| Israel Blog | Cycle for Hope - Day 1 | Cycle for Hope - Day 2 | Cycle for Hope - Day 3 |
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In June, 2009 Zieva and I went to Israel for a family wedding and had a long lunch with Aura Wolfe, Director of Development,
of the Israel Center for Treatment of Psychotrauma (ICTP) to discuss a new fundraising bike ride the ICTP was planning for Spring, 2010. Zieva had worked with the ICTP since she started her Ph.D. research studying posttraumatic growth in survivors of the Second Intifada, and I had ridden on three Alyn Bike Rides in Israel.
So I had signed up for the ride even before the it existed. There were two options for riders, either a 3-day ride from Jerusalem to Mitzpe Ramon or just the last day, riding from Kibbutz Mashabei Sade to Mitzpe Ramon. I was one of the 16 riders on the 3-day ride (3 from the US, 2 from Canade and the rest from Israel).
We left the Leonardo Inn Hotel in Jerusalem about 9:00 AM and began by riding up Mt. Herzl and then steeply down into the Jerusalem forest
through the village of Ein Kerem and then down some more. Then we had a 5 km very steep climb over a pass followed by a nice downhill. We stopped for a snack at a small park
where there were the ruins of a large Roman house surrounded by beautiful bright red poppies and other wild flowers.
The walls were partially broken, there was no roof and the floor appeared to be dirt. Actually, however, the floor was a mosaic which was covered in sand to protect it from the elements and looters. When our guide swept away the sand we saw a mostly intact mosaic floor.
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From here we had a very steep descent (I remember walking up this part of the road on two of the Alyn rides).
Once we came through the steepest part of the descent we stopped for lunch at the Mata Forest
where we had a delicious meal of schnitzel, roast potatoes, houmous, olives, etc. They saved the extra roast potatoes for an after-ride snack -- great!
After lunch we rode on small rolling roads and had a rest stop near the ruins of a Roman theater
From here we got on a major road and I arrived at Kibbutz Sde Yoav at about 5:00 PM
It is a nice Kibbutz that raises turkeys (which they did NOT serve) with a pretty fenced-in cactus garden and nice clean guest rooms.
Day 2