A Chevron chavaya

It was an interesting shabbat, that's for sure. Sophie and I wanted to use anywhere in Israel but turns out they had a baby and the service wasn't working. So we took a list of families who host people for shabbat and we picked a random name off the list. They could have us, so our shabbat plans were set. We're going to kiryat arba/chevron. On Friday we took a bullet proof bus and when we got there we got off and tried to figure out where to go. So we're walking down the sidewalk when two German shepherds run out, barking and chasing us. it was all I could do not to run for my life. So we quickly backed away and got the hell outta there-the dogs were still watching us from across the street. We were off to a great start.
So eventually we found their house and turns out the host was chavrusahs with my dad 25 years ago. Small world.
On Friday night we walked down to the mearat hamachpelah to daven-only a 12 minute walk. There were guards stationed everywhere on the path down to the cave because on both sides are Arab villages. I was literally walking parallel to Arabs riding donkeys, less than 10 feet away from me. (some of the chayalim wished us shabbat shalom QUITE enthusiastically.)
It was pretty cool davening there on an ordinary Friday night-there were surprisingly absolutely no charedim. Mostly carlbach guys dressed all in white. 
On shabbat morning they required us to get up early (we were warned in advance) and we walked up to this nowheresville that was practically hanging off a cliff (it was a shack with a tablecloth mechitza put up for us) and adjacent to a Jewish family's hut. They actually raise goats. 
So we finished davening early and wandered to the edge of the cliff and when we couldn't go any further we sat down on rocks and hung out. I later  figured out I got sunburned. In late October. 
For lunch our hosts had native Serbs at their table. Seriously. It was a guy visiting his daughter who made aliyah. Anyways, after lunch we walked down to he kazmas which was literally chevron arabville. Loads of armed guards accompanied us-we found them standing on the rooftops and guarding any entrances where they would forbid Arabs from passing through. It was like wlking through the old city- all the same alleys and crevices and tunnels-except there were Muslim kids staring at us from the windows and creepy Arab guys selling produce like in the Arab shuk. The soldiers legitimately walked around cocking their guns at the Arabs passing through. What a chavaya. 
(apologies for lack of coherency and grammatical errors)