Israel Trip

Israel 2012, Day 5 – Crossing the Red Sea

I had a great night of sleep and an early walk around the tel. I watched the sunrise over the mountains. Tuttle was in fact chasing the two girls on their morning jog, but as I write he is showing off doing push-up. (Usually you write “push-ups” but in this case the singular is appropriate.)

Today we drove about two hours south to the city of Eilat, a tourist city on the Red Sea.  The highlight of the drive is a stop at the “Cow Palace,” a roadside market and gift shop with an inordinate number of cow-oriented decorations. It was udderly amoozing.  It is still a good place for a rest stop and coffee, so much so that people wanted to stop there on the way back for ice cream (and a number of other edible items!)  The store has chocolate covered manna, which I am sure is totally biblical.

We split the group for the day.  Most of the group went snorkeling at Coral Beach, a national park.  I did not join them, but everyone had a great time and the coral was very good (especially given the low price). Lunch was excellent there, I am told, although one member of our group tried to order pepperoni on his cheese pizza.  That was so non-kosher.

I stayed with rest of the group who went to the public beach swim area. This was a nice spot to lounge by the Red Sea, although five of the group rented a boat and Captain Ray Crumb took them out for a three-hour tour (OK, it wasn’t that long, and the weather never did start to get rough.) I walked along the promenade for about a half hour. There are a huge variety of stores and resturants, everything from trinkets to some trendy fashionable stores I really do not know much about. I had a great pastery and cappicino at Cafe Cafe. Honestly, I had two, but they were small. Ish.

After dinner (spaghetti and meatballs, and an excelent poppy seed cake), we visited Kate’s gallery. Unfortunately she was “out of stock” on her jewelry but she had plenty of her excellent prints of Tamar and other sites from Israel. I highly recommend her art (I’ll post a link to her site when I get back home.) Quite a few of us are sitting around the fire in the Sukkah (which I called the Bedouin Boutique).

Rick Skelley Floats in the Red Sea

Israel 2012, Day 4 – Ibex, Rock Badgers, and Crabs, Oh My!

We had a great day visiting several sites in the Dead Sea area.  I didn’t feel much love when I announced a 7:30 start time, but we managed to be on the bus and ready to roll on time.

Our first stop was En Gedi, where David hid from King Saul (1 Sam 24).  Since we got there early, there were quite a few Ibexes grazing near the trail.  Actually, they seem to have been posing for pictures.  It was too early for the Hyrax (rock badgers) to be up and about, although we saw quite a few on the return walk.  Nearly everyone made it all the way to the waterfall, and we were there before the large groups started their walk so it was quiet.  We also saw a couple of freshwater crabs, something which I have never seen there before.

We drove past Masada to Qumran for a tour of the excavations (and a good lunch).  At the front gate there was a sign which said the “bridge” was closed, which appears to refer to the walkway over the larger cisterns.  There were a couple of other areas roped off for reconstruction of walkways, but we were able to make our way through most of the major rooms.  Since this was my fifth time at the site I noticed that there had been remarkably little improvement to the site despite the fact that I know there are several ongoing excavations.  The gift shop / resturant seems to be doing very well, but most of the people inside never visited the ruins.  I seriously doubt that Qumran is a “money maker” anymore, which is too bad – this is a very important site to both Jews and Christians.

After lunch we drove back south to Masada.  Mid-afternoon in early January  is a great time to visit, there was almost no crowd.  In fact, there was only one other group that I saw and they were leaving  as we were arriving.  We only had time to see the northern Palace, which is the highlight of the site.  Just about everyone walked the 165 steps down to the lower level (and the 165 steps back up!!)  A few walked or ran down the snake path,  those who are sane rode the cable car.  Unlike Qumran, Masada had improved greatly over my five trip to Israel.  The reception areas  are excellent and the busses are well managed.  I do have one complaint – it is time to update the movie!  There are several lines (and expressions) which always provoke laughter, even from this “mature” group.  The footage frrom the old movie needs to be re-mastered or replaced.

We had thought we would get a chance to swim in  the Dead Sea, but Masada ran late so we bumped that to a later day.  Derrick greeted us at Tamar with “wood grilled chicken” — an excellent dinner indeed.  Ken led us in an evening devotion  around the fire, challenging us to think about the “desert experience.”

I think that most people are off to an early bed tonight, but I do hear rumors that two “Strong and athletic” young ladies are planning on chasing John Tuttle on an early morning run.

