Eilat

Hello from Eilat!

Our trip is coming to an end as this is our last day in Eilat. Tomorrow we fly to Tel Aviv and then back to the States. Here is the catch up for our time in Eilat.

The Hotel
Online reviews said that our hotel had a slight nautical theme. We found that this was a massive understatement. The hotel lobby has a big ship right in the middle of it giving access to the 2nd floor. The elevator is designed like the inside of a submarine. The back of the elevator is glass and has an underwater mural that changes as the evelvator lifts up or down. To top it all off there is the sound of the ping, ping, ping of a diving sub. Our room has a large white seagull mobile attached to the wall. Its at least three feet big. The room does have a small kitchen, the hotel overall is clean, and it has at least 6 swimming pools.

It's also close to everything inculding the mall and south beach where Sara and I have taken many strolls. That beach includes a walkway of cool shops. You can get everything from Creps to a Dr. Dang foot spa treatment (where little fishes or dangs eat away the dead skin on your feet). In case you didn't know it's the newest craze in Japan and America... news to us. You can also book trips to Petra, Jordan on this same boulvard.

Speaking of Petra
Eilat is a beach front town of about 35,000 people in the down season which doubles to about 80,000 people during the high season. It borders Egypt and Jordan on the Red Sea. This has been a very down season with what is happening / has happened in Egypt. Sara and I were planning and had paid to take a trip up to Ein Gedi (think desert springs and waterfalls that hosted King David), The Dead Sea, and Masada. The trip was canceled after the other members of our party dropped out. That turned out to be ok as it was raining in all of those places on the day we planned to visit. Instead we traveled to Petra, Jordan.

The day started early with pickup at 6:50am from our hotel by Ruth our Rhodesian (currently Zimbabwe) expatiot of the British Colonial Empire. Next was the pickup of two additional British citizens from London, Norman and Elizabeth. A novalist and a patent lawyer respectively. Norman's first book Song of Names, I was to learn, is as we speak being turned into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman to be released in 2011. We were dropped off at the boarder and met our last participant, Lindsey. Lindsey was a professional womens basketball player formerly from Iowa State University. She had played point guard for teams in Greece, Turkey, Solvenia, and finally Israel.

Crossing into Jordan we met our guide Ahmed. A short slender man with a gray goatee and robust, playful personality. We had a 2 hour and 40 minute drive from the boarder to Perta. We passed by Aqaba Jordan, a major port city discribed by Lawrence of Arabia during the Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1916. Outside of Aqaga, endless desert further than the eye can see. On the way the moutian were colored with strikingly beautiful veins of copper (green), iron (red), magenese (black), and impure magenese/copper combo (blue). The veins were clearly visible in all the surrounding mountians streaking side to side. Finally, after taking in this scenery, we arrived.

Petra is a city in the Mountians of Jordan whose inhabitants carved their homes, tombs, and beautiful temples out of the sand stone mountians. Curiously, they started all the strutures from top to bottom showing each structure must have been thoughly planned out. This city was originally inhabited by the Nebetians, then the Greeks (after a general of Alexandar the Great couquered the city), and next the Romans after doing the same. All of this is because Petra was a connection of major trade routes (like the spice route) flowing to Europe through Israel, Africa through Egypt, and Asia Minor through Damasus/Beruit. After the Romans a civilzation florished before a great earthquake rendered the city mostly deserted, except for its cave dwelling inhabitants... The Beduions. Later in the ages, the city was rediscoved by the rest of the world and was voted as second of the 2007 new 7 Wonders of the World (number one was The Great Wall of China). It was also the site of filming for the Indian Jones Movie: The Last Crusade. Its beautiful temple (called the Treasury becasue someone thought it was so marvelous it must have treasure inside...it didn't) was the place where Indiana Jones rediscovers the Holy Grail.

