A Sailor's Life

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Haifa, Israel
The entire crew of the Mahan was happy to hear that we would get the opportunity to stop at Haifa, Israel for about 6 days. Haifa is north of Jerusalem and directly west of the Sea of Galilee. The ship had arranged for multiple tours and there were a lot of exciting things to do here. Personally, I was very pleased to hear that we were going to stop in Haifa, and I've always hoped that I'd have the opportunity to stop there.

We pulled into Haifa on a Sunday, and I had duty on that first day. It was a good day to have duty, since there weren't any tours or events happening on that day. I had a watch on the bridge wing manning a gun that is mounted there. Other than a few tug boats and the random merchant ship pulling in and out of port it is pretty quiet.

The watch did give me an excellent opportunity to observe the hillside of the city. From the harbor you can see a big hill covered with houses. The hill is Mount Carmel, which apparently is a very long hill, because we could still see it as we traveled south on our tours. A few of the famous things in Haifa are the Temple of Ba'b, the Tomb of Elija, and Mt. Carmel itself. The Temple was built to represent unity and peace between religions of the world. I didn't get to go see any of the famous things in Haifa, but the other places that I did go to were far more interesting.

Dead Sea and Masada
On the second day in port I had signed up to go on a tour of the Dead Sea and Masada. The tours were offered at a very reasonable rate, and the Navy paid for half of the total costs to go on the tours, which allowed us to get the tours at half the price that the Navy was already getting at a discounted rate.

The journey to the Dead Sea started at about 8am, which is when the bus left from Haifa. The weather here has been chilly but dry. The sun was shining and we pulled the shades in the bus halfway down the windows to shield our eyes. With as much time as we spend inside the ship, our eyes take a while to adjust to the brightness of the sun.

The bus traveled directly east to get to the Jordan river. We passed the Yizreel Valley, which is cluttered with fields of olive trees and other agriculture which I couldn't identify. There was even a corn field, but I only saw one of those. Once we got to the Jordan, we headed directly south toward the Dead Sea. The country is very hilly, and the bus went steeply down a number of hills as we made our way south. We passed by Jericho on our way, but it is not much more than a tiny city along the Jordan River. Somehow, whenever I think of Jericho, I normally think of a huge city with towering walls, but the city that I saw was not even close to the city of my imagination.

It took about 4 hours to get all the way to the Dead Sea, which is south of Jerusalem. The first stop was Masada, which is a very high plateau that towers over the Dead Sea. The plateau's history has been mostly undiscovered for nearly 2000 years until the 1960's when it was extensively excavated to determine it's history. In the time of Christ, King Herod built a palace on top of the plateau as a refuge against the Jews if they revolted against him.

Our guide took us to the top of the plateau which conveniently has a cable car which goes all the way to the top. There is a "snake" path that winds up the side of the plateau, but we didn't have the time to spend climbing it. There are a lot of ruins on top of the hill, and our guide took pride in telling us how the archaeologists determined that the people of Masada stored food and water on top of such a high place. King Herod was an excellent builder, and they had an extensive system of aqueducts that collected rainwater, so that they could store the water in large cisterns. King Herod built it to be able to withstand siege for many months and perhaps even years.

I got a lot of pictures from the top of the plateau, and you can see most of the Dead Sea from the top of it. There was a huge siege of Masada by the Romans in 72 AD, and from the top of the plateau you can see a line of rocks drawn to show the line of the Roman encampment that stretched all the way around the plateau. The Roman camps along the line were also outlined and could be clearly seen in the valley below.

We spent a couple hours on top of Masada, and observed the palace of King Herod. I personally think that there must be much more that they didn't show us, or that hasn't been discovered yet. What they have discovered is impressive, but I'm certain that there was more to the palace inside the plateau.

After exploring Masada and all the ruins, we went back to the bus, which took us to a place where we could eat a buffet meal and after eating we could swim in the Dead Sea. There were a lot of people that were there with other tour groups, and the Dead Sea is a big attraction because of it's health benefits. The minerals and salts are sold around the world in many skin creams and body care products.

I ate quickly, and changed in a large locker room. I went down to the Dead Sea and tested the water with my hand. The water of the Dead Sea is 10 times saltier than the Mediterranean, which makes it 35% salt. The water was a little cool, but once I got in, it felt pretty good. It felt pretty much like normal water at first, but once you get in to about your chest, your legs lift out from under you, and they float toward the surface. It's weird at first, and you feel like you have fight the water to stand back up again.

