Tel Aviv, Masada and the Dead Sea (X2)

Today we are crossing through the Palestinian Territories into Israel. It's a little unnerving with the history of this area, but we proceed in a taxi, not a public bus this time. Public buses have often been a target.

All the way from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, we see miles of sand dunes, interrupted by Bedouin tents here and there, but mostly just devoid of human life. It's not very far from eastern Israel/Palestine to the west coast, and we arrive very quickly to the city of Tel Aviv. We are deposited at our north town apartment and immediately find our way to the beach.

The beaches are like pocket beaches, not one long beach, and the sand is a golden color. The Mediterranean is beautiful, as always, and we enjoy the sun as we stroll the length of the first couple of beaches. Tel Aviv is a modern city with not as many historical sites as exotic Jerusalem, for instance, but the food here is superb and we enjoy winding down from the whirlwind that we felt in Jerusalem. There is a corner of the city called Jaffa that is actually older than Tel Aviv, and we enjoy walking around in the old port complex that is presently being renovated with new shops and restaurants. It is built of very large rock buildings and looks very southern European (Italian, Greek), at least in the part that has been completed.

We also want to go to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, but when Terry wakes up feeling really bad the morning of our trip, we decide not to push it. We stick close to our second hotel on the south side of town. It's near Rothschild which is a broad boulevard with walking and biking sections that run through a lovely part of town. There are colorful restaurants and cafes on both sides, along with residential areas and leafy streets, mostly ficus trees, big and bushy-green.

Terry floating with his shoes on!!

Gloria--can't believe it's so easy to float!!

We decide to take a tour of Masada, the mountain top luxury retreat of King Herod where 900 Jews were cornered in 70 AD, and, rather than be taken into slavery, they all killed themselves. It's a serious monument, set in a severe part of the desert. Very interesting and old, and we were surprised that so much of it was stll intact, although archaeologists did do some rebuilding. Still, it's pretty fascinating.

We also get a second chance at the Dead Sea. The first time we were there on the Jordan side, the weather was really cold and rainy, and the wind wouldn't allow us to get in the water and float. I got in, but the waves were so high that floating was impossible, so I just got in because I didn't think I'd ever have a chance to do it again. But here is our second chance, and we enjoy every minute of it. We get in and float for about 45 minutes. It's eally fun, and we try to swim and turn over, and the water just flips us on our backs, and our feet won't go in the water so that kicking is pretty difficult. There is mud that is full of minerals, and it's supposed to be good for your skin. Of course I have to try it. Feels like regular mud, although it's pretty oily and slick. Looks funny, though, and I don't leave it on for very long. We know, sadly, that this is our last outing on our trip, and we prolong it when we return to Tel Aviv by going to the Carmel Market where I can buy some of that mud!!

top of Masada

One last delicious dinner, one more night in our art-inspired hotel (Diaghilev Live Art Hotel), and we are on our way home. These 5 weeks went by so quickly, and we enjoyed seeing every bit of Egypt, Jordan and israel that we could. I don't think that weve had a trip that has been so packed with historical site after site, and we have marveled at every one. Exhausted, we board our plane.

Bethlehem Mar 10, 2012

Bethlehem is a surprise which is not surprising since I usually guess wrong.  It's a pretty big town with about 25,000 people I think.  I am expecting a village, and, driving in through the stoney countryside, I can imagine shepherds on the hillsides with their sheep.  Actually, we do see sheep grazing all over the rocky slopes with their guardians nearby.  It's not hard to picture this area thousands of years ago, at least not until we reach the town.  Large buildings, honking taxis, and trucks with loads of building material transport me back to present day, and as our taxi deposits us in town to wait for our guide to the Church of the Nativity, known as the Basilica of the King, we try to work through the process of this little village's progress through the centuries to what it is today.