After our car ride, we started down the canyon. It was quite nippy, about 52 degrees farenhiet with a windchill making it feel even colder. The limestone moutian showed the same red, green, black, and blue streaks as the mountians on our way to Petra. The entire trek into Perta and back was 7 Kilometers or 4.3 miles. It was worth it. Large canyons with limestone walls made you feel like you were in the Grand Canyon. Then some examples of civilation appeared as rockfaced scuptures of camel led caravans appeared further along the trail. A left turn took you to the crowl jewel of Petra... the Treasury. Our opinion is that the Treasury with it Corinthian collums looks to have a specific Greek and Roman influences. No one knows for sure who actually made it, when, or what its purpose was. All those questions and its immensity adds to the mystical feel of the area. Past the Treasury is tombs carved out of the mount with little Vs on the side donoteing how many were buried there. Next is a large theater, with the capacity to hold up to 4,000 people. The icing on the cake wasn't the tombs, or the theater, of even the Treasury, but the ancient dumpster. Let me explain. Ahmed led us up a small hillside that gave us a good view of the royal palace area of the city and was an acient dumpster where tons tiny bits of broken pottery were cast about all over ground. Sara, as a ceramicisit, went hog wild with all the ancient Nebetian pottery. More on that when we get home.

Oceanography
The other really cool things we did in Eilat involded the Ocean. Eilat is home to 95% of the Worlds troptical fish. We really took advantage of the coral and marine life. The sunset boat cruse in a glass bottom boat took us all around our gulf of the Red Sea. We sailed past Dolphin Cove and one dophin was kind enough to greet us. His friends were peeping up not too far away. Then we reached the coral reef. It had all kinds of brighly colored fish and coral. After enoying looking at the fishies from the top down we sailed into the sunset on our way home.

The Eilat Aquarium has a lot of very cool marine life as well. It's located just off the coast of the coral reef we saw on the boat. Sharks, big turtles, little turtles, big fish, little fish, the ray, and amazon animals joined us at the aquarium. One thing that was cool is that we were able to see the feeding time for all those critters. My (Mike) favorite was the feeding of the big turtles and piranhas. Sara's favorite was the Jellyfish exhibit. The five foot long reef sharks and sand sharks were so well fed that other fish were roaming in their tank with them. One such creature was a black spotted sting ray named Amit or "Friendly" in Hebrew. After being caught and injured in a fisherman's net, he was brought to the aquarium and nursed back to health. He was given such TLC that a bond was formed between him and the divers. Whenever a diver enters the shark tank for feeding time Amit is the first to meet them. Once in the tank Friendly gracefully glides over to be hand fed and petted on the nose. It looks strangely like an underwater dog recieving attention from its owner (we have it on video if you don't believe us).

The Amazon section is the only place that holds freshwater and land marine life at the aquarium with piranhas, tarantulans, an ananconda, lung fish, and egyptian crocs. All are very exoctic and dangerous looking. During feeding time the pirahas were vicious, tearing apart bits of flesh from the good-sized chuck of fish fed to them. Many of the piranhas were missing eyes, or fins, or tails. All victim of feeding time.

The marine observatory gives a great view of the Red Sea at the top, as it is about 40 feet above the water. Walking down the central spiraling staircase to the bottom, about 25 feet down, you get an amazing view of the coral reef and fish who live there. Mike saw a wild dolphin swim by his window and hastily called Sara over who only caught a glimps of its tail as it quickly swam away. Too cool :).

We hope that you have enjoyed coming to Israel with Sara and Mike. We will be coming home soon. Love you all.

Shalom,

Mike and Sara

Getting Back To It

Wow a lot has been going on the last few days. Yesterday, we took the easy way out by posting pictures. Note: We would really like the 5 or 6 of you following our blog (just to know we are alive) to respond with a comment or two to any of our posts (so we know you're alive).

Without futher ado...

When we last left off, we had just visited the Mount of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, Calvary, and The Garden Tomb. The next day, Mike felt really bad, so we spent most of Sabbath sleeping in the Hostel.

Our last day in Jerusalem, we made up for all that lost time. Heading off at 7:30am, we were at the Western Wall at 8:00am. Mike wasn't shy at all, going up to the wall, touching it, and watching the people up close. Of coarse, since the wall is divided between men and women, Sara had somewhat of a different experiance on her side. Sara likes to point out that there were many more women praying at the wall than men. Since the women side of the exposed wall was so much smaller, she couldn't go up and touch her side. Truthfully, she felt unconfortable altogether on that side of the wall. Mike, on the otherhand, was watching young Hebrews bind themsevles in the Orthodox manner, men crying, and the Torah being read out loud. Don't worry, he got video for you when we get home (and embarrassing Sara in the process). Even cooler things were to come. We finally found the tour of the Western Wall that went under the Muslim quater of the Old City. Actually, most of the Wall is covered by the Muslim quarter.

