B’ruchim Haba’im L’Yisrael (Welcome to Israel)
We landed in Tel Aviv at 0515 Tuesday morning, just about 24 hours after we had originally planned. We breezed through border control and baggage claim, found an ATM and loaded up on shekels, bought train tickets, and were headed out of the airport on the 0635 to Akko. A couple of hours and a short taxi ride, and we were at our first hotel, the Rimonim Palm Beach in Akko.
Too early to check in, we stored our luggage, greeted the organizers, who were setting up the registration tables, and tried to get the lay of the land. Almost immediately, we ran into Richard, one of my fellow riders from the trip in 2013. We caught up a bit, and he helped us immensely by talking us past the staff monitoring entrance to the dining room so we could get a cup of coffee from the breakfast buffet (to which we were not entitled, since we hadn’t stayed the night before). My new best friend, Richard is. A couple sitting in the dining room, noting my hiking back (Eliana had sensibly stowed hers with the rest of the luggage), brilliantly deduced that we must be fellow hikers and called us over to join them. Susan and Howard are a delightful couple from Teaneck, who became frequent meal companions and now good friends.
After fortifying with coffee, we ventured to a nearby mall to perform the first important task for our time here: obtaining cell phone service. It was a tiny bit weird that we had to pass a guard to enter the mall, but the interior felt just like an American mall of the 1980s–two-story, open so you can see the shops above or below from the other floor, clean but a little old-fashioned. It was early, so there were no crowds, and we went to the BUG electronics store to sign up with Golan Telecom. The guys there were friendly, but spoke very little English. We managed the transaction successfully despite the language barriers, and quickly had reliable, cheap (if a little slow) internate service. Thus connected to the ‘Tubes, we headed back to the hotel to check in with the trip organizers and get our room.
We immediately started running into people I knew from the bike ride 2 years ago, which was great fun for me. Everyone was bummed that Derek couldn’t make it this time, mostly, I think, because they were looking forward to drafting off the back of a tandem again (an experience one guide last time described as “like riding behind a truck”). We had lunch with a couple of people at the Sephardic restaurant next to the hotel. I really didn’t know exactly what I was taking from the cafeteria style warming tables or what it would cost, but everything looked great, so I took a wide variety. Turned out not to be cheap–an expensive restaurant nex to a resort hotel on the beach, go figure–but everything was delicious. Anyway, it was the last meal we had to pay for until the hiking trip ended a week later, so not really a problem.
After lunch, we went back to the room to rest for an hour before the scheduled walking tour of Old Akko. Turns out, we needed a nap more than a tour. Old Akko will have to wait until a future trip.
Before dinner, we made it down to the beach to dip our toes in the Mediterranean. Then we joined 120 other hikers, riders, volunteers, and guides for the official start of the 2015 Ramah Israel Bike Ride and Hiking Trip.