Israel 2012, Day 3 – Into the Wilderness

At the end of day three I find mysef at Tamar, deep in the Negev. Some people in our group are trying to blow a shofar outside the cafeteria. Or possibly and injured camel has wandered into camp. Either way, I am going to stay here, sip my cup of tea, and finish off my blog for today.

We left at 8AM sharp, so naturally were were on the road by 8:30. We headed south and made a stop at the Valley of Elah, the site of David’s battle with Goliath. With all the rain the day before, we had to be careful of mud. After reading a bit of 1 Sam 17, almost everyone walked down to the riverbed to collect a stone or two. Or five. Well, one person has ten I am told. We might have trouble with weight on the return flight.

From there we visted Bet Guverin, the location of the Bell Caves. We drove around to the top of the hill for a panoramic view (and, to my shame, some rock throwing), then explored the Cistern House. It is always fun to go into the cistern and watch people as they come down the stairs. I do not tell them that there are huge, hand-carved cistern and storage rooms. We also visited the olive press and Sidonian caves. The Musician’s Cave was closed, but we peeked inside for a few minutes. It is in desparate need to conservation, the dampness is flaking the walls.

I normally stop at Lachish when I travel down this road since it is only 15 minutes from Bet Guverin and it is a nice view of what an under-excavated tel looks like. Unfortunately the gates were closed so we could not walk up to the gates where the Lachish Letters were found. It appears that they are trying to reinforce the road up to the gates, but for now we could only view the seige ramp. We ended up walking around the tel on the road, although really only about halfway (to the reconstructed wall).

On the way to Tamar we stopped near Beer Sheba for lunch. I had a lamb kabob with fresh pita and a few vegetables. Not the best lamb I have ever had, but it was a good meal.

We drove past Dimona and down to the Dead Sea on our way to Tamar. The transition from the Shephelah at Lachish and the desert near the Dead Sea is always jarring, especially for the first time visitor. We started in the Judean Hill country, through the rolling hills and farmland of the Shephelah, and into the rather barran desert of the Aravah. Tamar is some 25 mintues south of the Dead Sea, so we drove through the deep canyons of the Wadi Zin.

Tamar is a different palce in December, quite cool at 4:30PM. We waked the tel and I explained the various eras represented, from a hint of a middle bronze age Canaanite, an Iron age gate, an Edomite shrine, Roman buildings including a small bathhouse, a Turkish water system and a British jail house. It is quite remarkable how many eras are found at this rather tiny and obscure location in the Aravah.

We enjoyed an excellent dinner hosted by Kate and Derrick. Kate’s dinner was very good and the carrot cake was probably off my diet. But since I am walking up a lot of hills, that is OK right?

Ken and Naomi Share a Special Moment

At Bet Guverin

Israel 2012, Day 2 – Rainy Days (and Mondays) in Jerusalem

It was good to see everyone for breakfast this morning. Actually several people said they were glad to see me since they were under the mistaken impression I had gotten lost. As it turns out, I was the only one who went where I was supposed to. Despite what you might think at the moment, that is not a round-about way of saying I was lost in Jerusalem. The trains are not quite as regular as we were told, and the other party got off two stops further down the line so we just missed each other.

We started the morning on the Mount of Olives. The weather called for chilly temperatures and rain, unfortunately both were accurate. The view across the Kidron Valley was still quite spectacular. We walked carefully down the rain-slicked road to Dominus Fevit, a small church shaped like a tear-drop which marks a traditional location for Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. We stopped to read from Luke 19, especially verses 41-44. This gave me an opportunity to outline (briefly) the events of the final week of Jesus’ life and explain a bit about the why Jesus was staying on the Mount of Olives in the first place. While we were there, the sun came out enough to make a full rainbow, with one end on the Temple Mount. It was quite beautiful and unexpected.

From there we continued to the Church of All-Nations, the traditional site of the garden of Gethsemane. We happened to get there just as a couple of other tours were entering, so the olive garden was busy, but the church itself was quiet. Most of the other groups had cleared out by the time we were finished, so we had the garden almost to ourselves on the way out.

Jimmy met us with the bus and ferried us up to the Dung Gate to visit the Southern Wall Excavations and the Western Wall. It was a bar-mitzvah day, and a busy one at that. We were able to watch several young men start there procession down to the Western Wall Plaza, accompanied by music and joyous clapping. Seeing these celebrations was a nice bonus for us as we made our way to the Southern Temple Excavations.

