Rappelling down the Arc cave

Since I came back here I have adapted a rather lazy schedule, waking up usually after eleven in the morning, but on Monday morning I woke up rather earlier, around nine, feeling I did not have enough sleep, shortly after I woke up I received a phone call from Sobhi, my brother in law, and my companion for sportive and extreme activities, he proposed to go and do rappelling at the Arc cave, this is an ancient cave which had most of its roof collapse except for a curved strip at the front of the cave, creating a structure resembling an arc. We headed to the cave, which is located in the north of the Galilee, only a few kilometers of the border with Lebanon. We took this trip on the background of two recent events, the first is the death of an experienced instructor a few days before, he fell to his death from the top of the arc, a 40 meter height, he survived the fall but not for long, as he died before the medics arrived, the reason ? he forgot to tie his rope ! the second event was the skirmishes along the border between Israel and Hezbollah, that took place the day before, artillery fire and rockets were exchanged across the border, Israel retaliated after Hezbollah, launched an attack on some of its military bases, Hezbollah attack with triggered by the assassination of a Palestinian Jihad leader, who Hezbollah claims was assassinated by Israel, the assassination (denied by Israel) might be in response the Jihad firing home made rockets from Gaza, at the other side of Israel, anyway you get the picture of this seemingly never ending cycle of violence, neither event deterred us from going through with our adventure.


The cave was visible from the main road as we approached, located on top of a rocky, bush covered hill, the border fence and the patrol road were visible as well, and no more than a couple of kilometers away, at the foot of the hill a military check point was set up, but when stopped and gesticulated to the solders, signaling that we are not sure what to do, they simply indicated to us to just go around the road block and continue our way, I had slept most of the way, and I was feeling more fresh and ready for the challenge ahead.



We tied up a rope at the top of the arc, and I was to go first, so far I had done more climbing and less rappelling (going down ropes), and this would be the highest descent I have ever done, I also have a fear of heights, although it might have been less lately, I was a bit edgy as I attached my self to the rope, and began climbing down, Sobhi mentioned something about watching out for the Pruzek, which I absently heard, I started descending edgily down the rocks, and as I reached the edge of the rock part, were the arc ends and the open air descend starts, I got stuck , I forgot about the Pruzek, the safety knot connecting me to the rope, I was supposed to keep pulling it with me I go down, I forgot and it got stuck, to loosen it I would have to remove my weight from it , a difficult task , I tried pulling my self up using the rope and the rocks, but I had to do it with one hand and use the other hand to loosen up the knot, I could not do it, bloody hill, I was stuck, Sobhi said suggested something about making a step, but I did not know what he was talking about, I guess hanging at 35 meters in the air effected my brain function, then I heard him curse, and say something about not having an extra rope, anyway he managed to improvise a rope by combing all the straps and binds he had, and he lowered it to me, but I could not attach to me, it was still about 10 cm short, Sobhi told me to wait, suggesting he was going to work something out, I was stuck for about 15 minutes now, and my muscles started to ache, my legs , my forearms, exhausted by the effort, the tension and the adrenaline, a couple of minutes later Sobhi returned, apparently he improvised some kind of lever, he managed to left me just enough to attach my self to the extra rope, then he pulled me using the extra rope, removing the pressure from the Pruzek, allowing me to loosen the knot, I unattached myself from the extra rope and started descending , not paying attention to Sobhi pleads to wait, with all those muscles aching I was eager to descend quickly , the scenery on the way down was stunning, I could see the green valley bellow through the front openning of the cave, Sobhi was calling again telling me to stop, apparently he just wanted to take a picture of me hanging down the arc, anyway I condescended on the condition he makes it quick, then continued my descend, relieved to finally reach down and allow my muscles the rest they needed.


Sobhi followed next, on his way down he sent me the camera by sliding it down the rope, so I could take pictures of him , and they came out the better pictures, I guess will have to do it again if I want a good picture of me hanging down the arc.

