Road tripping from Nazareth to Cairo (Sept. 3)

Deep down inside we were a little worried about getting all the way from Nazareth to Cairo in one day. Most of our concerns revolved around catching our 4:30 bus from Taba to Cairo, so we phoned a few cheap hotels in Eilat just to make sure there were rooms open for us as a backup.

We left Nazareth bright and early. Because Rachel was still sick and grumpy I sat in the backseat and Joseph navigated. We still got lost and confused a few times, which made me feel much more comfortable with my navigating skills. We missed the road we were supposed to take so took a little windy side road marked “scenic.” It followed along the West Bank fence (the wall hasn’t made it that far north yet) for most of the way. It was definitely scenic, though. The mountains were covered in trees—pine trees, even. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of those.

Our first stop was Qumran, which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We watched a multimedia presentation about life in the Qumran area when the scrolls were written; it was a very religious community. They suggested that John the Baptist may have lived there for some time.

We didn’t stay very long because it was hot and we were pressed for time, but we enjoyed what we saw.

You can see the Dead Sea from the hills of Qumran, and that’s exactly where we were headed next. We stopped near Ein Gedi to use a free public beach. The changing rooms and restrooms were on a pay-per-use basis and we were running low on shekels so we took turns changing as discretely as possible in the car.

Later we were shown that discretion is overrated when you can just rip off your clothes and change right on the beach. Silly us. We didn’t realize flashing was so welcome in Israel. Yikes!

The beach wasn’t anything compared to the one we went to in Jordan, although this one was at least free and lifeguarded. Andrew got yelled at by the lifeguard for going too far out with Rachel, even though he was still standing on the bottom still. It’s not like if he dropped her she would sink, right? I mean, we’re in the Dea Sea.

We still had fun, though the beach was small and rocky and the weather was hot, hot, hot. 45 degrees hot.

Someone brought their dog to the beach and he bounded straight in like he had been waiting to jump in the water all day. After swimming a few yards out he turned around and hightailed it back to shore and didn’t get back in; I’m not sure he was expecting all that salt. Rachel wasn’t either. She also preferred to stay close to shore.

We did get a little floating in before rinsing off and hitting the road again. Patrick described the water a “oily” and Rachel described it as “too salty” and “a little bit scary.” Mostly, it’s just a cool feeling to float so effortlessly, I think.

Our last stop before Eilat was Masada, a fortress on top of a plateau. We only used the facilities at the visitor’s center, though because it was too expensive for us to rationalize a quick trip through; we were still hoping to make it across the border in time to catch our bus.

There was a big model of the citadel in the middle of the visitor’s center that we walked around. There were stairs leading down so you could walk next to it but all the little doorways were barricaded with clothes racks and things. We pushed them aside and went down, anyway, which is when we happened upon this happy little mannequin:

The last stretch of the Negev desert was fairly boring to drive through. To keep ourselves entertained we looked for wild camels, or at least camels wandering around in the desert without people around—I’m not really sure if they were wild or not; funny road signs; and interesting Israeli art—they seriously stick random statues and things in the middle of the desert, which is kind of nice.

Although I tried, I was never able to take a picture of my favorite warning sign, kind of like this one. It warned travelers that the area was “firing zone” and there was to be no stopping or trespassing. Brian Regan’s voice started echoing in my mind. “Uh, shouldn’t that read: Road Closed?”

We made it to Eilat, turned in our rental car (we used Budget because they didn’t have any minimum rental time), and made it through the Israeli side of the border in record time. Israel apparently doesn’t care about Qur’ans or passport stamps on the way out of the country, so we breezed through.

Getting into Egypt, however, was a little tricky since Andrew and I were still avoiding getting stamps in our passports. Egypt has this way of acting like no one has ever tried to enter their country before and border crossings are always a little confusing.

This time the head guy was sure that we had to get a stamp in our passport, otherwise they’d have no record of us ever coming through the port. We told him that was kind of the idea…we needed to not have a record in our passport about coming into the Taba port. He ended up pulling Andrew into his office for 45 minutes where Andrew debated with him about the legality of it all. Considering there is an official form for it, it’s pretty much legal.

Luckily, the head guy’s peons were all on Andrew’s side and we remembered that Egypt is off of daylight savings (for the time being, anyway, since it’s Ramadan) which meant that we had an extra hour to waste getting across the border. A very good thing, considering we made it to the bus stop only 20 minutes before the bus left.

It was also lucky for us that Rachel’s fever had broken and she was perfectly healthy when we crossed the border. Egypt has you fill out these silly cards at the border asking if you have any flu symptoms; I don’t know what would have happened if Rachel had still had a fever, although they did have a quarantine desk set up in a corner.

Would she have had to sit there until she got better? That doesn’t sound helpful.