It's a really amazing experience. You can easily float on the surface of the water without moving or trying to swim at all. One person tried tasting the water, and said that it is really bitter and feels like it is burning your tongue. They warned us to not stay in the water more than about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes we went and washed off with fresh water before going back in the water for a little longer. The salty water feels slick on your skin, and any cuts on your body burn a lot from the salt.

After half an hour or so of floating around in the Dead Sea we were called out, and we had to go shower and get ready to get back on the bus. The Dead Sea was really amazing, and the tour of Masada was pretty interesting too.

Jerusalem
On the third day in port, I went on the tour to Jerusalem. This was the most popular tour of the 4 that were offered. All the tours were offered every day that we were in port, so anyone that was unable to go on a tour on a particular day would still be able to go on that tour on another day.

To get to Jerusalem we mainly followed the coastline of Israel until we got close to Jerusalem. Our guide was able to avoid heavy morning traffic in Tel-Aviv by going a little more inland on another highway. On our way to Jerusalem the tour guides stopped at a famous restaurant where the owner of the restaurant loves Elvis.

There were statues of Elvis and the entire restaurant was plastered with signs and pictures of Elvis. It was obvious that the tour guides reward the restaurant for catering to tourists, and it was pretty funny to find something like that in Israel.

One of the things that surprises me about the Israel landscape is how many hills there are. It seems like we were constantly climbing or descending hills. The highway must have taken a lot of construction to carve out a path through so many hills. Even in Jerusalem there is barely any flat valley area where you could grow crops. The Yizreel valley from the day before is one of the most fertile areas of Israel.

It took us about 3 hours to get to Jerusalem from Haifa. We started our tour of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives which overlooks most of the main city. I got a couple of good panoramic pictures from there. You could see the Muslim Dome of the Rock, and the Jewish Church of the Holy Sepluchre. The wailing wall is also visible from the Mount of Olives, but is hidden behind the Dome of the Rock temple.

The surprising thing about the view from the Mount of Olives was the huge cemetery of Jews that are buried on the side of the Mount of Olives. From the top of the mountain where we stood the entire side of the mountain was covered with gravestones of all the Jews that have been buried there in hopes of rising when Christ comes. I've never seen so many gravestones in one place.

You can also see the gate that Jesus entered into when he entered into Jerusalem. The gate is walled up, in a Muslim attempt to "prevent" Jesus from entering the city. There is also a Muslim burial area, which is right outside the wall. Another interesting thing is that the Muslims built a mosque (temple) next to any place where there is a Jewish church, and they always build the mosque to be a little bit higher than the Jewish church.

After looking at all of this from the Mount of Olives, we walked down the hill to the Garden of Gethsamane. There is a garden of very old olive trees that had huge trunks. There was a tree there that was planted just 50 years ago, and it looked nothing like the gnarled huge trunks of the ancient trees in the garden. The garden was right next to a church that was supposedly the place where Jesus first laid eyes on Jerusalem, and inside the church were a number of murals and depictions of Christ.

We took the bus up the hill from this point and drove around the wall to the gate of Jaffa. The tour guide had no other explanation for the name of the gate other than that the road that leads to the gate is also called Jaffa. Names for many places in Israel have stayed the same for thousands of years, and the guides weren't sure of the origins of the name. We walked through the gate and passed through a number of narrow streets crowded with tiny shops selling everything you could imagine. We felt a little rushed through this area, but the guides told us that it is easy to lose tourists among all the shops, and we found out later that some of those areas are dangerous for tourists.

The guides took us to a shop where we could buy souvenirs and all kinds of novelty items that tourists might like to buy. We spent at least half an hour there while nearly everyone purchased a lot of souvenirs. After that we walked through the Jewish quarter and Muslim quarter until we got to the wailing wall. The wailing wall is also called the western wall, and it is called that because it is the last of the original walls of Jerusalem that were destroyed. The new wall follows surrounds a different area, and the one original wall is considered a holy place in Jerusalem.

