| Submitted by: John Mittler, Finland |
| Submission Date: 28 March 2007 |
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Two-week journey to the Middle East on 19 Dec 2006 — 02 Jan 2007: the sights, feelings and thoughts
Narrative by John Joe Mittler, Finland.
HTML version with 375 photos is available at http://www.co-ground.com/travel
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Before taking off...
I searched reasonably priced flight tickets at Momondo.com, and chose to fly with Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then with El Al to Tel Aviv. I also compared the prices of cars at CarRentals.com, and reserved a car from Budget rental. Then I used the HostelBookers.com service to find the cheapest single rooms available in each city. (The average cost was 20 euros per night — but the quality of accommodation was not always comfortable or even tolerable. I would not try it again without budgeting at least twice as much money for the accommodation costs.)
I spent tens of hours surfing for information about places worth visiting, compiling this list of opening hours. (Most of the information on the Internet turned out to be correct when I entered the sites.) I found many helpful maps with Google search engine (including this high-resolution map of Israel), but I also ordered some maps from the Survey of Israel online map store.
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Tue 19 December 2006 (Chanukkah IV)
My flight to Tel Aviv from Frankfurt was scheduled to leave at 14:45 in the afternoon. I was travelling in the best possible company — alone. The Israeli security personnel at the airport may have thought that I was in the worst possible company, though: a young man travelling alone, with visas to Arab countries in his passport. You can bet that the security check was careful and detailed.
At 19:50 the flight arrived at Ben Gurion airport, and I picked my car from the Budget car rental. I was given a Hyundai Getz with automatic gears, a brand new car straight from the factory, only a few kilometers driven. I had reserved a car with manual gears, though, as I had never in my life even tested a car with automatic gears. But never mind, I soon guessed that D means “drive”, and in no time I was speeding on the Israeli highways, heading towards Tel Aviv.
A car with automatic gears proved to be a great idea in the crowded city centers, but quite terrible on the steep mountain roads, where the driving computer often chose a lower gear than would have been reasonable. There must be a reason why automatic gears have not become popular in places like Scandinavia, and this may be the reason.
When I had arrived in Tel Aviv, I wondered where Tel Aviv was anyway, since all road signs pointed to “Ayalon” and other never-heard places. With some luck and some divine providence I ended up on “Derekh ha Shalom”, which is located in Tel Aviv (even though the road signs never told so). After another half an hour in the maze of annoying one-way streets in downtown Tel Aviv, I finally found Sky Hostel, where I had booked a single room and a parking lot for my car. During the evening and night I learned that this was one of the lowest-quality accommodations in entire Israel. (At least I hope so.)
The trip meter of the car showed 40 km at the end of the day.
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Wed 20 December 2006 (Chanukkah V)
My first scheduled destination was Caesarea national park (50 km north of Tel Aviv), which opens at 8 o’clock in the morning. I left Tel Aviv at 6:45, and arrived in Caesarea at 8:15, nearly perfectly in schedule. I spent one hour in the national park, taking photos of the ancient ruins and wondering who the idiot has authorized building a massive coal power station next to one of the major historical sites of the country.
At 9:15 o’clock I continued driving north, ate lunch at Lev ha Mifraz shopping mall in Haifa, and arrived in Acco at 11:30. The pedestrian Old City of Acco is not large, but the road signs are scarce and obscure enough to create the impression of a medieval French labyrinth garden: “Try to guess where to turn next, to reach your destination or to find your way out of here!” A few more traffic signs would do no harm — this is generally true to all cities in Israel.
A 15-minute drive towards north brought me to Roosh ha Niqraa, which is at the border of Lebanon on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. I visited the grottoes by cable car, but the place impressed me less than I had expected, during the 45 minutes that I invested into this tourist attraction. Witnessing the Orient Express train go through the tunnel, on its way from Cairo to Europe, would have inspired a bit more sentimentality than what was now available there — but the railway bridge was blown up in 1948.
At 13:30 I continued driving towards east on highway 899 near the border of Lebanon. I stopped at the hill of Hanitah to take a panorama photo of the fine view towards south, and then I continued further towards east, taking these photos in Adamit and other places near the border of Lebanon.
While driving along highway 899 towards east, the wheels of the car started to make a strange noise, roaring like an aeroplane. I feared that the car might break down at any moment, so I dismissed my original plan to drive south to Nazareth via Ma’alot, and instead I took the shortest route to Tiberias, where I would sleep the next night anyway, having reserved a room in Prima Hotel.
The roaring noise ended after a few kilometers, but then it came back, and then it disappeared again. Finally I learned that the noise was caused by a certain type of asphalt pavement, and there was nothing wrong with the car. But I had passed the junction of Ma’alot long ago, so I followed the renewed plan and drove towards Tiberias, arriving at Lake Kinneret a few minutes before 16:00. A road sign pointing to Capernaum caught my attention here, and I spent the next half an hour among the most humble ruins of this ancient home town of Jesus of Nazareth. (I wonder who is interested in demolished houses anyway? Most visitors cannot get the faintest idea of what the place has once looked like. Carefully planned restoration of the ruins would serve the public much better than a few authentic stones kicked here and there.)
