Camping in Northern Israel

From Tuesday to Thursday Gloria, her nephew, her mother and I went camping in Northern Israel. The day was off to a rough start when we stopped by her mother's house to pick her up. We stopped in front of the stairs that lead up to her house and I waited in the car with her nephew... double parked. After about 5 min a man wanted to leave his parking place so I had to move the car. I called her to get the code to unlock the door and slowely was able to pull forward (my first time driving since last August). Moments after I pulled forward a police officer came up to my window and started yelling at me in Hebrew. Eventually I was able to speak to say I did not speak Hebrew and then he repeated his speach in English. It was not that bad and luckily Gloria soon returned and was able to get the officer to offer to help her with her bags!

Finally we were off, driving north up to Ceasarea, an old city built by Harrod that had a splendid port which is now sunken into the sea. We spent most of the afternoon there and went swimming by the old aquaduct. Our next destination was Mogiddo (Armageddon) where we walked up the hill to see the valleys where it is written that that will take place. By this time it was getting late and we had no time to stop in Nazereth, so we just drove through it.

After a billion wrong turns (no roads in Israel are well marked) we arrived at our first nights camp ground. It looked very odd... basically there was no grass and no trees, just gravel covered by huge canopies. There were 3 other people at the site who invited us to dine with them. They also informed us of a yellow snake that they had just seen. Needless to say, we all just laughed nervously at the state of the site, the people, and the snake. We considered leaving but ended up staying since it was late. It ended up being a nice evening where we had a campfire together and the 4 of us slept in a tent.

The next morning we woke up all hot and sweaty from the heat. We made our was straight to Caperneum, which has one of the synagogues that Jesus preached at. It is also the small town that a number of the Apostles are from. Next came the Mt. of Beatitudes and then Tel Dan which was the major destination for the day. Tel Dan, where the tribe of Dan lived, became idol worshippers and were then cursed. It was a beautiful park to walk around though. The last stop of the day was Nimrod's Fortress which is near Mt. Hermon (the tallest mountain in Israel). Nimrod's Fortress was fun because it was built a bit more recently, in the early 13th century, and therefore was more intact so we could go climbing through it, down creepy staircases and sneak through secret passages. That night we slept near Tiberius at a B&B.

Our final day, we went to the Jordan river (where Jesus was baptized) and then to Beit She'an to see another archeological site. We wanted to see one last site and to get there a route was chosen that would take a main highway... through a Palestinian controlled area. So, we arrived at the border and not allowed through. So we asked the guards an alternative route; they were all very friendly. About 4 helped us, and another 5 were standing further away calling out "we speak English!". We were unable to see the site, and went straight back to Tel Aviv. A great 3 days of camping came to an end.