Weather: A little cooler and higher elevations (Mount Carmel)- low 60’s, time to bust out the Patagonia Jacket.
Today was going to be a long bus day as we would be traveling West through Megiddo (one of King Solomon’s cities), up to Haifa on the coast, and then down the coast to Caesarea Maritima, and then further down to Tel Aviv. About 3+ hours travel in all, not including stops along the way.
We decided to sit more strategically near the front of the bus. I left our room a little early, grabbed some hard boiled eggs to go and headed over to the bus to snag our seats. I picked the 2nd row on the left side. Perfect! We were right behind Joanne and right in front of Michele (our two new friends). It was a lot more fun to sit up close to chat with the girls, and it was better for Amy (motion-wise).
Our first stop was Haifa which was built on the slopes of Mount Carmel with a history of settlements spanning 3,000 years. It is the 3rd largest City in Israel, behind Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We visited a Sunday service at Zion House of Prayer – a church of Russian Messianic Jews. After the service, they fed us a church lunch out on their back patio. It was so sweet and you could tell it was their best effort. It was a beef stew with rice and other side dishes. I was just happy it wasn’t going to be another shawarma to go.
From there we went to Mount Carmel which has a spectacular view over the North of Israel, and it was near the spot where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven. Our guide, Elin, was doing a whole teaching on it as we stood their at the top of the mountain, looking over the plain of Megiddo and reading the passages in 1 Kings 18:19-46. Again, it was so hard to connect with what she was saying and follow her with the reading. We mostly just looked around, remembering the story for ourselves, and then posed for fun pictures on the top of the mountain.
I was also thinking about the story in the book of Kings, where Elisha travelled to Carmel straight after cursing a group of young boys because they had mocked him and the ascension of Elijah by jeering, “Go on up, bald man!” After this, bears came out of the forest and mauled 42 of the boys. Yikes! I always used to giggle reading that story, but then would sober up when the bear came out.
The drive up and down through Mount Carmel was beautiful and had so much lush greenery, it was really such a beautiful time of year to be visiting this area. I had so much appreciation for how green everything was and was glad we were closer to the front of the bus as we could see more being closer to the front window. I also had a straight line vision to Elin. I stared at her a lot as we drove around trying to figure her out.
From Mount Carmel, we drove to Caesarea Maritima. It was later in the afternoon when we arrived, around 3:45pm. Our tour guide was all feeling stressed here as another group was giving a concert that night, so really she was trying to get us into this 10-minute movie to explain the significance of the site to us and then we would only have about 15-20 minutes to walk around the ruins. After the long bus ride, to not have long at this site because of another concert seemed disappointing. But what could we do? We made the best of it and saw as much as we could.
Caesarea Maritima was built by Herod the Great as a magnificent harbor to befit his kingdom. It was a 40-acre harbor that could fit 300 ships. Herod the Great also constructed a theater with a seating capacity of 3,500. According to Josephus, this is where the death of Herod Agrippa occurred, as recounted in Acts 12. The theater was covered with a skin covering (vellum), and visitors probably brought cushions with them to soften the stone seats.
Josephus called this a “most magnificent palace” that Herod the Great built on a promontory jutting out into the waters of Caesarea. The pool in the center was nearly Olympic in size, and was filled with fresh water. A statue once stood in the center. Paul may have also been imprisoned on the grounds of this palace (Acts 23:35).
The city of Caesarea was one of the most important cities in Israel during the time of Christ and during the first few centuries of the early church:
A. Cornelius, the first Gentile convert, lived here (Acts 10:1).
B. Philip the evangelist made his home here (Acts 8:40).
C. Herod Agrippa I was smitten by an angel of the Lord here (Acts 12:21–23).
D. The apostle Paul visited Caesarea on many occasions.
On our way out, the guards started ushering us quickly and Elin was all in a hurry to the bus. Amy had to go to the bathroom and let Elin know. Elin responded, ‘Well, you should have gone to the bathroom earlier. I said you can go see the ruins or go to the bathroom.’ I was thinking, what? That should never be a choice after an 3+ hour drive and limited time. And this is another reason I am just not drinking a lot of water. Who wants to choose between using the bathroom or seeing the site you traveled thousands of miles to see?
Well, Amy went anyway as it was chaos with all of the other tour buses coming in for the concert and our group trying to find our bus in the sea of buses. I’m glad she just went! It wasn’t the end of the world and she wasn’t the last person back on the bus anyway, as it wasn’t easy to find our bus in at the chaos.
After that, we headed toward Tel Aviv, our final stop for the night and our last hotel of the tour. Along the way we stopped at a hotel off of the highway. This is where Amy’s jacket was supposed to be (the one she left behind in Jerusalem). First Elin gets off of the bus and goes inside and comes back with a grey windbreaker. We are like, ‘Um, no, that isn’t her black Patagonia jacket.’ So Amy gets off the bus and goes in with her, after about 10 minutes, they both come out with Amy’s jacket. I guess it was behind the counter in a paper bag and the person on duty didn’t know where it was so there was a lot of ‘looking around’ before they found it. Regardless, Amy was THRILLED to be reunited with her jacket just.
About 30 minutes later, we arrived in the bustling Mediterranean City of Tel Aviv. Our tour bus driver Bashara was a ‘boss’ with the bus. I could not believe the areas he had maneuvered in and out of on our tour. Including this night when he, I kid you not, parallel parked our bus on a tiny street with cars coming in both directions. We all clapped and then piled out of the bus after that amazing feat.
The hotel lobby looked much nicer than the other hotels we had stayed at to date. We were hopeful for a nice comfortable room with flushable toilets. We received our key soon enough and took the elevator up to our room. We were thrilled with these new accommodations in a much more modern hotel. It was fitting that they saved the best for last.
After we got settled we went down for dinner to the buffet in the restaurant. They had decent offerings, and again it was nice to have a new selection of food and not have to think about planning meals. I wouldn’t say anything we had eaten to date was spectacular, but there was always a nice variety, it was seasoned well, and it always kept us going.
After dinner, the owner of the hotel Yakov Damkani, would be speaking to our group downstairs. Apparently, he is kind of a big deal in Israel and has had movies made about his life because it is so remarkable. He was an interesting man and it was nice to have the opportunity to hear from him. But really, by then, I was so tired. The kind of tired that you can’t keep still or you will fall asleep. I finally had to get up and walk around the back. I didn’t want to be rude and just leave, but it had been a long day. Finally, he wrapped it up and we were released for bed.
I took the deluxe shower first. It felt amazing to take a long hot shower and flush the toilet including toilet paper. I felt like a queen. I still managed to get water all over the bathroom floor – it had a weird door that was hard to shut. Or that is what I claimed. Of course, when Amy took her shower, she had no such problems.
We both quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep easily in our new accommodations. It was bitter sweet to think that tomorrow was our last full day, we were getting more and more attached to our new friends on the tour. Just when you feel like you are getting to know them, you feel like it is almost time to say goodbye.