It turned out to be the only morning with no haze, so we could actually see the Sea of Galilee (or Lake Tiberias/Kinneret) as well as the snowy peak of Mount Hermon in the distance. The Sea of Galilee is fed and drained by the Jordan River and since biblical times has been famous for its abundance of fish, as many Jesus’s disciples were fishermen here.
In addition to a great variety of flowers, there were also some fruit trees,
a dog,
and a turtle in the garden.
On Monday morning we went for a long walk in the near-by park called the Swiss Forest and got a bit lost there. It was nice and green and not didn’t have any cactuses or palm trees.
But what it did have was a lot of hills and a lot of sunshine through haze.
Not everything was green though. And not everything will be green all year round either. When the summer sets in, it will all be yellow and barren.
The city centre of Tiberias
was quite different and controversial. It had fancier houses like the main department store
or just some shops and better-looking blocks of flats,
but also not so attractive shops,
quite run-down dwellings,
pretty ugly-looking blocks of flats,
and hostels.
There was also a chemist’s that just looked like the most prototypical pharmacy there can be :)
The city is on the Sea of Galilee,
the lake actually being 212 metres below sea level.
This simple white house is the UN Headquarters of Tiberias, from where all the teams of military observers covering the region around Tiberias are co-ordinated.
On Sunday we drove round the region of a long-running historical conflict, the Golan Heights, which borders Israel, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
After seeing Golan I can actually understand why Israel occupied it, as it’s just utterly beautiful and has fertile soil.
It’s no paradise though, because a lot of it is full of land mines left here during the countless conflicts of the neighbouring countries.
Golan Heights offers some amazing views to the Sea of Galilee from the opposite side of the lake
as well as on the Mount Hermon from Mount Bental
and the Gamla waterfall.
Hamat Gader, situated in a deep valley on the Golan Heights just near the Jordanian border is famous for its curative thermo-mineral hot springs, where the water is 42 degrees,
for the ruins of the Roman Baths, built there about 1,700 years ago and considered to be the second in their beauty in the entire Roman Empire,
and for its Crocodile Farm,
which houses some 200 crocodiles of various species.
Find the crocodiles.
I didn’t see any raccoons in Toronto, but here they were, in Hamat Gader :)
There was also a parrot show, where the parrots didn’t just talk, but also rode tricycles
and waved at the audience.
Hamat Gader wasn’t the only place full of exotic animals. On Wednesday when we set off towards Highway 90 and the Dead Sea, we first went to Gan-Garoo Park in the Nir-David Kibbutz. Among other Australian birds and animals such as kookaburras, cockatoos, cassowaries, emus, and gahlas it housed some free ranging curious birds,
common wallaroos,
koalas,
angry animals,
and huuuuge scary bats.
And then there were the free ranging red kangaroos of course,
who were more than eager to eat the food you could buy for them.
They do have their own Sunset Boulevard :p Notice the McDonald’s sign.
As we headed South, the landscape became more barren, until we reached the desert and the mountains surrounding the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, about 400 metres below sea level.
The kibbutz we stayed at, Ein Gedi Resort Hotel and Botanical Gardens, was an oasis on the mountain side with a view at the mountains and the salt lake.
The houses were plain but quite cute
and completely surrounded by all kinds of plants and trees
The baobab tree in the centre of the complex was blue at night,
whereas all the other plants were illuminated by full moon.
Thanks to the full moon we ended up going to a full moon hike in the nearby mountains in Masada, where the guide was looking for sulphur in the mountain and lit it with a lighter.
We happened to crash into a wedding party at the end of our hike. The party took place in the mountains and was even a bit more than surreal, because it was the very last thing we would have expected to find there.
We also marked Estonia on the map in the reception with a nice blue pin :)
The nice “bus” that took us from Ein Gedi spa to the beach looked like that:
The beach itself at 8:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning was a bit less than crowded
but the Dead Sea itself was as bluish green or greenish blue as can be
and had rock hard salt instead of sand everywhere.
If you are quite sunburnt there is nothing better to do than put on a lot of clothes, sit on the beach and read a magazine.
Those who aren’t that sunburnt can read the She magazine floating comfortably in the Dead Sea.
Or when you have your teddy bear with you, you just have to take a picture of him on the beach (and it doesn’t matter how old you are, 8 or 18).
Jerusalem is by far the craziest place I had been to. We entered the Old City through Damascus Gate in the Muslim Quarter.
Much of the Old City was a maze of half-covered narrow dark streets with hundreds of merchants trying to sell you something and anything. Be it clothes,
shoes,
all kinds of spices
vessels,
a lot of lamb,
sweets (I bought some from there, but it isn’t good),
or delicious biscuits (they are really yummy).
Away from the complex labyrinth, there’s some ancient architecture
and some more modern architecture in Modern Jerusalem.
Last but not least, the religious places. The main entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most important church in Christendom as it was built around what is believed to be the site of Christ’s Crucifixion, burial and Resurrection (and we were there on Thursday just before Good Friday).
View over the Dome of Rock on Temple Mount, one of the greatest achievements of Islamic architecture. It was completed in 691, making it the oldest extant Islamic building in the world. What is there in front is the Western Wall itself.
The Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism is part of the retaining wall situated on the western flank of the Temple Mount and was built by Herod the Great.
It is divided into two – the men’s (on the left) and the women’s (on the right) section.
It is a place of permanent worship
and a place where you can leave your greatest wish for the humankind written on a piece of paper in between the rocks.
So that was it, I think I know now where I want to go next. The tulips in Amsterdam Airport were just too beautiful to be true :)