The Church of the Nativity, our main visitation point, is surprisingly lowly at the entrance with a small door through which we stoop as we enter.  One must bow in order to enter which is fitting for the specialness of the place.  We step into a cavernous church save for the altar and many candle lamps hanging from the ceiling.  The present floor is wood, but the floor below it, seen by a large square cut into the wood, is a beautiful mosaic, and we are told the mosaic covers the entirety of the floor.  It must be some piece of art!! To the left side is a small set of circular steps that lead down, and it is through this hole in the floor that we descend into another room, this one packed full of visitors.   On our left is another altar, and beneath it is the spot where Jesus was born our guide tells us.  It is covered in beautiful silver and dark blue tile, but there are so many people in that small spot, it's very hard to move, so we proceed to the still lower area where our guide tells us Jesus' manger was located.  It's lit with many candles and gives off a soft glow, fitting the spirituality of the location.  Beautiful and serene, except for the many pilgrims who are also there to absorb the atmosphere of early Christian worship, the entirety of this special birthplace stays with us as we emerge from below to the sight-seeing groups in the church above. 

lowly entrance to Church of the Nativity

majestic altar inside church

birthplace of Jesus

place where manger was located



mosaic floor (underneath wood one)



stained glass above altar

hillsides of stones

Once again, in the bright sunlight, we make our way back to the taxi and are off again, this time across the country westward to Tel Aviv.

PS: About Purim

I almost forgot Purim, the holiday that is being celebrated as we wind our way through Jerusalem.  It looks like our halloween with both children and adults dressed in various wild or beautiful costumes, but we learn that it celebrates the rescue of the Jews from annihlation at the hand of the king by Esther who was the Jewish queen and his favorite wife.  The traditional costumes, then, consist of a queen's or a king's robes, and we saw plenty of them, but we also saw some wild and crazy ones.

celebrating Purim

The holiday lasted several days, maybe extended by those who willed it longer, and we also got the tail end of it when we got to Tel Aviv.

what's a smurf got to do with it?

Jerusalem, Israel March 7--10, 2012

Jerusalem, Israel Mar 7—10

Entering Israel through the Palestinian Territories isn't as difficult as we thought it would be. We breeze through with the help of Guiding Star VIP service, a real help for navigating a border crossing that promises to be as perplexing as it is time-consuming. But it is actually neither, and we are shortly on our way to Jerusalem, passing mounds of sand, grazing camels, and Bedouins in their now-recognizable tents. We actually get to our Jerusalem hotel 2 hours and 15 minutes after leaving our hotel in Amman.

jars containing the Dead Sea Scrolls

Our first stop: Israel Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they are as incredible as we expected. The special built building is in the shape of the lid that covered the clay jars that the first three scrolls were found in. In fact, the clay jars are beautifully displayed and are in amazingly pristine condition. The segments of the scrolls are displayed with great explanations and well done display cases, although dimly lit because of the fear of fading. In some cases, the display is of a facsimile, not the real thing, which is understandable. I wish I could read them, but, of course, they are in Hebrew although some are in Greek or Aramaic. Pretty incredible collection to think of their age and significance.

museum building housing the Dead Sea Scrolls

We decide to amble through the Old City and find that it is truly "the city on a hill" as it is called in the Bible. Very narrow streets with shops, restaurants, cafes, coffee and ice cream shops, and beautiful churches. Art shops are scattered around as are antiquities shops and famous sites. We know we can't see them all, but we are excited about going with our guide tomorrow to sites that are well-known to so many people and about which we've heard and read all our lives.

Jerusalem--city on a hill

Jerusalem is all that—and more! Our guide Shmuel shows us an amazing array of sites, among them the Via Dolorosa (the road Jesus walked while carrying the cross—the stations of the cross), the Dome of the Rock (the gold-leafed dome that is a spiritual location for both Muslims and Jews), several churches that were built by the Crusaders, magnificent architecture both ancient and more recent (largely by Barluzzi), the Wailing Wall or West Wall (Jews go here to pray), the Garden of Gethsemene wth its 2000-year-old olive trees, Mary's birthplace and lots lots more, but our favorite spot is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is built over the place that the cross is thought to have stood and contains the stone slab on which Jesus' body was laid to be washed before burial. It also has a cave on one wall where Christ is believed to have possibly been buried). It is very moving and gives the sense that those events of so many years ago are closer than we thought them to be. From the terrace of St. Andrew's Scottish Guesthouse we sit and look across the valley at the walled city of Jerusalem and know that it's going to be a very long time before we can sort out and get our heads wrapped around all that we have seen-- if that's even possible!

