After lunch back at Shefayim, we changed and boarded tour busses to begin five days of touring. Our guide, Israel or Izzy, is a champ. He's boisterous, funny, maybe a bit verbose but that's fine because I was soaking up everything he was saying. Our first stop was at the Tank Museum in Latrun. Here, took some pictures of the tanks on display and learned about the history of the hilltop from ancient days with Joshua defeating the Amorites and Judah Maccabee preparing to fight the Greeks to most recently when the fort was retaken during the six-day war. Looking at the wall with all the marks from bullet holes and exploded shells really gave a sense of the importance and history that took place at that spot.
We were the last bus to leave, and headed towards Ben Guvrin National Park where we visited the Sidonian Burial Caves and learned some more history about the leader of the Sidonians, Apollophanes. Very interesting. Just outside of the cave was a tree (that begins with a C...can't remember...carab tree...there we go) that blossomed long, thin, black fruit which Izzy said we could eat despite not being completely ripe. The fruit was fairly sweet, closest to a banana in taste, and made your mouth tacky like swishing super glue around in your mouth (minus the trip to the emergency room)
Next, we headed up to the hills to a complex of caves the name of which is escaping me right now. People living in the area several thousand(?) years earlier would dig below the place where they wanted to build a house and cut rocks out of the caves to build their houses. Later when they were forced to either convert to Judaism, flee, or be killed, people destroyed their houses and buried the rubble in the caves which were not excavated until modern day. (i think i got those details right for the most part)
Izzy said if you're at all claustrophobic, you might want to sit this one out, so a bunch did including most of the golfers besides the older guys and me. Quickly I found out that these caves were nothing like Luray or Shenendoah Caves. No electricity just candle light. In places, we had to slide on our backs to get under a low rock, or lower ourselves through a manhole sized opening. It was nice that it was a comfortable 55 or so. After about 45 minutes of some serious spelunking we saw the light of day again and were back on the road.
We headed to Kfar, at country club where the other half of team USA is staying. First, was a loooong meeting where the managing committee including Jed Margolis, the team rabbi (yes you read the correctly) and our friend Ron Carner among others spoke about the history of the Maccabiah, what it took to put the whole delegation of over 900 athletes together, what it means to be a Jewish athlete, and other stuff.
The meeting finally ended and we headed outside for the July 4th barbecue which was delicious and was followed by fireworks and a dance performance by a local troupe. We boarded the bus and headed back to Shefayim where I finally and I mean finally took a shower and washed off all the cave dust that accumulated sticking to the sweat perspired during golf. Now i'm in the lobby finishing this blog just after midnight so I can go to sleep. I learned in Argentina that if I don't write something every day, I have so much to write about the next day that I just lose a day of bloggery.
Tomorrow, we're up at 6 playing at a 9-hole course (apparently there's another course) called Gosh before more touring with Izzy. Pictures below.
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