The Tunnel

The Second Temple was built on the top of Mount Moriah, the second highest mountian in Jerusalem (or it prevously was before Herod flattented the top of the mountian and constructed a platform on which The Second Temple stood...an amazing feat in itself during the time). Every stone on the Wall surronding the Second Temple was hand chiseled by 10,000 men each day for between 2 and a half months to a year. Each massive stone was placed 2 cenimeters futher back than the stone below to create the optial illusion of being straight when viewed from the ground. More than just the Western Wall survived ancient times (not the orginal wall that Jesus viewed, but the one we view today rebuilt after the destruction of the temple). The Western Wall is considered the most Holy site by Jewish people because its the closest to where the Holy of Holies previously resided. Also, the Western Wall was the closest the Jewish people could get to the destroyed Second Temple for centuries.

The tour took us along the underground Western Wall past the closest point to the Holy of Holies. Sara and I were able to spend some somber moments at this spot. We even placed a hand written prayer in the Wall.



Hezekiah's Tunnel

Lot's of walking, very narrow tunnels, and little payoff and the end.



Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum)

The Holocaust Museum was very touching. It is named after Isaiah 56:5 "And to them will I give in My house and within My walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off." It's constructed in such a way that one has to systematically go through the entire timeline of the Holocaust. From the setting of the stage, to the rise of the Nazis, to WWII, to the Gettos, to the Liquidation of the Gettos, to the final soltion at the death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, to liberation of the camps. As a gentile, one of the most touching rooms was to celebrate those who hid or helped Jews avoid the camps during WWII. Antoher touching room was a memorial to the 1.5MM Jewish children killed during the Holocaust. Its a room of mirrors with candels in the center giving the appearance of numerous lights heading off into infinity. A striking view while an endless list of names and ages is read aloud.

After Yad Vashem, we rushed to catch our bus to Eilat. A four hour bus ride later, we arrived in Eilat.

To be continued...

Pictures

Finally we are on a computer that can post pictures. Enjoy!

• Bental Mountian (Golan Heights) Signpost.
• Camel.
• Garden of Gethsemane Olive Tree.
• Picture of the old city from the top of the Mount of Olives.
• Golgotha (place of the Skull)...Calvary.

Pictures!

• Garden Tomb.
• Garden Tomb door.
• Mosaic near Garden Tomb.
• Wailing or Western Wall.
• Mike and Sara in underground tunnels of Western Wall. Closest spot to where the Holy of Holies previous was.

Riding On a Donkey

We didn't ride on a donkey, but bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 5 am we set out for Jerusalem in our ford focus. Driving on the 90 all the way there was uneventful (except for young shepherds and sheep crossing the highway). Passing Jericho and turning on highway 1, we took the advice of our former hosts and stopped at the shops to buy some souvenirs. One thing that was very evident was the change from the rocky green Galilee to the dry desert leading up to Jerusalem.

Entering Jerusalem, we were completely lost. It didn't help that it was raining quite steadily. We trecked into the city, up to the old city, and just about to Bethlehem when God gracious placed us right on the street where we needed to return our rental car :) . After dropping off the car we took a cab to our new hostel. So far not as impressed as our last hostel, but it could be worse.

We settled in our room and headed off to the Mount of Olives on foot. The city was quiet as it was almost Sabbath. We reached the Mount of Olives and were looking around a bit when a friendly cab driver named Jakob kidnaped us. He took it upon himself to be our personal guide for the rest of the day, so we went with it. First we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed before he was taken captive starting the chain of events that led to his death. Jakob explained the sigificance of the area and drove us up to the top of the Mount of Olives (the highest of the four or five mountians in Jerusalem). It was beautiful with a view of the entire area of Jerusalem, inculding the Old City.

