Weather: A beautiful morning, clear skies, puffy clouds mid-70’s in Jerusalem, a little cooler as we headed north to Galilee
The 6am wake-up this morning felt rough as we were both sleeping soundly when the alarm went off. We were now at the halfway point of the trip and except for our rest day on Thursday, we never felt like we had a minute to spare in the mornings. We always calculated the alarm time the night before to the last second that would allow us both time to shuffle around each other and get out of the door. Our usual pattern was me up and out first in order to make a portion of the breakfast time, and to also secure any whole pieces of fruit for Amy that were available in case she didn’t make it down before we had to go. She definitely prefers more rest than breakfast. I saw waffles on the menu a few times, so I preferred less rest and more breakfast. Ha, ha.
Soon enough we were on our way to the bus. I had envisioned us walking outside of the Guest House and boarding the bus. It was not to be as this was the morning of the marathon and all of the streets were blocked off. As such, we had to huff it with our backpacks and ‘waters’ through a good portion of Old Jerusalem. Upon reflection, it was actually a really nice way to leave the City. I would have hated to miss the atmosphere of the early crisp air and more quiet morning that walking afforded. Additionally, we would be on a bus ride for several hours on this day as we journeyed north through the Syrian African Rift Valley, so getting a walk in was good.
Our tour guide was talking through most of the trip and she was very knowledgable, but we would often tune her out and look at each other and say, ‘What is she saying?’ Then we would respond with ‘I have no idea.’ And we would both laugh. Regardless, we did get some education in passing from the Judean wilderness up into Galilee. There was also wi-fi on the bus, so that was another distraction competing for our guide’s attention as many of us would be on our phones and iPads getting caught up with posts or for me, blogging. I know it is ideal to totally unplug on trips, but you get caught in the tension of wanting to be fully present and at the same time share and connect with those back home through what you are able to post and share. We had such limited downtime, that a bus ride seemed like the right time for these activities.
About an hour into the ride Amy jumps up to look at her backpack and then sits down and puts her hand to her head. I’m thinking maybe she is feeling ill, and say, ‘Are you okay?’ She says, ‘No, I think my new Patagonia jacket fell from the outside of my backpack as we walked out of Jerusalem. I had fastened it to an outside clip and it must not have been tight enough.’ Oh no! I knew this was her new favorite jacket and while we hadn’t needed jackets yet, we knew we would this weekend as Galilee and the mountains we would be visiting would be colder. Ugh. We both sighed. I said I didn’t see it fastened to her backpack in any of the photos I took as we exited to Jerusalem with the group, maybe, just maybe it fell out while we were still waiting in the lobby of the guest house. I give her my phone to call the guest house, and we wait for them to go look as she patiently waits on hold. Bingo! It is there. Now the next challenge would be getting it to us on the trip, Amy asks if they can Fed Ex it, they say no, they don’t do that type of thing, As it turns out, Amy ended up working it out with our guide, who arranged for another tour group traveling up north after us, to drop it off at a hotel we could stop at when we were headed back down south via the coast in a few days. It sounded risky, but our guide was confident it would all work out and really we had no other options. We spent the next 15- minutes discussing options for her to wear on the boat ride we would be taking at sunset if it were cold. Between us, we had enough warm wear to cover it, so we weren’t too worried and she was super relieved that they had the jacket.
At one point we should have been listening better because our guide did tell us that we would be traveling through Jordan territory on our way to Galilee, and that there would be a checkpoint and armed guards would enter our bus. Somehow Amy and I missed all of that in the jacket drama we were trying to solve, so it was quite the experience when we stopped at the border and watched three armed guards walk through our bus. Understandably, there is so much security and precaution they take at every checkpoint. And, as odd as it is to see so many semi-automatic rifles on guards everywhere, you feel like they are ultimately looking out for everyone’s safety.
After the checkpoint, our guide announced that we would be stopping for the driver to get more waters. He had this ‘gig’ our whole trip that you could buy a bottle of cold water from him for 4 shekels or for 25 shekels, have unlimited water for the day. 4 shekels was about $1.15 US and 25 shekels was about $7.25 in US dollars. The math on shekels to dollars is 1 shekel = .29 cents US, so the conversion was never easy to do in your head and when you got presented with a bill for 200 for 2 people you had a heart attack until you realized it was really only about $58.00.
At the rest stop we were encouraged to go to the bathroom and buy snacks. I was eyeing all of the fun snacks and just then Amy said, ‘I wonder what you would buy if I weren’t standing here.’ We both laughed and Amy there or not, I felt freedom to try whatever I felt like that appealed to me as my snack. She picked out some nuts and I found a bag of what ‘looked like’ Doritos, but I couldn’t be sure as the writing was all in Hebrew. My curiosity got the best of me and I purchased the bag and also did an impulse buy of what turned out to be Israeli ‘Bazooka’ bubble gum. I was happy with my purchase of two comforts from home. Bazooka always reminds me of my dad when I was growing up. Whenever I visited him at his barber shop, I could have a piece of Bazooka gum, I found that to be an extreme treat that I always looked forward to on those trips to his barber shop.
We continued our journey north and were blown away at how beautiful and lush the scenery continued to get as we headed towards Galilee. Our guide let us know that they had recent rains that had made everything very green and we were also seeing spring flowers beginning to bloom, it felt like the perfect time to travel through this region. It wasn’t too long before we got our first views of the Sea of Galilee out of the right side of the bus (of course we were on the left). Thankfully though, our guide had us on a road that zigzagged so both sides of the bus were able to see views of this Sea. My whole life, I have heard about this Sea of Galilee from the Bible, what a treat to actually see it with my own eyes and imagine all of the stories that happened there. It was thrilling.