We had to go through a security checkpoint with metal detectors to get to the wailing wall, and to go up to the wall your head must be covered. Women are not allowed to go up to the wall, and they have a section of the wall that they may go to. We were allowed to walk up to it, and at one place there was a clear glass plate on the ground where they excavated down to the original base of the wall which is many feet below the level of the ground now. There were many Jews saying prayers toward the wall, and there are thousands of notes to God stuffed into the cracks of the wall. The tour guide told us that once a year the notes are collected and buried. There were so many that it looked like the mortar of the wall until you get up next to it and you see that it is thousands of tiny folded bits of paper.

We went back to the tour bus after that and made a short stop at the church of the Virgin Mary, and nearby also was the tomb of King David and the site of the Lord's Supper. We made hurried stops at each of these, because the tour guides were supposed to have us out of the city before dark. The room of the Lord's Supper was not very impressive, but somehow I think that the real upper room would have been even less impressive than the place we visited. It is hard to know for sure where all of the events in the Bible took place, but the places that we visited are what has been passed down through the generations.

The ride back to Jerusalem was uneventful, and nearly everyone slept all the way back to Haifa. The biggest impression that I got of Jerusalem is how much conflict there is there. The guide mentioned how the archaeologists want to do further excavation to find more of the ancient ruins of Jerusalem that lay beneath the level of the streets, but the Muslims would create much conflict and say that the Jews are trying to destroy the Muslim temple if they tried to do any excavation. It seems like Jerusalem teeters on the brink of conflict constantly, but that is the curse of this part of the world. The conflict will continue until Christ comes again and resolves the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims.

Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee
I had duty on the fourth day in port, but the fifth day I got to go on the tour to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. The tour guide that we had was a very nice lady who has been giving tours for a long time. She even read her Bible to us when we reached certain areas that the Bible mentions. We left at about 8am, like we did with the other tours, and we went directly East toward Nazareth.

Nazareth is only about 30 minutes away from Haifa, and it didn't take us long to get there. The city of Nazareth is much bigger now than it was during Jesus time. Our guide said that in the time of Jesus there were probably only 10 houses, and the town would have been very insignificant compared to any other towns around there. There is a very large church built over the site where Mary and Joseph's house stood. There is an actual small stone hut carved out of the side of the mountain in the center of the church which is supposedly the actual site of where they lived. There was a church service there when we walked in, and surprisingly the sermon was in English. We listened for a bit, but then moved on.

From Nazareth we took the bus to the Sea of Galilee where we visited a number of sites where Jesus taught. It is also very likely the same area where Jesus blessed the loaves and fish. He also probably called to the disciples in the fishing boat from there, and told them to cast their nets to the other side of the boat. The church of the Beatitudes is up on top of a nearby hill, and there is a lot of excavation where the site of Peter's house and the surrounding village and synagogue were.

Going to the Sea of Galilee was probably the most moving part of all of the tours that I went on. It boggles the mind to think of how Jesus walked and taught in the same places where we were standing. I walked away from the group a little to just sit and look out over the Sea of Galilee to think about everything that happened there. It gives a new meaning to everything that you read in the Bible and all the stories that are there that talk about the places where we were standing.

After the visit to the Sea of Galilee, we went down to the southern side of the sea to where the Jordan river exits the sea. The Chaplain was with us, and he performed baptisms on 11 people that requested to be baptized in the Jordan River. It was pretty moving to watch each person as they were baptized. There was one last souvenir shop before we got back on the bus to go back to Haifa, but there was much to think about as we rode back to the ship one last time.

...... So that was everything that I got to see in Israel. I apologize for how long this post is, but there is so much to write about. I wish that we could have been here even longer to spend more time in Jerusalem and learn more about the city. From about 2000 to 2006 there has been almost no tourism in Israel because of conflict, and I'm sure that conflict will break out again. We have been very fortunate to be able to visit Israel, and I've always hoped that we'd be able to stop there someday.

Email me if you have any comments about everything that I wrote here. I may have made some minor errors in my recollection of facts. We're over the halfway point of deployment now, and getting closer every day to returning home.
- posted by Isaac @ 5:37 PM - Permanent Link

Comments:

Wow! Thank you so much for writing all this out! I'm excited toread about all of what you saw. I can't wait til you come hom eand yu can show me pictures while you tell me about it. :) I love you!

# posted by

Chelle : 4:34 PM