From there we went to Calvary and the Garden Tomb - by far the highlight of our day and probably our trip. The Bible says that Jesus was taken outside the city for execution near a rockface that looked like a skull (Golgotha...the place of a skull. Mark 15:22). In those days the Romans wanted crucifixtions to be public to diswade any further bad behavior, so the location was near a public road for all to see. After Jesus died, Ponitous Pilate had Roman soliders stab a spear into Jesus just to make sure he was dead. As the Bible accounts in John's gospel, blood and water flowed from Jesus when the spear pierced his dead body. Medically, when someone dies the blood and water seperate within the body, showing that Jesus had died on the cross.

Two of Jesus' followers, who happened to be wealthy, took Jesus' dead body and buried it in a tomb with 75 pounds of spices and tradional burial garments. Because Jesus had predicted His rising on the third day, a large stone was placed in front of the tomb and two Roman soliders guarded it's entrace. Two common arguments against the resurrection are 1) Jesus' disciples stole the body, and 2) Jesus wasn't dead and walked out of the tomb. The first argument is unlikely for a couple of reasons. First, there were Roman soilders guarding the tomb. In that day if a Roman soilder failed in his duty of guarding a prisoner he recieved the punishment that was due the priosoner...in this case death. That's good motivation to not mess up your duty and let anyone steal Jesus' body. The next reason has always been the most convincing to me. We know that the early Christians were serverly persecuted during the first century. Out of the twelve disciples (including Paul) eleven of them died horrific deaths and the last one (John) was burned alive in hot oil, but survived. Would anyone be willing to die for a lie. If the disciples stole the body and they knew the resurrection was a lie, why would they contiune to die and be persecuted for something they knew wasn't true? The second argument we talked about in the pervious paragraph with the blood and water. If Jesus wasn't dead but still severely beatened and bloody, he would have had remove the 75 pounds of burial spices, removed the stone, and fought off the Roman guards...highly unlikely. If he was still alive, managed to take off the spices and roll back the stone, then the guards would have just put him back on the cross to finish the job. Instead, the Bible says that Jesus rose on the third day that he "might free those who througth fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives" (Hebrews 2:15). Let those who have the ears to hear let them hear what the Spirt of God is saying.

It was an awe inspiring day and we're glad we get to share a little bit of it real time with you.

All our love and blessings,

Mike and Sara

North Israel Adventure

We started out the day with another wonderful breakfast from our hosts. From our hostel we went north. The highest mountain in the Golan Heights is called Bental. It is high up for the area (1,170 meter above sea level) and has a 360 degree view of Israel, Syria, and Lebonon. It's a great view and it has a signpost showing the direction of and distance to Jerusalem, Damascus, Baghdad, and Washington D.C. (11,000+ km away). It was extremely cold with a wind that chilled to the bone.

After that we headed towards the top of Mount Hermon. Lets just say that the town of Hermon isn't the cleanest or most modern city in the Middle East. At one point I felt like we had a target on our Ford Focus because of the Eldan Rental Car sticker on its side. Two thirds of the way there I jumped out, took a picture of the beautiful snow covered scenery, and we called it a mountain.

After defrosting for about 20 minutes, we headed out towards Caesarea Philippi. On the way we saw the Nimrod Crusader castle. We wondered if that castle is why Nimrod, as a word, has a negative connotation. Caesarea Philippi, called Banias in Israel, is a spectacular convergence of structures from different place for one reason...its lush beauty. Water from Mount Hermon flows down the Hermon river making that counrtyside green. The water and greenery, combined with beautiful reddish rock formations makes for quite a sight. This water feeds into Israel's most famous river The Jordan. The bible dosen't say if Jesus ever actually visited the city with its temples to pan and Ceaser. The bible does say that Jesus asked one of the most important questions in history on the way to this city. Who do you say that I am?

Sara and I hiked all around Caesarea Philippi. Hiking trails to Pan's Grotto, an acient mill, Aggripa's palace, and the crusader gate, we were tired before heading out towards the Banias Falls just a couple of miles away. The Banias Falls were stunning with tons of water rushing quicking down the river.

More adventure to come soon.

Mike and Sara

Pictures Capernaum

Picture of city ruins. Synagogue pictures outside, inside, shot of original stone.