West Wall or Wailing Wall

Speaking of the Scottish Guesthouse, we pick up a little brochure that tells us about the find that happened here in 1975. Two tiny silver scrolls from the 7^th century BC, the oldest Biblical text artifacts ever discovered, were found on the property and contained a very familiar blessing in Hebrew. It's the one that says, "The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24 in the Bible quotes the scrolls. Isn't that amazing that they were found on this property?

in front of the Dome of the Rock

Jerash, Jordan, Mar 3--5, 2012

snow--as we enter Amman

There are still more truck farms as far as we can see as we drive along the Dead Sea Highway, and the land boasts many vegetables including (additionally) cauliflower, cabbage, corn and onions. It doesn't take too long, however, for us to climb up out of the valley into higher elevations, and we again encounter snow, this time in the outskirts of Amman where they have accumulated about six inches, enough to close schools for a couple of days, giving kids the opportunity for snowball fights and makeshift sledding on cardboard sleds. We even see snowmen made on the backs of pickups and on tops of car trunks. People are definitely enjoying the weather.

But WE aren't enjoying the weather. The main objective for our visit to Jerash is to see the largest Roman ruins outside of Italy, and the rain, cold and wind will make that very difficult. Instead, we decide to go to the city of Irbid, the second largest city in Jordan and home to the University of Yarmouk. There we visit the Museum of Antiquities and Anthropology, a chronological explanation of Jordanian (and surrounding areas) history. Nicely set up with English and Arabic descriptions, the museum has a wonderful collection of material culture as well as a civilization timeline. The room of a typical house is colorful and welcoming with bright carpets on the floor and furniture and all methods of cooking particular to the time period.

freshly baked bread at the cafeteria

We do get a bit of sun while in Irbid, and that plus the smiles and waves we get from the Jordanian students warm us. We eat in a student-oriented cafeteria style restaurant. The men are downstairs and women and families upstairs. There's no smoking upstairs mainly because women mostly don't smoke, so it's especially appealing to us. I encounter girls in the bathroom again, this time making them smile and speak when I whip out my lipstick. Some speak really good English and a few are studying to be translators, so their English is excellent.

Next day we are scheduled to return to Amman, and we hope to be able to see Hadrian's Gate and the Roman ruins on our way out of town.

We awake to bright blue skies and calm. Ahhh. I don't like wind and am less enthralled with the combination of wind and rain, especially when the wind is gale-force. No exaggeration, that's what it was like for the past 5 days.

part of mosaic floor in the Church of St. Cosmos

But now we can really see the Roman ruins, and they are incredible from Hadrian's gate to the Temple of Artemis, all so beautifully preserved (as well as can be expected for having lasted for a couple thousand years). The area of the ruins are huge, almost two square kilometers, a little over a square mile, and this is only 30% ;they believe 70% is still left to be uncovered! The size stems from their position on the Silk Road, along a trade route that goes from Palmira, Syria, through Jordan (Jerash and Petra) and on to Egypt.

Terry at Hadrian's Gate

There were 3 Christian churches also, mostly tumbled down to their still-beautiful mosaic floors. We haven't been able to catch many Christian sites, mostly because they are quite often off the main path. We weren't able to see Lot's Cave or Jesus' baptism site on the Jordan, the latter because it is located on the border with Israel. A tour is required and we didn't have the two hours it took to visit. But we are leaving Jordan tomorrow for Palestine and Israel, and Jerusalem promises to have many Chistian sites for us to visit, along with Jewish and Islamic ones. We hope to get to the Sea of Galilee at the end of our trip which (yikes!) is coming up very soon.

boulevard of columns in Jerash

The Dead Sea, Jordan Mar 2--3, 2012

leaving Petra to cross the Nemala Mts.

