Quote " You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one"
John Lennon
I walked into our room in the kibbutz to find Hernan and Andy making beautiful music together. Hernan is an Anglican priest, originally from Ecuador, in Toronto at San Lorenzo. Here is a link Father Hernan to read more about Hernan and his very special parish.
The statue of St. Peter near his old home at Capernaum
Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter on the Sea of Galilee in Tabgha, Israel. Traditional site where Jesus Christ appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. This is a statue of Jesus telling Peter to "Feed my sheep."
The sun setting over the Sea of Galilee........Beautiful!
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| Happy Birthday Dear Susan, Happy Birthday to you! |
We have been staying in a kubbutz on the Sea of Galilee for the last three nights and are expected to arrive to our newest destination at the Dead Sea this afternoon. Up until this time, I have been unable to get a strong enough signal to upload my blog and pics.
Today we drove through the Golan Heights region characterized by a high, fertile plateau dominated by Mount Hermon. This is the area that borders Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. During the time we rode the bus in this area, many of us were continually trying to capture the wonderful vistas we were visually experiencing. There were numerous signs posting the danger of minefields along the highway on each side.
While I write this, we are driving through a heavily secured area at present through the West Bank. I would not have selected these particular words in an area that seemed to be very peaceful but these were the precise words our tour guide used. Throughout the whole duration of our drive in the West Bank, you do indeed see a patrolled border fence with miles of security wire, and we passed not just checkpoints, but a convoy of minesweepers.
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| Tel Dan National Park
Of the three sources of the Jordan River, the Dan River is the largest and most important. Its springs provide up to 238 million cubic meters of water annually. Our first stop was in Tel Dan National Park which is a lush nature reserve with beautiful hiking trail routes. At the end of the trail there is Tel Dan, the ancient city. Tel Dan is one of the most important sites of ancient Israel.
It is here that visitors can explore King Jeroboam's temple, which the Hebrew Bible indicates he established to house the golden calf and challenge the temple in Jerusalem for religious supremacy
The Canaanite Gate had three arches. It was a mud gate from 1800 BCE.
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The Druze village of Masadeh. The Druze considers themselves to be a sect or denomination of Islam, dating back to the 10th century, but they are not recognized as such by other Muslims. They practice a secretive form of faith, to which only men above the age of 40 may be admitted.
The side of the restaurant in Mas'adeh (not to be confused with Masada, by the Dead Sea). I keep asking myself why would I continue to post pics about washrooms! Frequently they were a puzzle to be solved/discovered by the women. For instance the first person in the line would observe whether there was soap or toilet paper. Sometimes we had to figure out how to flush the toilets while other times how to figure out the way to unlock the stall doors. At one point when someone was locked in a stall, we had to resort to outside help!
And some washrooms are unisex! Notice the white pitcher to the right of the tap. In orthodox Judaism, one handle is for the clean hand and the other handle is for the unclean hand. We had seen these two handled pitchers at the Western Wall where you wash your hands before entering.
I was surprised to discover local apples in this hot area.
Everyone loved Moussa our driver. His skillful driving and calm demeanour was so very much appreciated by all. When he speaks his native Arabic he frequently can be heard laughing.
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| Ghajar
Ghajar is a village on the border between Leganon and the Israeli occupied portion of the Golan Heights internationally considered to be part of Syria with a population of 2,100. Prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, it was considered part of Syria and included in the Syrian Census. When Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, they accepted living under Israeli rule and in 1981 most villagers accepted Israeli citizenship. Because of the complications, we were told that some residents also hold Lebanese passports thus creating a problem of services available to all from Israel. In short, residents of the town on either side of the border are only permitted to visit each other - no-one else is permitted entry.
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Caesarea Philippi was an ancient Roman City located at the base of Mount Hermon which is the largest mountain in Israel. The city was named after the Greek God Pan who is often depicted playing the flute.The idea was that Pan had the keys to the underworld. What an amazing archaeological site. It is situated on one of the four springs feeding the Jordan River and said to the be the birthplace of Pan, who was half man/half goat. This rocky temple is considered to be the site where Jesus gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom, and told him the gates of Hades (the underworld) would not prevail against the rock of which his community was founded.
All local languages covered and the message is the same.....don't go in the water.
Caesarea Philippi ruins
Follow the signs!
A stunning piece of history in such a beautiful Nature Reserve.
Note of interest from the last blog......
I solved the confusion about Tambouris being called an oriental restaurant. Here is what I learned from PRSV in Jerusalem
I just wanted to clarify the "Oriental" restaurant mystery. Sometimes in Israel "Oriental" is used to translate mizrachi in Hebrew (sharqi in Arabic), which means Eastern. In terms of restaurants, this means they serve typical Israeli/Arab/Middle Eastern food, rather than Western food or Ashkenazi food or whatever. I can see it must be confusing for people who go in expecting sushi and dim sum...
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