On The Steps to the Temple

There were few groups in this area, and I have rarely seen l groups there. I am not sure why, possibly the cost of the tour is a problem. The archaeology there is fantastic, you see the Herodian architecture better than at the Western Wall and the Southern wall has a great deal of first-century buildings. If you are wanting to “walk where Jesus walked,” then the Davidson Museum and Southern Wall Excavations is the place for it! I was extremely pleased that they have the recently-discovered Akkadian fragment on display in the museum, along with a nice explanation.

After a brief lunch (falafel, naturally), our goal was to go up to the Temple Platform and walk around the Dome, but the gates were already closed. We visited the Western Wall (one last bar-Mitzvah was finishing up), and then walked around to the Church of Saint Anne to see the pool of Bethesda. Looking back on it, this might have been a mistake since we had to backtrack considerably to get to the Jaffa Gate. Three things complicated matters. First, we walked a bit slower than I anticipated, second, there was an unusually high number of taxis trying to negotiate the narrow streets. I would really like to see motor vehicles banned entirely from the Old City (or at least the parts I like to walk through!)

The third problem was rain. About 3:15 there was a pretty heavy rain, making the narrow streets of the Old City slick and dangerous. Most of us had soaked shoes and hats, a few people bought umbrellas from the street vendors (who probably did quite well in umbrella sales today).

We ended up about 45 minutes late to the bus, and therefore quite late for our appointment at the Garden Tomb. By the time we got to the Garden Tomb it was nearly dark (heavy clouds made for difficult viewing of the garden when we entered, and it was dark by the time we were done). Our guide (a Texan by the name of Joe Armstrong) gave us an excellent explanation of the site given the duress of growing darkness, Muslim call to prayer, and a very short time window. I have always enjoyed hearing the volunteers at the Garden Tomb, the place is always a highlight on my tours.

I must admit it was a bit eerie being down at the tomb at night, but as Ken Kemper pointed out, when the women came to the tomb on Sunday morning, it was only just after sunrise and was still quite dark. A potential positive benefit of the rain is that we were the only people there that late, so we were able to use the larger chapel for communion.

There are t-shirts available in the Old City which say, “I walked my feet off in Jerusalem.” Someone in our group said, “feet, ankles knees…” It was a long day, most people retired early. The travel has probably caught up to us as well.

Tomorrow we head south, hoping to catch a bit of warm and dry weather!

Israel 2012 Day 1 – Travel and More Travel!

Just a short update on our travels.  Sixteen of us left Grace Bible College at 8:30, Tom White ably drove the van to O’Hare.  We met our other seven fellow-travelers at JFK.  We have a family from Seattle, three from Minnesota, a couple from Ohio and two from Long Island. They are quite a well-traveled group, listening to them talk has convinced me they have been everywhere.  Except Israel and Jordan, of course!

We have arrived in Jerusalem after a very long day of travel.  Fights and connections all went smoothly and there was near-perfect weather the whole way.  Both of my flights were packed, but there were few problems.  Everyone made it through security in record time, which made for some longer waits at the gate.  But that is better that running through the airport at the last minute.

Jimmy met us at the airport and drove us to the Jerusalem Dan Hotel, on Mount Scopus.  My room is comfortable and has a nice view toward the Old City, but it is not near enough to Ben Yehuda or the Old City to walk there after dinner. Fortunately the new light rail system is now running, so several of us walked a short distance to the Ammunition Hill stop with the plan of riding down to Saint George street.  There was some general confusion when the train arrived, and I somehow ended up in the train and everyone else was left outside when the doors closed.  I figured I would see them in ten minutes when the next bus arrived, so I meandered around Ben Yehuda Street, had a coffee, listened to a pretty nice version of an Avett Brothers song from a young student then headed back to the hotel.  I guess you will have to come back next time to find out if everyone returned to the hotel.

The View Out My Hotel Window

Dinner was very good, the food at the Jerusalem Dan hotel was very enjoyable and a wide variety of Mediterranean cuisine (hummus and 4000 salads) along with a well-appreciated dessert table.  No coffee with dinner, though! It was really the first time we have all been able to sit down and really meet each other as a group. Some are still learning names, but after tomorrow that will no be a problem.

Tomorrow we start early at the Mount of Olives, walking down to Gethsamene, then to the Old City and Western Wall.