Nazareth, Zippori, and Caesarea: Long Day's Journey into Night

A household in Nazareth:
"Behold, I stand at
the door and knock."

Our feelings were mixed as we checked out of the Royal Plaza Hotel Tiberias and loaded up the bus this morning: it was exciting to think about another full day of educational and edifying sightseeing, but lurking in the back of our minds was the awful realization that the next place most of us would have a chance to unpack and lie down would be back in our own homes. But we'll have plenty of time to think about that once we get to the airport tonight; right now, we're heading to Nazareth.

Around the Sea of Galilee

The Sea of Galilee

Visibility was not good yesterday because wind kept roiling up the dust, and last night we were concerned that the blustery weather might prevent us from going out on the Sea of Galilee this morning. Although we saw an overcast sky when we pushed the curtains of our hotel room aside about 6:30 a.m., the wind had calmed considerably so the boat trip was on.

After breakfast, we drove from Tiberias on the western shore of the lake around to Ein Gev, a kibbutz on the eastern shore. The Sea of Galilee is nowhere near as big as the term "sea" implies; its longest dimension is less than fifteen miles, so circumnavigating the whole shoreline road doesn't take much more than an hour. This morning's route took us around the south shore, past some banana and date plantations operated by members of the kibbutz, and then to a small harbor where several fishing boats were moored.

Bet She'an, Megiddo and Yardenit: Centuries of Conquest

Ruins of Bet She'an

It probably has become apparent that this tour has not left us much downtime. Even last night’s dip in the hotel pool was circumscribed by our late afternoon arrival and a firm dinner time. Call time most mornings has been around 8:00 a.m., and we are expected to be on the bus, with our luggage already loaded, ready to go, at the appointed time. This morning was no exception. Nancy was in such a hurry that she forgot to take off her glasses and put her contact lenses in after breakfast, as is her habit. It turned out to be a fortuitous omission: the wind was so strong today that she probably would have had to keep her eyes closed half the time to avoid getting dust under her lenses.

Masada, Qumran and the Dead Sea: Wandering in the Wilderness

Masada (aerial view courtesy of Wikipedia)

This morning when we left the Golden Walls Hotel, we loaded all our bags onto the bus and said farewell to Jerusalem. Today's first destination was Masada, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The name is derived from the Hebrew word for fortress, and that's what this is: a massive fortification built on top of a rock on the eastern edge of the Judean desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. The cliffs around the fortress drop about 300 feet on the west side and about 1300 feet on the east; three steep, narrow, winding paths lead from the desert floor up to the fortified gates. For miles and miles, Masada is surrounded by nothing but rock, sand, and a body of water that nothing can live in and no one can drink. So what is this fortess meant to protect?

Another Day of Ups and Downs in Jerusalem

Remembering Christ's last sermon near the treasury of the temple

This morning we returned to the Temple Mount yet again, but this time, instead of skirting around the sides or burrowing underneath, we climbed a wooden ramp to the top. Before approaching the Muslim shrines that dominate it today, however, we sat in an alcove where the temple's covered porches once stood. Here, learned men of the past discussed scriptures and disputed points of doctrine. Jim reminded us that this is where Jesus would have preached his last public sermon, calling attention to the widow who gave everything she had to the temple treasury as a fast offering for the poor.

Layers of Jerusalem

The outdoor terrace atop a cafe (left) overlooks excavated areas on the west side of the Temple Mount  

Jerusalem is a city of layers. Throughout its history, the city has been conquered, more or less destroyed, and then rebuilt at least seventeen times. As at Jericho, not only does this present archaeologists with the challenge of deciphering which layer they dealing with at any given location, but it also presents the challenge of deciding which layer to conserve. If they stop digging to preserve the features of one layer, then they prevent everyone from understanding and appreciating what might be found in the layers that lie farther down. And then there is the issue of what to do when historically significant ruins are discovered underneath the homes, schools, and businesses of the city's living inhabitants.

Shabbat in Jerusalem: Not the Witches' Sabbath

Olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane

Before granting approval for Brigham Young University to build its Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies in the 1980s, the Israeli government stipulated that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who came here to study must refrain from any proselytizing. At the same time, the government also requested that LDS Church members observe their weekly sabbath on the same day as their Jewish hosts: Saturday. Thus, while most of our friends back in the States have spent their Saturday eating Halloween candy and posting pictures of their kids in cute costumes on Instagram, we in the Holy Land have been quietly celebrating shabbat.

Jerusalem, Jericho, and Bethany: A Tunnel, a Road, a Tomb, and a Wall

Waiting to enter Hezekiah's Tunnel

We had been warned about the hike through Hezekiah’s Tunnel: Wear shorts. Wear water shoes. Wear a headlamp. If you tend to get claustrophobic, plan to stay with the bus driver and meet us at the other end. But hey, we'd already slogged through mud and encountered thigh-high water in that gorge in Petra with no such advance warnings, so how bad could a walk through one of Jerusalem's most popular tourist attractions be?