Anyway, we caught the bus, which was so wonderful because after traveling around for so long I was ready to go home. My temper was short and I was beginning to need some personal space (beginning…hahaha…personal space was well overdue and I was getting snappy). We made it home by 11:30 PM. We left Nazareth at 6:30 AM. Not bad considering all the stops we had to make, and the bus ride, though crowded, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

As soon as iftar started people got up and started passing around dates and drinks and fruit and things, and then they all settled down to eat. Rachel slept most of the way; she was still recuperating, I guess, since she usually isn’t a good sleeper.

Now I just have to write about what we did with Patrick for his last few days in Cairo…and then I won’t be writing about touristy things for a while because I don’t plan on doing anything touristy for at least several weeks after the baby is born!

Busy Biblical Day (Sept. 2)

There is surprisingly little to do in Nazareth, at least from what we could see. It seems to be a rather modern, industrialized city, which is fine. The place we stayed was lovely and there is plenty to do around Nazareth, just not in Nazareth.

We did visit the Church of the Annunciation, which was built in the late 1960s over the older Byzantine and Crusader-era churches. According to Roman Catholic tradition, the grotto in the bottom of the church is Mary’s childhood home, where the angel came to her with the news that she was bearing the Christ child. Greek Orthodox tradition contradicts this.

Again, I think it’s interesting, but I don’t really think it matters if we know the exact location all of these events took place. I guess I’m not a very good pilgrim, which is too bad since that is basically what we did today.

The church is decorated with depictions of the Madonna and Child, donated by different nations. It was interesting to see how different interpretations there were, ranging from the very traditional to the most abstract.

We were kind of shocked to see the pieces donated by the United States and Canada. They were among the most interpretive. At least in the American one there is an easily visible person, although Mary looks a bit like the Tin Man to me. I’m still not sure I’ve quite figured out the Canadian one. I think that big circle is a halo…

We also visited the Church of St. Joseph, which is basically next door to the Church of the Annunciation, and marks the spot of Joseph’s carpentry shop.

From Nazareth we drove to Tiberias for a quick stop at the Sea of Galilee. The beach was covered with razor wire, like most things in Israel. I don’t know how covering a beach with sharp stuff is going to protect anybody from anything, but it did dissuade us from swimming…

Rachel was still a bit feverish but was well enough to run around and splash in the puddles created by a statue/fountain thing that we found. She didn’t run around for long before she was completely tired out, though, and wanted nothing but to be held for the rest of the day.

Patrick tried to slowly walk into the sea but he slipped and landed with a plop in knee-deep water. At least he landed on his feet. A little school of fish surrounded him and started pulling on his leg hairs.

Tiberias was a difficult city to navigate. It wasn’t very well marked and once you were off the freeway it was kind of like “Welcome to Tiberias! Good luck!” We followed a UPS guy around for a while and he ended up making a stop right by the visitor/information center, which was helpful because it meant we could grab a map. Even then we were kind of hopeless; we got lost getting out of Tiberias, too.

Navigating the main roads in Israel is much easier, though, and we find out about things we wouldn’t have known about if we hadn’t been driving. On our way to Tabgha we saw a tourist sign announcing that the “Jesus Boat” would be on our next right. So we pulled of in Ginosar to investigate and ended up being glad that we did. It was a really neat thing to see.

It dates back to the time of Christ and is the oldest boat ever found in freshwater. We went on a guided tour, since there isn’t any other kind, and had a sweet old man as our guide. He was pretty hilarious; he kept asking questions and then answering them without waiting for us to respond. It sounded more like he was muttering to himself than like he was giving a tour. Still, we learned a lot.

The first thing I noticed when we walked in the room was the stench.

“Boy, it smells in here!” I whispered to Andrew.

I was almost ready to pass out it was so overwhelming. He agreed that it smelled a bit funny but mostly blamed my pregnancy nose.

Come to find out, it had to sit in a boiling pool of wax and chemicals for a decade before it was ready to see dry land. That explained the smell much better than my pregnancy nose.

We visited the museum there as well, but it was pretty lame, so we quickly moved on to Tabgha.

Tabgha is where the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes—a church built over a stone where tradition holds the actual multiplication took place—is located.

It is also where Jesus appeared to his disciples again, his third appearance after his resurrection. The Church of the Primacy of Peter supposedly marks this exact location, though we didn’t visit that church.

We were getting pretty hungry by this time in the day and had plans to eat our lunch at the Church of Multiplication, but there didn’t seem to be any good spots for picnicking so we decided to press on until we got to the Mount of the Beatitudes.

We decided to stop at Capernaum on our way there so that we’d be sure to be very hungry when we actually got around to eating.

Capernaum is most famous for being the hometown of a few of the apostles (Andrew and Matthew), perhaps most notably Peter. It’s also where Jesus began his ministry. There is an excavation site that is believed to be Peter’s actual house. Rachel was very interested to know why Peter lived in a hole. We tried explaining to her that mostly all that is left of his house was the foundation and that once upon a time it wasn’t that deep underground. I’m not sure how much of that she understood; she was quite puzzled about it all afternoon.

