with their lines in
the muddy-as-cocoa waters. Right on the
shoreline are the remnants of a dwelling.
“A Phoenician fishing village,” explains
Daniel, scraping away a thin layer of soil from
a nearby mound. Out tumbles the handle
of an ancient jar. A bit more clawing and he
unearths a fragment of a clay pot and even a
shard of skull. Not a single protective barrier
guards these lightly buried treasures. There’s
so much archaeology under foot in Israel, the
experts only investigate the bigger findings,
such as the rubble of the village buildings 20
metres from where we stand, which balances
on a thumbnail of green called Achziv
National Park, where the trail starts.“You can’t love without sweat.” Bold words
from a man I’ve just met. I glance across at
the bearded Daniel Gino, ready to be met
by a sultry gaze. But his eyes are looking
elsewhere: at the undulating hills of Israel’s
Upper Galilee region.RIGHT FROM TOP: A group of horse-
riders on the trail below the Amud, a
striking limestone pillar rising from a
stream of the same name, Upper Amud
Stream Nature Reserve; a hiker passes
a trail marker, Upper Amud Stream
Nature Reserve
PREVIOUS PAGE: Fishermen cast lines
into natural lagoons and sea pools at
Achziv National Park on the shores of
the Mediterranean Sea84 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travelISRAEL