Crossing the River Jordan

Salad buffet

A typical Jordanian breakfast buffet consists of a number of items catering to American and other western peoples: juice (often canned and therefore disappointing), cereal (usually unsweetened) and milk, roasted potatoes, steamed tomatoes, baked beans, maybe some sauteed mushrooms, “beef sausage” (what we would call hot dogs), and eggs prepared in the usual ways. Sometimes you can get a made-to-order omelette. There is an assortment of small pastries, rolls, and breads for toasting. Then, because this is the Middle East, there is eggplant--sometimes simply roasted, sometimes sauteed in combination with other vegetables, eggs, or cheese. Big bowls of hummus and thick yogurt stand next to smaller bowls of the herbs and spice mixtures you can sprinkle on top, and next to those are the cheeses: cubes of salty Feta sprinkled with chia seeds, thin slices of Provolone or Havarti, and foil-wrapped triangles of bland cheese product of some sort. Sometimes typical American-style cold cuts are set out. Usually there is a basket of fresh fruit, or quartered grapefruit, or bowls of canned peaches, pears, and fruit cocktail (all of which tend to be less sweet than their American counterparts). In addition, there are often dried fruits, too: raisins, apricots, dates, and figs. Most importantly, there are the fresh vegetables: chopped tomatoes, sliced peppers, shredded carrots, and the best cucumbers that didn’t come out of your own garden. Usually there are also three or four different salad combinations, and an assortment of olives and pickled vegetables. And there is always pita, ready to stuff with any or all of the above.

Wadi Rum: Bedouins on Mars

Wadi Rum

Zaid tried to give us more information about his native country as we drove from Petra to Wadi Rum this afternoon, but finally gave up when he realized that most of his audience was asleep. We didn’t feel too bad about closing our eyes because there wasn’t much to see in the bleak desert landscape anyway. Everyone perked up as Jim pointed out Beit Ali, the tent camp where we would return to spend the night, and then when the fantastic rock formations of Wadi Rum began to rise out of the desert floor. If you’ve seen The Martian (which we haven’t yet), you have seen this eerie landscape because the film was shot here.

Petra, Part 2: Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Golden Curse

At Petra's "high place"

Jim had arranged for breakfast to be served half an hour early this morning so that the twenty of us who chose to follow him on a hike up to Petra’s “high place” to see the sunrise would not have to do so on empty stomachs. However, the evening staff with whom he had made the arrangements apparently failed to communicate that message to the morning staff, because they weren’t ready for us when we started gathering in the dining room at 6:00 a.m. Consequently, the sun was already up by the time we got on our way into the old city about 6:45. A guard at the entrance gate carefully checked the names on our two-day tickets against our picture IDs to make sure that we hadn’t bought them from scalpers.

Petra, Part 1: Discovering the Lost City

Petra Treasury

Today we visited Petra, capital city of the Nabataeans, an ancient people who roamed the Middle East for hundreds of years before settling in the Shara mountains east of the Dead Sea in the fourth century BC. They thrived as traders for several centuries, avoiding conquest by every other power because their city was so difficult to find. By the time the Romans located it, the Nabataeans had become powerful enough themselves to convince the Romans to make a treaty with them. At its height, Petra had an estimated population of 25,000. In 749 AD, a tremendous earthquake destroyed much of the city. Survivors scattered and never returned, eventually integrating into other Arab cultures and peoples. Century after century, sand sifted over the rubble and Petra became little more than a memory; only a few nomads knew where it had been. Today, it is occupied by Bedouins, some of whom live in caves that once were Nabataean dwellings and tombs.

Amman, Mount Nebo, and Madaba

The Grand Millennium in Amman

We thought we would be angry when the scheduled wake up call came at 6:30 this morning.  It turned out that we were awake before 6. And as it turned out, we needed the extra time and could have used several more minutes because we were the last ones on the bus. Maybe it felt so nice to finally take a shower and shave that we took a little too much advantage of it. Maybe the breakfast buffet at the hotel was a little more savory than we thought it would be. Maybe it was the extra minutes it took to cross the street to take a picture of the hotel. Whatever the reason, no one complained that we were holding the group up. And it was, after all, only our first day together.  We just have to make sure we haven’t set a pattern.

Departure Day(s)

Waiting to board our flight from Cincinnati to Paris

The centerpiece of the first few days of our trip is a visit to Petra, a city in what is now southern Jordan that was literally carved out of solid rock by the Nabataeans about two thousand years ago. The place was abandoned after a massive earthquake in 749 AD and remained undiscovered by the outside world until 1812. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Lynn and Mark signed up for this part of the tour, but Judith and Richard did not, so we won’t see the latter pair until Thursday.) Before we can tour Petra, however, we have to get out of Cincinnati.

"Why are you going to Israel?"

Last week, when Nancy told her Sunday School class (ages 16-18) that they would have a substitute teacher for the next two weeks because she was going to Israel, one of her students came up afterward and asked, “Why are you going to Israel?”

The girl’s emphasis on the first and last words of her question implied that she thought we were crazy--and given the news of increasing violence coming out of Jerusalem during the past week, maybe we are. But the first response that popped into Nancy’s head and thus came out of her mouth was, “Because I want to--and I'm not afraid.”

But that’s only part of the story.