We next stopped in Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee for a late lunch, Glad I had that Doritos bag to tie me over until now. The setting was in a cool cave like ambiance and prior to arriving our guide told us we would have 3 options to order – grilled fish with the head in tact, fried fish, or lamb. The fish in this region is special – they called it Peter’s fish as it gets its popularity from the scriptures. It is the story of when Jesus told Peter to take the first fish he caught and pull out a four-drachma coin to pay the temple tax. It is believed that it was this type of fish that had the coin in it as it is a very common fish to the Sea of Galilee. It is Tilapia. As soon as we sat down the servers came over and served up hummus and pita bread and told us the same three choices. This was a model of efficiency, the way they were able to seat all of us at once and serve us our food so quickly. I ordered the lamb and Amy ordered the fish. We both loved our dishes, and tried each other’s – that was often a trick throughout the trip so that we could taste both dishes. We decided the reason I liked my lamb so much is that it tasted just like a delicious hamburger. It was ground up like hamburger, rolled a bit like a meatball and seasoned to perfection.
After our lunch we headed over to a museum near the port where we would be taking our sail on the Sea of Galilee. The most fascinating thing we saw at the museum was a recently discovered 2,000 year old boat. We watched a video of its discovery and how they were able to pull it from the water without it disintegrating. A sign near the boat reads: To whom did this boat belong? To Jesus and his disciples? To the fighters of the Migdal battle? To a fisherman from the Sea of Galilee? It was interesting to ponder each option as you looked at the boat.
After the museum we headed down to the docks for our boat ride. What a thrilling experience to sail on the Sea of Galilee. So many thoughts entered my mind as we moved along the sea. So many bible stories came to mind. I had many moments of such peace and awe to have this opportunity. Amy and I kept looking at each other speechless and in amazement as if to say, ‘Pinch us, we must be dreaming!’ This was one of my favorite experiences of the trip to be on the Sea of Galilee and get a sense of the size and to understand when you are standing on one shore you can see easily over to the shore on the other side. So when you read bible stories, where it says, ‘And Jesus said, let’s go over to the other side,’ I have a visual that will never leave my mind.
We all boarded the bus after our time on the boat and were headed for our next accommodations, I was hopeful as we saw the building in view and along the north shore of the Sea. It looked like more of a hotel that had more sound proof doors, and hopefully plenty of hot water for showers. While not the most modern building, it also wasn’t ancient and I tried not to read into seeing signs that said ‘hostel’ here and there thinking ‘please don’t let this be a youth hostel.’ When I had researched the place in advance, they had marketed themselves online as a Guest House on the bank of the Sea of Galilee. It was said to have been built around a beautiful inner courtyard surrounded with palm trees, lawns and magical views of the sea and mountains. As I am on a tour and not making the selection on accommodations, I just have to trust the description, let expectations go, and hope for the best.
They efficiently get us our room keys and we head to our room. The first thing I notice is an extraordinary amount of boisterous children traveling with their families on the grounds. I mean, everywhere you looked the place was flooded with families running about. Amy and I kept thinking, ‘Where are we? This is so odd? It feels like a big campground with all of these families, only we aren’t camping.’ I just prayed the rooms were sound proof as Amy and I were sandwiched between the rooms of two families.
We enter our room and it was clean maybe even too clean with the smell of Clorox or some other strong cleaner. It was ultra basic and with a funky arrangement that would take some getting used to. I now found myself missing our other room that I was already used to at the other guest house in Jerusalem. I was looking for the pros of this place as I tried to get settled and stopped dead in my tracks when I hear Amy announce from the bathroom, ‘Um it says here, we can’t put toilet paper in the toilet, we have to put it in the trash beside the toilet.’ I seriously wanted to faint when I heard that as I imagined my near future of us both depositing our used toilet paper into the open little trash just beside the toilet? Is this even legal? Even in an outhouse you can put your toilet paper in the bowl. Where are we?!?
After we got unpacked we headed down to dinner in the main dining room that seats 180 people. I am here to say every seat was filled and it was a complete mad house, the line up for the food, the activity inside the dining room. Turns out, this was Friday night and Shabbat dinner. Shabbat is considered a day of peace and holiness in the Jewish faith, and begins their sabbath where they rest from all work. Apparently, the place we were staying must have been a hot spot for local Jewish families to gather for their Shabbat dinner. Again we kept thinking, ‘Where am I?’ as we stood in line for the buffet. I observe one teenage girl do a full on sneeze over all of the plates, I see kids coughing and sneezing on the buffet food. It was such chaos I lost my appetite and literally just picked an orange out and ate that for dinner, as did Amy. We had bars in our room and figured we could eat those later if we got really hungry. We sat down at the table with our friends from the tour and enjoyed visiting them and eating our oranges.
After dinner a few of us walked down to the Sea to check out the views at night. It was so very peaceful. Amy and I also wanted to ground our feet in the soil to get us more into the right time zone. We have heard and read if you put your bare feet on soil or sand for 15 minutes when you are in a new time zone, it helps your body adjust to that part of the world somehow and helps you sleep better, we were willing to try any and every trick. So we walked around the grass for 15 minutes or so and a few others from our group joined us in getting grounded. I also was hoping my lack of having dinner would prevent my body from any #2 activity on the toilet it might be thinking about. The TP situation was enough for me to go on a food strike until I had access to a proper bathroom.
We both showered this night and the showers were better than the last place a little bigger and plenty of hot water! A definite plus. We had another early morning the next day, so there was no dilly-dallying at night. Tomorrow we would be headed to Nazareth (where Jesus grew up), Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes, and the Jordan River. Lots to look forward to!