Still Home

Two week have passed, I am in the process of acclimatizing to life here, maybe I have a bit of PTD (Post Travel Depression), weather is great here, a warm spring, still a bit cold to sit outside in the evening though, but then one can't have it all, if it is warm in the evening it is probably too hot during the day, I made it habit to sit outside in the garden with my laptop, it makes mi feel less detached from the real world, while still connected to the virtual one, besides as I already mentioned the weather is great now. One can see flags hanging over the roofs in my town, Brazil is the most popular followed by Italy, Germany, Argentina and England, the world cup is edging closer.

My cousin players for the local youth football team, we went to see his last game of the season, an important one, as the winner of the game gets promoted to the higher league, a couple of hundred spectators were there, mostly friends and family of the kids playing, the away team scored first, but the most interesting moment of the first half was a kid scoring a spectacular goal with hand, imitating Maradona'sgoal against England in the 1986 world cup, only that the referee and everybody else spotted it, anyway the local team scored three goals to win the match, and celebrations broke out in the end, but not before four players got red carded, for various unsporting behaviour, some of the supporters cheering the team, used the Hebrew name of my town (Shfar'am) instead of the Arabic name, when I complained I was told it rhymes better with the rest of the words, they had a point.


I started looking as a job, my old company Sagantec, is willing to hire me back, even as a freelancer, which kind of suits me at the moment, the thought of going back to work 45 hours a week does not excite me, this would give me a lot of freedom to still travel around if I wish, and to devote times to other things, like writing.

I found out there is a Wikipedia entry about my town, not much there except for that last infamous incident.

Home

Back Home finally, to Shafa'amr, where sun is a given thing, where you don't run out because it is sunny outside, because you know it will be sunny tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and almost every day for the next six month, my mother is going through my favourite Middle Eastern dishes, preparing a different one every day, Kusa, Dualy, Ma'alobe, and more yet to come. My brother is generally studying, he sets in the living room, creating spread sheets, related to his research in Bio Technology, or reading papers with titles like "Lignin peroxidase-catalyzed polymerization and detozification of toxic halogenated phenols" (I swear this is the title of one the papers he was reading), and I thought computer technical terms where nurdy. My sister has her hands full, with her job and two kids, she is a Cosmetician, it is weddings season now, so she has a lot of work, my older nephew Ahmad is three years old, and is obsessed with bald heads, actually he does not like them completely bald, but with very short hair, he will stalk a bald person, seeking to cares his head, the sensation caressing the short hair is what draws him to it, the younger one is only five month old, but he is so tall already, that he appears one years old, I think he is going to grow as tall as his father if not more.


I already went climbing three times with my brother in law, and some of his friends, we went to some rocks between the towns of Kabol and Tamra, about 20 minutes from my town, it is not a prepared climbing site, so we just walk around the rocks, and spot interesting roots and try to climb them, the other site we went to, was un the Carmel mountain, and there experienced climbers go to to practice, and the site is prepared for top rope and leading.


I went to a wedding with family, ironically this was the wedding of the women I almost got engaged to, she was quite surprised when she saw me entering, I also went to a International pantomime show, that was performed in a hall in my town, part of a big pantomime festival, there were three performers, one from Germany, one from the US and one from Porto Rico ! Talk about globalization, I am back home now but the world is starting to come here, next month it is world cup, although it will be during weddings season, no body scheduled their wedding during the world cup, people here are crazy about football, and if presented with a choice of attending a wedding or watching a world cup game , they will choose the later without hesitation. Still waiting for an opportunity to go play tennis. I am spending too much time on my laptop, I should not have installed that Jagged Alliance game on it, I also registered to a Google programing contest, it will give the opportunity to refresh my coding skills, am I just turning into a nerd again ? Maybe I am just compensating after a year of no nerdiness, I wish I could just stop playing that game and go back to doing some more writing.

