The first night in the new hotel was pretty good! Slept really well. Me and Sarah ended up going to bed later then we planned because there was a movie on TV we were watching about Prince William and Kate. It ended with the proposal so it must’ve been an older movie, but it was fun haha.
Today we drove within 30 miles of the Syrian border and we were 1 mile from the Syrian border in 1967. The conversation on the bus ride to our first location included lots about war (past and present) and Obama and everything in the news. It was pretty interesting. But I’m not really into war and everything so I was kind of bored, but it is still important. The talk of war continued on to our first location, Mits Borah. It was a bunker kind of, I guess. It reminded me a lot of the Forts back home. It looked out over Israel and Syria, you can see the line borders. The houses are Syria and the fields are Israel. They had us sit down at the top and listen to our guide Elan talk about one of the wars. He didn’t really have a clear train of thought and he was hard to listen to so I kind of lost track of what he was talking about. He also ended up talking for a REALLY long time. Most of us hadn’t put sun screen on yet because we weren’t expecting to be there long but I think we ended up sitting/standing and listening to him talk for almost an hour. I am was literally roasting in the sun and so was my roomie and other people as well. Last night most of us were flaming red by the time we reached dinner. Hopefully it results in a tan J Here are some pics of Mitz Borah and the view from the top.
Our second stop was Nimrod fortress. I love that name lol. It was a muslim castle that was never captured by the Crusaders and was built in the 12th Century. It is located at the foothills of Mt. Hermon which is the area where Jesus’ Transfiguration is assumed to have happened. I was really excited to finally have a location that related to Jesus! It’s more applicable to me then all of the other historical and geographical stuff that they always talk about. I felt like I was at Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings. At the top of a tall fortress! Here are some pictures:
Our third stop was Banias, also known as Caesarea Phillipi. It is an area located at the headwaters of the Jordan River. It’s home to the temple of Pan, who was the god of nature. There is a shrine to Pan still located there. It was a place of extreme Paganism. The tourism culture identifies the location as the Gates of Hell, but there is no biblical evidence to support that idea. Mark wanted to make it clear that these weren’t literally the gates of Hell, though it may have been hot enough to think so ;)
Our 4th stop was Tel Dan. At this point I was starting to get a little frustrated because we have been doing a lot of hiking and walking to see basically the same things…Old rocks that were temples, fortresses, and what not. I’m ready to see some more interesting things. But that probably won’t happen until we hit Jerusalem and see more locations that are related to the life of Jesus, I can’t wait for that to finally happen.
Tel Dan was a really really green area with lots of water. At one point Mark stopped us in the middle of the bridge that was over a roaring river and was shouting at us. He just wanted to make it clear that there is indeed water in the dessert haha. As we were hiking through the “woods” a lot of us started to feel really at home, as if we were walking through the woods in Washington during a warm summer day.
At one point he stopped us at the entrance of a spring and gave us a time for reflection and then brought us down to the stream to take a drink. The water was so clear but I was still fearful of bacteria and so I only had one small sip.
After we emerged from the “woods” we found the “high place of Dan”. Jeroboam built himself different high places and this was one of them. Because of building this a “curse” was carried down throughout all of the kings. There was an altar here at this high place, which you can see in the picture.
After the high place we stopped at what is considered the 2nd oldest arched gate ever discovered in the world. It dates back to the middle bronze age. It is even possible that Abraham actually stepped foot through this gate.
Our last stop was a place called Omrit. It was a new archaeological dig site. I was not a fan of this site. It took a long hike up, through hay, grass, and lots of dust which made my allergies go nuts and all we saw was something that looked just like what we had seen at numerous other locations except we couldn’t walk in it or touch anything. But I guess it was cool to see something at the start of an archaeological dig. It is said to be one of the 3 temples that Herod built for Ceasar.
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