Green Meadows
The vultures are nesting.
Young offsprings, that hatched recently, are learning to fly. The grown-ups go in and out of the canyon, looking for food. Flying slowly, at a low altitude, they are perfectly visible over the green pastures of the southern Golan. In fact, if you stand silently at the eagle watching post at Gamla, you can face them almost eye to eye as they ascent from the nesting cliffs, circle above the ancient ruins, and gaze at you just before they go away.
We visited the eagle nests (actually, the correct name is Griffon Vultures, but eagles sound better) almost by accident. Last Thursday we planned to go to the Hermon and study some basic ski (which neither of us know). However, by the time we left the house, finished the late breakfast at Carmiel (in a really nice chocolate-house), and got to the northern Golan, there was not much point in attending a lesson; it was both late and the area was somewhat cloudy; in addition, it was drizzling. Thus, we abandoned our initial plan and headed to the southern Golan. We took the easternmost road so we could see the windmills at Aloney-Habashan (I also wanted to go to the Ortal lookout, but it was cloudy so there was no point climbing there), and later drove back to the Mapalim road. A quick stop at the Ayit waterfall enabled us to appreciate the nice stream and the green scenery which surrounds it, and then we continued to Gamla. It’s good to be spontaneous.
Gamla has a few nice features. There is, of course, the location. Named for its resemblance of a Camel’s hump, the Gamla hill indeed looks like a hump in the middle of a valley that flows from the Golan to the Sea of Galilee. On the hump are the ruins of the ancient town, a neat archaeological site of considerable importance; this time, we didn’t go to see it, but merely looked from above at the entire setting - which is very beautiful at this season, all covered with green grass and flowers. We also didn’t go to the prehistoric Dolmen field which lies just above the canyon, and neither to the ruined village next to it: the blame for this is on the weather, the slight rain, and the rather deep mud. More seriousely, there was no need for that, as the vultures that inhabit the cliffs provided us with such a show.
They escorted us all the way, since the entrance to the park and until we left the watching terrace. From there, we could see both the grown-ups, flying in groups, and some youngsters that circled inside the canyon, occasionally stopping near their nests at the cliff in front of us. A real show. We stayed there quite a few minutes watching it, and then went back to the car.
The pastures at the other side of Gamla, as we discovered, are green and flowering right now, which probably makes the gazing cows very happy. We watched them, pleased with the scenery and the natural setting. When a drizzle started again, we headed to the Golan visitor ceter at Katzerin. They have there this model of the Golan heights, built a few years ago; the place also hosts a small cinema with propaganda films and a nice beer brewery. After a quick round there we started to head back, and then we noted that we have this slight fuel problem - actually, we just run out of it.
A quick examination revealed the following situation: despite the fact that the Kazerin gas station holds a sign of one petrol company (PAZ), they also receive automatic chargings from other companies (DELEK and others). I don’t know how they managed to do this - but I don’t really care, and it’s useful: it solved our petrol problem. I should remember this for future travels.
With the petrol problem solved, we could head back to Rosh-Pina for the evening coffee. This coffee did the work, and I could drive back to Haifa, where we spent the evening and the following morning: in the following evening, we examined an entirely different part of Israel, but this is a different story altogether.