It's freezing and there's snow on the ground as we set off from Petra for the Dead Sea. All the main roads are closed, but our driver Yusef knows a back road that he thinks will be fine. It's just a one lane gravel road that twists and turns as it crawls through the Nemala Mountains, and we see only 3 cars in the 3 hours it takes us to make the trek, stopping along the way a couple of times to view the grand and majestic Wadi Araba (valley) below. There are huge boulders, wide washes, and a few wind-swept trees urging us downward toward the wadi four thousand feet beneath us. The gravel road turns into a paved one, we cross the wadi, and turn north on the Dead Sea Highway, missing the snow entirely!



camels grazing along the road

 The brown rocks and sand gradually morph into shades of green as we reach the agricultural area that employs whole campsites of Bedouins in their big, square tents. Cucumbers, eggplants, and lots and lots of tomatoes are grown here, and we pass a plethora of produce stands, large and small. We stop at Mujib Biosphere Reserve, a migration point for thousands of birds and a part of the Great Rift Valley that runs from South Africa all the way north to Turkey.

coming down into Wadi Araba

There are glimpses of the Dead Sea through the trees and hills, and finally we get a full view of that beautiful body of water. It's very large and majestic, and the sun, which is mostly hidden by clouds

makes it sparkle when it is unobstructed. It must be absolutely blinding on a bright day, but today we don't get the full effect because the storm coming down from the north has stalled, bringing us more wind and cold temperatures, and the water is an angry blue.

the Dead Sea with Palestine across on other side

We arrive at our destination, the Movenpick Resort Hotel, at the edge of the sea. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to swim because of the white caps. Maybe tomorrow will be calmer.

getting splashed by waves

Alas, it's not calmer, but it's the only chance I'll have to experience the highest salt content in the world at 31%. I want to feel the buoyancy of that special place, so I decide to put on my suit and get in. The water is surprisingly warm although not very warm, and even though I can't get out in the open, I do get to float in a small area behind a breakwater. The waves come in and splash me, and I can taste the salt on my lips, even though they haven't gotten wet. The rocks around me sprout salt crystals where they meet the salt spray. They are white and pointed like quartz crystals, and we collect a little sample to bring with us.

But now we must turn our thoughts still northward toward our next stop, Jerash. We just hope we won't run into more snow and that this storm will soon abate.

Petra, Jordan Feb 29--Mar 2, 2012

the marriage rock

We are going to visit the ancient city of Petra, no matter if it is freezing and blowing 50 miles an hour, so we put on our 5 layers and all the scarves we can find and set out, wishing we had gloves.  It's pretty as we begin our walk, the rocks a beautiful red hue, round and rough, smallish, but growing larger as we walk toward the entrance to the city.  Our Petra guide Mohammed urges us on, and pretty soon we find ourselves in the Siq, the narrow passage through very tall mountains.  The Nabateans were the original builders in about 1000 BC but the Romans came in with their architecture in about 106 AD and tweaked the buildings to suit their own building style. 

Mohammed explains various sites along the way, then tells us to stop, turn and take 7 steps (8 steps will put us in a different century).  We do that, turn to our right, and at that point The Treasury comes into partial view.  It is magnificent!  The Nabateans carved caves with facades that are truly amazing, tall as the small mountain they cover with their carved fronts.  And there are many, many of these caves that used to be used for tombs, archaeologists believe.  The decorated caves go on for about 2 miles, interspersed with Bedouin tents and men walking around leading camels, horses and donkeys for hire.  There are some ruins that were large buildings, beautiful with large columns and marble steps. 

Gloria & "Indiana Jones" according to the guides

We climb up steps to the small museum at the top, then follow the little path around to the other side of the mountain where there is a tea house.  We can see for miles and are stunned by the size and shape of the mountains in the distance.  There are goats and sheep being herded by shepherds and visitors who are wandering along the paths.  We stop for tea at one of the Bedouin tents and are grateful for the warm wood stove and respite from the wind. 

the amazing tall facades of Petra

beautiful rock formation and colors

After seeing as much as we can at the end of the valley, we retrace our steps back to the Treasury.  Have I said fascinating many times?  It is so amazing to see such an ancient complex of structures and imagine how these people built them without modern tools, just shovels and blades.  After gazing at the 100' tall Treasury once more, and after being in the cold, underdressed, for about 4 hours, we return through the Siq, thinking about the Roman pavement beneath our feet and again taking in the carving of statues, gods' niches, and the 2 mile water aqueduct they provided for the people living in the area. A unique and incredible people!