The Netherlands

Arriving at the Schiphol airport I did what I have always done, I took the train to the Duivendrecht station, in order to switch trains , and pick up one that goes to Eindhoven, but there was no train to Eindhoven, things have changed since I left, trains now go direct from the airport to Eindhoven with no need of switching, so I had to take a train to Utrecht were I switched trains and got on one going to Eindhoven.

Arriving at Eindhoven, it has been a year since I left this place, 1 year and five days to be exact, but I felt like I never really left, that I did not spend one year in south America, my memory of that last year turned vague and blurred, and I struggled to remember where I went and what I did during that year, and I made an effort to resurrect my memories, feeling as if these memories will disappear forever if I don't manage to recall them at that moment.


I stayed by some friends during my stay, first a couple of days by Harry's , who is actually a friend of a friend (Naeem), a painter and an avid book reader, with a lot of interests in world cultures, we had some pleasant conversations, Harry holds cultural meetings at his house every week, and that week he was showing a Kurdish movie. The next day I visited the office of my ex company Sagantec, a lot of change there, many people have left and many other have joined, generally most of my friends and colleagues lives have not changed much since I left a year ago, but there were a few notable exceptions, Theo at age 40 finally had his first child with his girlfriend, a girl called Tessa. Hein, Johan and Chris, who left the company formed their own one.


On the first weekend I took the train to Utrecht with Rachel, and I stayed at her place for the night, we had dinner with Hein the ex president of Sangatec, and his wife, we passed by their house first, which is looking better and better all the time, they had purchased a run down house on the Neuwe Gragt in Utrecht , and they have been renovating it since. After that we went for a beer in a classic castle bar and Brewery, were we had a taste of there local brew, then Hein and Lisa went home, and me and Rachel went for some more drinks, one at Belgian beer bar, then one at another bar, where a rock band was performing, then a final one at quite little bar, all on all a great night out in Utrecht. The next day was quite cold so we did not do much during the day, and at night we went back to Eindhoven, were we went out with Ania, Adel and Naeem, to a cocktail bar , called Mundial, an excellent cocktail bar, were I had my favourite cocktail, there home made lemon Celo liquor. The next morning Ania made us some great Homos for branch, all in all food was quite good during my stay, it was a mix of great home cooking by Ania and Naeem, and eating out in some good restaurants, I quite enjoyed the Indian and the Chinese, as I missed that kind of food during my year in south America, specially the Indian.


Thursday night we went to see a live performance by a popular dutch rock band, Blof, then on Friday night I had a few drinks with my ex colleages at Sagantec, then had a quite Saturday before leaving to the airport on Sunday, I used my time in the Netherlands to do some shopping, a laptop so I can write when ever I get inspiration, although it is always to too tempting to play a game or watch some video instead, some climbing shoes, a new ipod as my old one is broke, and few more accessories for the laptop and ipod. The good thing is that I got my VAT tax refunded at the airport, the bad thing is I had to pay 75 Euros for the extra weight, but that has much to do with the ten books I am carrying with me as well. I wanted to use the Internet at the airport before flying out, there is a communication center at the airpot, were they even had wi fi, but it costs 10 Euros an hour, that is how much some people pay monthly for their wide band Internet service, and I thought 2 Euros at the Lima airport was expensive, anyway I decided to pass on it. At the gate there was an additional security check, as usual for flights going to Israel, after a lengthy questioning by a security personal, he went to consult his supervisor, then the supervisor came and I thought, probably more questions, but then he just asked me if I speak Arabic, and asked for my help in translation with a passenger that did not speak English, I said I would gladly help, the man turned out to be from Jerusalem, visiting an injured brother in Manchester, anyway after that the supervisor asked me if I spoke Spanish, but this time it was just general interest and not to do another translation, it turned out that he speaks Spanish as well, and we had a nice chat in Spanish, before boarding the plain to Tel-Aviv.