Tiberias on the Galilee!

We arrived in Tiberias by bus, dropped off our bags at our hotel and immediately left to go meet one of my Israeli friends, Tom.  I met Tom when I went on a free trip to Israel 2 years ago, called Taglit (which I recommend every Jewish 20-something goes on this trip).  Tom is an Israeli soldier who was accompanying our Taglit group.  Tom and several of his friends picked us up and drove us to an awesome house on the North end of the Sea of Galilee.  The house had a pool, tons of rooms, cool outdoor furniture, sound system…very nice!  

Tom (left), Shemesh, Jeremy with Goldstar Israeli beer

The pool felt so refreshing now that the days are getting hotter, usually between 80-90 degrees!

We LOVE pita and hummus!

They BBQ'd meat and we ate it with pita, hummus, and some new vegetable sauces we've become acquainted with.  We even tried chicken heart!  I thought it was actually pretty good and tasted similar to beef, but Samara wasn't a fan.  For breakfast we ate Shakshouka with eggs, eggplant, cucumber, onion, and spices.

Here I am, taking my first bite of chicken heart!

Such a great time getting to know everyone, really nice house, lots of relaxing - we were sad to leave when it was over.  We hope to see our new friends again later in our journey.

Samara had the idea to rent bikes and bike all the way around the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake Kinneret.  The lake is 33 miles or 53 km around.  Its 13 miles long and 8 miles wide.  It’s the lowest freshwater lake in the world, and the second lowest lake in the world behind the Dead Sea (uber salty, and also in Israel).  Just to give you perspective, the Kinneret has a surface area of 64 square miles, while Seattle’s Lake Washington has a surface area of 33.8 miles.

We both haven't ridden bikes in YEARS, nor have we ever ridden over a few miles!  Recipe for extreme soreness!

We started at about 8:30 am, before it got hot and started riding from Tiberias heading North.  We were told this way had more hills and it's better to do this end while you’re fresh.  We rode a ways, past Capernaum, past churches, past the not-so raging Jordan River at the north end…and got an early lunch.  We felt strong. 

In front of the Jordan River

After lunch it was getting hotter and we started working our way back South.  We got most of the way to Ein Gev before both of our rears started to get incredibly sore.  I had to walk the bike up some of the big hills while Samara was a trooper and pushed on.

 

At Ein Gev, we were spent.  We had been riding for 6 1/2 hours, we didn't need to ride around the whole thing!  We had proven to ourselves that we would be master cyclists if we had more substantial hindquarters!  We tried to get on the ferry back across the lake.  No luck, we missed the last one.  Catch a bus?  Nope, it was Shabbat and no public buses were running.  No taxis in sight.  Finally we found a tour bus, full of paying tourists, who offered us a ride to within 5 km of our hotel for a little less than $20 and we gave in.  But he dropped us off about 10 km from our hotel and said he couldn’t go any further.

At the harbor at Ein Gev, trying to hitch a ride home

Begrudgingly we got back on the bikes and kept going.  Ass aflame and quads acramping, I refused to get back in the saddle and walked the bike the last couple km.  Samara rode the whole way though.  It was difficult at the end, but we're very happy that we undertook the challenge!

 

Total distance – approx. 25 miles.