Sea of Galilee - Day 20, June 16

 

This beach in Ginosar, near Migdal, is in a kibbutz, which is a communal living village.  

Turns out we can read Hebrew!

The Sea of Galilee.  Where Jesus calmed the storm, walked on water, and filled the Apostle's nets with fish.  

Dead Sea, Masada, En Gedi, Israel - Day 19, June 15

 By Gia

    Yesterday we started off the day by going to the dead sea at 9 am; we drove for about an hour and thirty minutes. Once we got there we all ran in the water and tried to float and of course it worked very well. I thought it was very cool because each time you would try to put your legs on the sea floor the sea would bob you up. After that we went to lunch although we were going to go to a pizza place we decided against it after seeing the food there. Instead we went to McDonalds. After that we went to our first hiking site but it turns out that we weren't going to be able to hike due to how hot it was (over 100F). So we went on a cable car up to the top and looked around. Soon we came back down and went to our next hike which was 10 minutes away. This hike was a waterfall hike. The first waterfall we saw was a small one so we decided to keep going. As we continued walking we went through beautiful, peaceful caves. Soon we got to the main waterfall and we swam in it for a while but then we discovered anther waterfall although you couldn't swim in this one so we took some pictures and turned around. We drove home and hung out there for the rest of the night.

It is impossible not to float here.  In fact, when I (Corey) tried to swim, it kept trying to roll me over on my back.  It was neat for about 5 minutes but then it was kind of annoying ... and your skin felt slimy.

The drive from the Dead Sea to Masada.  

Masada Herod the Great built two palaces for himself on the mountain and fortified Masada. There is some controversy around what exactly happened at Masada.  Some believe the siege of Masada by Roman troops from 73 to 74 CE, at the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, ended in the mass suicide of the 960 Sicarii rebels who were hiding there. Archaeological evidence relevant to a mass suicide event is ambiguous at best and rejected entirely by some scholars. That doesn't stop it from being the 2nd most visited tourist site in Jerusalem.

The 3-minute ride up the mountain on the cable car.  I bet the early Roman laborers wish they had this!

We didn't take this photo, but it shows Masada in a more representative way than we could.  It is crazy to me that they built this over 2000 years ago with no modern technology or machinery.

On to En Gedi Spring!

En Gedi - a 1 mile walk to the waterfalls.

I (Corey) regret not walking with the crew to the waterfalls, but after hiking at the top of Masada, I knew I was done.  My recovery from food poisoning was surprisingly fast (24 hours), but I knew not to push it.

And now we are on our way back to Tantur for our last evening with the Busers ;-(

Overlooking Bethlehem from the Tantur balcony.

The food at Tantur was great and our last breakfast was off the charts!  

ND Jerusalem - we will be back!

It was at this gas station that a guy squeezed to the right of me between my car and the gas station (I know, it doesn't look wide enough, but he did fit) and then proceeded to cut in front of me when it was my turn.  The Jewish guy behind me was super-annoyed with the guy and yelled at him.  Then I couldn't figure out how to open my gas cap and the same Jewish guy came up to try to help.  He couldn't figure it out either so he called the annoyed attendant over and he hit the door unlock button and it sprung the gas cap door.  I would have NEVER figured this out.  Then I was thinking, "does the unlock button always open the gas cap door, even when I'm in the car?"  The answer is no -- it only opens it when the driver's side door is open.  

Peanut butter puffs that Wendy loved!  Bombas!

I 'think' this is upside down.