Israel 2023

 Slathered on the suntan lotion, dressed in immodest clothes - sleeveless shirt - we headed to Petra today.  An amazing ancient city hidden that you can only reach by taking a very narrow passageway through the mountains. (We walked part of this last night in the dark with luminarias lighting the way, but in the light it was like a whole other world).    We started the day on horseback - you will have to ask to hear the whole story. This is a Unesco World Heritage Site.  This city was a main passageway for trade caravans coming on the Kings Highway and the Silk Road...the town collected taxes from all passersby and they were the richest city in the world. The buildings and homes (caves) were all carved right out of (into) the sandstone mountains. An amazing hike (about 7 miles- but the city went in much further than we did) . In 749 an earthquake hit and it essentially became an forgotten city.  It was discovered in 1812 by a Swiss guy, excavations began in the 1920's, and in 1983

The bus picked this up this morning at our hotel. Not quite as fancy as the bus we had before and our luggage seems to have expanded a little bit. We began our drive to Jordan.  Our drive was through a very desert-y, verh hilly area.  Dotted with sheep and goats.  Really wanted to capture the shepherds and their sheep - often wonder how people from a different culture feel about tourists taking pictures of them...on shepherd let me know by giving me a hand signal common to all cultures.  Don't blame him - he is not an antiquity.   We stopped at the Israeli border with a lot of other busses and cars, prepared with our entrance stamps and passports...they did not need them.  Then a few feet down the road we stopped at the Jordanian border and got out of the bus and entered a terminal - put our passports in a machine that spit out a slip of paper, and waited on the other side of the terminal for our next bus (this one has one seat on one side and two on the other).  No internet, but d

 We left our motel on foot this morning and found the wall of old Jerusalem. We went by the Damascus, New Gate to David's Tower. We climbed David's Tower and took pictures of Jerusalem below. The really fascinating thing about David's Tower and the Ramparts walk (a hike all along the top of the wall) is that these walls and this same fortress has been used over the centuries to defend this city....from BD to The 1967 War that was here. We walked through the markets to the Jewish quarter for a Jerusalem bagel.  It was light and fluffy, almost a foot long circle, covered with sesame seeds.  It was rather plain and we were glad that we had pocketed some butter from breakfast. The Jewish people do not eat dairy and meat at the same time. It is not ever offered at the same time. Breakfast  you get butter and no meat and at dinner you get meat and no butter or dairy. Someone in our group got involved in some sort of smuggling butter operation which turned into butter-gate and app

 Today we started in Mt. Zion - classic example of how the 3 main religions work together here.  At this one spot, because of the layers of history, it is thought that David's tomb was located and in the same spot,(in the basement) the Upper Room where the Last Supper was held.  The Christians wanted the Upper room, the Jews wanted David's Tomb - the Jews bought the place from the Christians that owned the church, when the Pope at the time found out he told them to get it back - of course they did not want to give it back, they had a contract...so they went to a muslim judge, who ultimately said it was a stalemate and took it over using eminent domain.  So, the both sites are now in a Mosque.   When Pope John Paul II came to visit he said he wanted to see the site of the last supper and he brought a beautiful art piece with him - an Olive tree with three main branches representing the 3 religions and with a wheat chaff and a grape vine wrapped around it symbolizing the Lord'