The sun was supposed to set at 16:30, but it became dark only half an hour later. I spent the evening in the center of Tiberias, mostly eating and surfing on the Internet, but also discussing with some local people about environmental terrorism, outrageous sound pollution, and a few disco boats sailing on the lake.
The trip meter of the car showed 330 km (of which 290 km today), as I parked on the street in front of Prima Hotel.
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Thu 21 December 2006 (Chanukkah VI)
Leaving Tiberias at 6:00 in the morning, a one-hour drive towards north took me to the Hulah Valley nature reserve. The noise of thousands of birds could be heard from afar, before any winged creatures could be sighted with the plain eye. I rented a bike to make closer acquaintance with these small flying tourist attractions.
Half an hour of ornithology sufficed for me on this occasion, and then I continued driving towards north. In Qiryat Shmonah there were plenty of soldiers hitch-hiking towards Metullah in the north, but I turned east towards the Hermon region. Being reminded of the popularity of hitch-hiking here (which is almost unheard-of in Scandinavia), I decided that during the rest of my two-week travel I would take as many hitch-hikers as I would encounter on the highways.
At 8:30 I arrived at Tel Dan national park, where I spent an hour of brisk walking in the rather extensive area — actually jogging most of the time, to save time which I knew to be very scarce, since I had planned to reach not only Mount Hermon in the north, but also Belvoir and Beyt Shean 120 km to the south, and all this before sunset. (I would have wished to see also the crocodiles in Hamat Gader and the kangaroos in Gan Garoo west of Beyt Shean, but my tight schedule did not allow me to pay a visit to these creatures.)
One of the highlights of the day was visiting the Nimrod Fortress, which is located a 15-minute drive northeast of Tel Dan. Climbing up and down the steep hills and stairs of the fortress was a rather athletic effort, at least at the pace with which I did it, investing only half an hour to this impressing historical site.
Another 45 minutes of constant uphill towards northeast brought me to the Mount Hermon ski resort at 11 o’clock. (The distance is actually only 30 minutes, but I drove astray in the Druze village called Majdal Shams.) There was not a single flake of snow anywhere on the mountain, but I took the skilift ride to the top anyway, to view the scenes and take some photos.
The visit to the top consumed one full hour of my carefully rationed time, because of the slow and lengthy skilift ride first up and then down. During the ride down from the top I studied my notebook and reviewed my travel plans for the rest of the day. Realizing the scarcity of time and the multitude of places to visit, I said a quiet farewell to the crocodiles and kangaroos. So close, yet too far.
Leaving Mount Hermon at noon, the next two hours and a half I spent driving south along highway 98, through the most eastern parts of Golan Heights. The bird-flight distance from Mount Hermon to Belvoir fortress is only 120 km, but the zig-zag roads near the military zones and on the mountain slopes consumed unexpectedly much time. I also picked two hitch-hikers along the road, but they were travelling to a different destination, and only stayed for ten kilometers in my car.
The landscapes were quite plain in the eastern parts of Golan Heights, except in Mas’adeh where the vegetation was uncommonly bountiful, honestly deserving to be called a “forest”. I was fool enough not to take a photo in Mas’adeh, but I took plenty of photos of the less interesting landscapes, such as the three panoramas below from south of Quneitra, Ramat Magshimim, and the southern end of Lake Kinneret.
The mountain road north of Hamat Gader offered a fine view to the river canyon that serves as the military border zone between Israel and Jordan. The photo below is the left half of what should have become a 180° panorama of the river canyon. The border patrol interrupted this photographic activity, however, because the location where I was standing was two meters inside the forbidden border zone. (Another two meters forward would have been mined zone, so two meters is a very meaningful concept in this place.)
It was 14:30 o’clock when I arrived at Belvoir fortress, which is located along such a narrow and bumpy dirt road that I was quite convinced that I had driven astray, and there could be no trace of civilization behind this forsaken wasteland trail. There it was, however, the ruins of a nice little Crusader fortress.
It took 15 minutes for me to walk around this 90 x 90 m building, and to take panoramic photo sets towards the Jordan Valley and towards southern Galilee. Despite the small size of the fortress, the magnificent landscapes on all sides made me convinced that this is one of the most beautiful historical sites in the region, and the fortress would be a real jewel if it were rebuilt to its former glory.
I continued my race against the clock by returning to the forsaken dirt road, and 45 minutes later I arrived at the ticket office of Beyt Shean national park, half an hour before the closing time. This was enough to explore the most important parts of the ancient city at a casual pace, take less than a hundred photos, and buy some souvenirs from the bookstore.
All tourist attractions in this region closed their doors at four o’clock, so there was nowhere left to go any more. I witnessed the sunset while driving towards Afula (25 km west of Beyt Shean), and it became dark before I reached the McDonald’s near Megiddo. A crispy chicken meal gave me energy to drive another four hours to Mitzpeh Ramon at the center of Negev desert. |
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