The synagogue at Capernaum is one of the oldest in the world and is likely where Jesus delivered some of his sermons, like the one found in John 6.

From Capernaum we continued on to the Mount of the Beatitudes. The church was closed when we got there so we decided to just have lunch on some rocks on the hillside, under some trees. Rachel napped in the car while we ate and when she woke up I fed her and Andrew sneaked off to read the Sermon on the Mount while overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

While I was feeding Rachel I heard a chirping sound and looked over my shoulder only to find myself face to face not with a bird, as I was expecting, but with a cute, green chameleon. It was fun to watch him walk around for a bit; chameleons have really weird feet.

We took a few pictures but Rachel wasn’t feeling very well still and didn’t cooperate very well. When Andrew asked her to smile she could barely lift her head off my shoulder before collapsing again.

From there we headed to Mount Tabor, also know as the Mount of Transfiguration. It was quite the drive, up dozens of switchbacks on a road wide enough for only one lane of traffic, to the Church of Transfiguration, but it sure was beautiful.

Neocats singing in the Church of Transfiguration at Mt. Tabor

Rachel was a little more alert because we gave her another dose of medicine at the Mount of Beatitudes, so her fever had gone back down and her headache had subsided. Poor thing kept telling us that everything was “too bright,” and that everything on her body hurt. Her head hurt, her arms hurt, her fingers hurt, her knees hurt, her back hurt, even her hair hurt (apparently). A simple fever and pain reducer took care of all of that.

We didn’t stay long because I wanted to get back to the apartment to let poor, little Rachel rest. No one really argued about leaving, either; we’d all seen our fill of churches and ruins.

When we pulled up at the apartment we noticed that Andrew had just missed squishing yet another chameleon. Joseph declared this day “The Day of Chameleons,” and with good reason—I don’t think I’ve ever come across a wild chameleon in my life and we’d just come across two in the same day.

When I tried to take a turn holding him, he wouldn’t walk onto my arm. Patrick’s backpack was much more interesting.

Andrew’s probably happy about that because he gets a little squeamish around animals like snakes and fish and lizards and bees and…I’ll stop before I embarrass him. He was just as happy to not have to touch as he was that he didn’t run it over.

A few weeks ago when we were walking to church we came across a squished lizard in the middle of the road. It was all bloated and oozing bodily fluids. Andrew just about lost his breakfast.

I had completely forgotten about this on Saturday when I walked into the women’s bathroom at the Jerusalem Center and found a squished, dried lizard, no bigger than my little finger. I picked it up in a tissue to show to Andrew, thinking (for some odd reason) that he would think it was neat or cute or I don’t know what. Instead of being interested in it, though, he kind of surprised me by saying,

“Oh, gross! Get rid of it! You know how I feel about squished lizards!”

“I do?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “Remember when…”

And then he reminded me about how poorly he reacted to seeing the dead lizard in the middle of the road. Oops. I forgot. Dead lizards are worse than live lizards, apparently because Andrew was very happy that he didn’t squish this one.

The line, “You know how I feel about squished lizards!” is almost as good as the time I cried to Andrew in a pregnancy-fit, “You don’t even have a cervix!” (Long story short, he was making fun of me for gasping and jumping after a very hard punch from Miriam, who seems to aim rather low, unlike Rachel who was more of a rib-baby).

When we were all rested from our whirlwind New Testament tour, we went out souvenir shopping for the last time. Things were a lot cheaper in Nazareth than in other places.

Andrew and I went in one shop and started bartering with the owner over a nativity piece. He kept going down in price, but not low enough for us. Then Patrick ran over and said that the guy next door said that he’d give us anything in the store for 50% off. The guy we had been haggling with quickly matched that deal, so we bought our things from him and headed over to Patrick’s store to wait.

While we were standing there, Andrew looked up to the very top of the shelf where he saw the bust of a man.

“Does that look like Joseph Smith to you?” he asked me, pointing to the bust.

“You know, it kind of does,” I told him.

“I don’t know,” he said, “It’s probably just Beethoven or something.”

It still looked like Joseph Smith to me, so I asked the owner, Kameel.

“Who is that a carving of?”

“That,” he said, reaching up and pulling it down for us to have a better look and then pronouncing every syllable very carefully, “Is Joseph Smith.”

“No way!” Andrew and I said at once, laughing.

“Did I say it wrong?” Kameel asked, worried.

“No, you said it right…it’s just…we’re Mormons.”

“You are?!” he asked, “I haven’t seen any Mormons in a while. Last year I had one come to my store…from Jordan, studying Arabic with BYU. They asked me to make this statue, so I did, and a few extras.”

It was too funny. Who’d have thought we’d find a Joseph Smith bust at a random shop in Israel. There were three left in his store, so we all bought one…kind of an impulse buy, but we’d have regretted it if we didn’t. Andrew’s really excited to put it in his office one day.

I’m excited for the day that Andrew has an office…one day…