Text and Photos by Michael Knipe
Awarded the title “The World’s Oldest Med-trekker” (I’m 77) after my maiden spell accompanying The Idiot around parts of the coast of Cyprus in June, I could hardly refuse his invitation to join him for a similar jaunt down the beaches of Israel this month.
The Idiot, having MedTrekked the length of Lebanon and northern Israel from the Syria border, awaited my arrival on the beach at Haifa.
My preparations for the Israeli MedTrek had been occasional, leisurely hikes on London’s Hampstead Heath. One hour to the top of the Heath, a half-hour coffee break, another hour home.
The view south from Haifa.
Things start off fine. We stroll past Microsoft’s R&D Center, one of the high-tech industries that sets the pulse of the Israel’s economy, and pass a beached and deceased sea turtle.
Microsoft offices on the beach south of Haifa, Israel.
A deceased sea turtle on the beach near Atlit, Israel.
We are trekking during the annual Sukkot holiday, when Jews create temporary hut-like structures in memory of their ancestors who trekked through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt.
Fortunately for us, many of the more secular Israelis establish their Sukka in Bedouin-style tents on the beach and invite MedTrekkers in for coffee, cakes and even shakshuka – a Middle Eastern dish of eggs, poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chilli peppers and onions, spiced with cumin.
Communal tents were the mode on Israel’s beaches during the Feast of the Tabernacles (Sukkot) holidays this autumn.
MedTrekking is no walk in the park. We hiked across a variety of beaches: soft sand (tough going), hard wet sand (the best), shells (painful), shingle (more painful), pebbles (worse), stones and rocks.
MedTrekking on a beach of shells is not very pleasant.
It was on the sharp rocks that I stumbled, falling flat on my face. Fortunately we had just left an almost entirely deserted beach and entered a nature reserve where The Idiot, after giving me first aid, took me to a beachside emergency room where a medic laid me out on a stretcher and patched up my cuts.
After giving me first aid on the beach, The Idiot got me to medics who patched the wounds from my fall on sharp rocks.
MedTrekking is not an anti-social activity. We passed numerous men fishing and even one grooming his dog in the sea. And while accompanied on the MedTrek by my niece-in-law Sari, we even took a rare coffee break.
Some dogs love being bathed in the Mediterranean Sea.
Although he doesn’t admit it, The Idiot takes occasional coffee breaks when he’s hiking with other people.
Yikes, another encounter with a dead animal. Persian fallow deer, native to Israel from Biblical times, were hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. But in 1978, the Iranian government agreed to give Israel four fallow deer and, as a result, today there are a number of wild herds throughout the country.
Oh deer.
On two occasions when the beach route was blocked by power stations, I had to trek around them and once when I judged the rocks to be too formidable I left the Mountain Goat Idiot to venture into the interior.
A not-too-subtle fence around a power station forces me to walk inland.
Our generally pleasant seaside MedTrek on sandy beaches continued for over 100 kilometers until the first barbed wire barrier signaled, and blocked, the border into Gaza.
My MedTrek in Israel ends when I near the border with Gaza.
About the Author: Michael Knipe worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times of London in Israel, Capetown, New York and other international posts. He was the editor of “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean.”
The Idiot was accompanied on his Sukkot march by Michael Knipe, his friend and book editor who turned 77 this month.
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