 Hello, welcome back to my YouTube channel. I'm going on a hike today to place in south Jerusalem, but to get there we have to go through the Mesila which cuts through Jerusalem. So we're currently there. We're gonna check out the zoo by Malfa and maybe check out the surrounding hill territory. So around the way, it's about 45 minutes from the first station, which is where the Mesila actually starts all the way to the end of the Mesila and then we'll cut across there to see what else is on the other side. This is after the end of Parka Ma. You can see Teddy Stadium is here on the right and it splits into two. And if you take the left of those two turns, it goes through a tunnel. And we can see ahead of us here, there is actually it's a biking trail. What lovely olive trees and you can see on the right here there is a egged depot for the buses. And that overpass is Kvi Shishim, also known as Kvi Shaminerot, which as the traffic is going right is heading out towards Gush Etzion. But it's built on a lift, so I think this little trail is gonna go over it. And then there's some high territory ahead of us. This is, these are hills which you may explore. And on the other side of that high-rise ridge is actually Bethlehem. So there's a little ridge high over South Jerusalem and then Bethlehem. Which if you look on the map is really confusing because it's technically the two cities almost connect, but for obviously for geopolitical reasons they can't connect and they're separated by a wall and a checkpoint. But if it wasn't for that, they'd kind of almost become one city. So you can see those hills, road signs, and all the other stuff. It's getting a bit of video of those houses up there. The hills are spectacular. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, so we're on the trail now on the outskirts of Jerusalem. And what is in front of me here, you can see it says in the lettering or the signage Jerusalem Malcha. So what we're looking at here is the original station for the old Jerusalem to Malcha train. Sorry, Jerusalem to Tel Aviv train that took a long time. It took about two hours and it was incredibly scenic. But since the fast train from the newly built Navon station to Tel Aviv came on the scene, this line was recently retired. But you can see it's not it's not like the other parts of the Mesila historic train. It's very much until very recently was fully operational and this was the train station and the train would go out of here and wind through these valleys through Batir and make its way to Tel Aviv. And some people would take it just for fun because it was so scenic. And now it's as you can see pretty much empty, although the signs are still up there. So now apparently it's a hiking route. So you can go through Batir and through the other parts where the train formally crossed on foot. These hills in front of me, this leads up to Giloh and you can see in the distance there on the right, or maybe you can't see, but those houses there would be I think in Har Giloh, which is an Israeli community over the Green Line, and then just over that ridge again. So two more ridges from here is Batlehem. So that's where we are here on the edge of Jerusalem. We got to this point through following the whole lengths of the Mesila park. I'm with a friend today and we took a turn off to the left and that brought us out to this track. And actually it's still going here. So we're going to be kind of meandering here up and through these hills. So we are now continuing on the trail. This is the road that leads out to the checkpoint at Alawalaja. It's one of the checkpoints leading into Jerusalem. And these are the trails that run up the hill to Batlehem. We're not actually going to go on them today. As you can see, they're kind of this is the way they look. But parallel to this road is the checkpoint and turning left equals turning south. And if we climb up this hill far enough, we would get to Batjala, which is a part of Batlehem. And a little bit further to the west, we'd get to Alawalaja. So this is overlooking the Malkha Technology Park, the Batjala Building Center. And this is where I think the Honduran embassy is. It's also a high-tech complex in Jerusalem, which is an office space basically. And just above it in the distance is the Holy Land Project, quite controversial high-rise real estate development. So we're actually on such a height here that we're overlooking Malkha from a hill. So we've rejoined the actual trail now, which is good news. And we're actually got some kind of concrete path. We're walking towards Giloh, in fact, where the road we're on is going to take us up to Giloh, which is one of the ring neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Far south, there's also Har Giloh, which is even further south. But who knew that these... This is really my first time hiking. I'm by no means a veteran hiker. In fact, I'm a total newbie. I've heard my friend who knows a lot more about this than I do. As you can see, he's got a hiking pole. He thinks he knows more. Oh, he has his GPS watch. He knows what he's doing. So we're going up here and this is... I thought it was fit because I've been doing like these one-hour bike rides during the week. But my fitness has been totally challenged by the steepness of these hills. So this is not the Israel National Trail. This is not the Jerusalem Trail. This is just a random trail. Some recommendations based on what I've learned so far. If you're hiking these hills, A, bring a lot of water. B, don't go hiking when we did at 12 p.m. in the Israeli summer because you'll be very hot. Sea brinks on screen. And that's about it. Try to be in some kind of shape before you attempt these because it ain't easy. But the views we're getting here overlooking South Jerusalem, overlooking Malkah, overlooking all the other stuff going on here. They're building the way out of Jerusalem. They're currently putting down another light rail network. They're really, really something. So you're definitely rewarded for your effort if you come up this way. Another point of interest from up here on high looking over Jerusalem. You can see where my... I can't really zoom on this particular camera, but you can probably see it because I'm shooting in 4K. You can see the old train line meandering there out of Jerusalem. And you can get a sense for just how beautiful it was because it's going straight through those valleys. And it just goes on like this for miles and miles all the way to the finally getting to Yaffo and Tel Aviv. It felt like you're in a Harry Potter movie. Sadly, haven't kept it going just as a tourist attraction. View King Jerusalem. And you can see the stadium there in the distance. That is a Teddy Stadium next to it. There is a big stadium, craft stadium, I believe, no? Pie Stadium. And this is actually where I got my first COVID vaccine. They're using it at the start of the COVID outbreak for vaccinations because they just need it anywhere that would fit a lot of people. This is the start of Yido, the bus stop. And at the top of that hill, there's a little recreation area. So the elevation gain is about 400 to 500 feet over the course of a mile, which is quite a lot. And it took us about 20 minutes, I think. Probably felt longer to get from the bottom by Malca all the way up here to Yido.