Masada at Sunrise and the Sea of Galilee

This morning we woke up at 4:30 AM (which is actually not as hard as it sounds b/c we have maintained the weirdest schedule... letting ourselves be jetlagged enough to go to bed at 8 every night and wake up by about 6 if we are lucky (to sleep that late) or earlier if not! One night we actually fell asleep at 7:30 p.m. and woke up around 11 p.m. feeling like it was morning already, and were able to fall back asleep thankfully until about 5:30 the next morning.

So anyways, we woke up at 4:30 this morning after going to be at 8:30 last night and took the "Snake Path" up the side of the Masada mount where Herod built his great fort and palace (recently featured on the cover of National Georgraphic. First off - it was DARK when we started and we didn't have a flash light, and I was pretty miserable! Tripping over stones and stumbling around and we weren't event on the path yet! Enough light finally came up for us to see where we were stepping and we hiked up the winding path until we finally reached the top in time for sunrise. It took us about 45 laboring minutes. Mom asked about Mount of Olives and "sweating it to the top"... well, it was still cool in Jerusalem, but that walk was pretty inclined and long, but that was NOTHING compared to this. I can't imagine doing it in the day time when the sun is up!! Its so much warmer down by the Dead Sea, where Masada is at already, and then its a STEEP walk up a thousand stairs and some pathway without stairs, and I felt winded most of the time. So needless to say sunrise from the top overlooking the Dead Sea was VERY rewarding.

We walked all around the top for about an hour and a half before we HAPPILY paid $8 to take the cable car down the mountain (The cable car wasn't running when we headed up, but we might have hiked it anyways for the "fun" of it).

We had breakfast and left the Dead Sea and headed due north. We made it to Tiberius for lunch and had "St. Peter's Fish" at a table overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee (of course really a lake) was very beautiful, with a frame of mountains on the opposite bank.

Now we're in Haifa, a port city, and tomorrow we'll explore things here and head to the town of Akko nearby.

Then to Jaffa for our last night!! Our flight doesn't leave until 11 p.m. on Saturday though, so we still actually have two full days. But it has flown by.

Mom- you also mentioned driving around, and yes we feel Sooooo safe. They have security measures here down to a TEE but in a way that doesn't make you feel scared, just very very safe. Driving has totally been the way to go! So much more freedom and less hassle with group tours.

Love to everyone!!
Meagan

THE GARDEN TOMB

This morning we totally lucked into The Garden Tomb. I had wanted to go, but Fodor's said the hours were 2-5:30 (weird!?) and we were leaving Jerusalem this morning for the Dead Sea region to stay the night at Masada (which we'll hike to the top of at sunrise tomorrow!). So we decided to just walk there anyways this morning before we went to go pick up our rental car, and the hours were actually 9-12 and then 2:00-5:30 - a typo in Fodor's had left out the morning hours... and how HAPPY I WAS we decided to go by anyways.

The Garden Tomb is an alternate theory to the Church of the Holy Seplechure (sp?) as the place where Jesus was crucified, died, and rose again... and I LOVED IT. In the late 1800s (and I don't have time to look up the exact specifics, so this is the gist of it - I only have 20 minutes on this computer before my time is up) someone was staying in a place in Jerusalem (a british historian or scholar maybe?) and he always noticed this rocky face of a skull staring back at him from his window view... and he was convinced it was the Biblical "place of the Skull" ... and so finally convinced enough people to do excavation of the site.
Several things from the Bible and history correlate with this location...
The crucification happened outside of the city gate ... this Garden is outside of the Domascus (sp) Gate
The Bible references the Place of the Skull - and there is a clearly a skull impression in the rocks there
Romans crucified people near busy roads, so all could see... and this location is just near the historical road between Jericho and Jerusalem and Bethlahem
Joseph of Arimathea gave his just finished, very new tomb for Jesus' body, and the tomb excavated and found in this Garden has all the signs of a very new (so new, there are signs it wasn't completely finished yet when someone was laid there) tomb.
There are a few other things about the tomb itself, written about in the Bible, that correlate very closely with this tomb - description of the rock that would have rolled to cover the entry way, and the tomb's layout itself... things that are very from other ancient tombs excavated from the same time period.
AND the tomb Jesus was laid in was in a garden, and excavation has showed that this place (though a newly planted garden now) was a vineyard in the time of the Jesus.
There is some debate about the tomb's age and whether it could possibly date back too far, to before Jesus's time, but regardless, I LOVED this place and the guide there who gave us the tour really did a wonderful job describing the area during the time of Jesus. He brought me to tears in describing Roman crucifixions and just how the person would die on the cross... a Finish lady gave me some tissue (we were in a group with Fins and so we were hearing it in English and Finish).
Anyways - that was the Garden Tomb, and I'm writing so quickly that I don't think I did it justice - the landscaping around it was so beautiful and reminded me of The Secret Garden.
ALSO TODAY we floated in the Dead Sea (AMAZING, COOL!) and covered ourselves in the black Dead Sea Mud (I feel sooo soft, but it really took some scrubbing to get it all off!). It was a really cool experience to float on top of the water that that. I felt like a human bouy.
Better run before my time runs out!!!! I'd hate to lose this post!
Love to everyone! Meagan