Karaoke and “riot” time was totally over by just after midnight – we gather it was the “riot police” who kept shouting “lo” until there was silence.  Jen thought of Kiegen, Kathryn and the rest trying to control the GCC bunch at summer camp!

We were woken by the sun rising over the Sea of Galilee, so, after dragging ourselves out of bed and throwing on yesterday’s clothes we walked the 100m down to the shore.  Jen waded in half-way up to her knees (the water was as cold as Muizenberg beach!) and Rob took a few pictures.  We didn’t stay there long and returned to our room to get ready for our drive around Galilee.  Rob had sore calves, Jen a sore shoulder and a blister on her foot, but this was NOT going to detract from a beautiful day with a clear sky.

Breakfast (at 07h30) was Israeli style as we have come to expect and enjoy. Scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, some raw picked fish, tomato, yellow and red peppers, cucumber, cottage cheese, yoghurt, and fresh rye bread.  This is a typical Israeli breakfast. There are always a few variations – maybe a few more items of cream cottage cheese, a few different salads but nevertheless this strange combination disappears with frightening speed and much enjoyment ….

      

A detour to fill up with petrol, or should we say gas, is a new experience. Most petrol stations are self-service and often manned (or womanned!) by only the attendant who is also the cashier in the little shop selling cool drinks and snacks.

All the filling stations display the price of the various octanes (there appear to be no pricing regulations as in SA) and once you pull up you put the nozzle into your car, put your credit card into a slot and enter how much petrol/gas you want.  Tourist Rob had to ask the lady behind the counter to show him how it was done. A few anomalies are that the petrol is sold by the litre but the tyre pressure gauges are in PSI (pounds per square inch) – strange, but that’s the way they do it in Israel.

 We then went on to a Kibbutz we had visited in 2006, Nof Ginnosar. The chief attraction here is an ancient boat (circa 30 BCE ~ 80 CE) that was discovered in 1987 and has been preserved and now housed in a specially designed building with an audio visual display. An old man, not quite as old as the boat, who was part of the team that help excavate the boat from the mud told us the story with a few personal anecdotes of his own.  That, combined with the excellent exhibition, made the revisit worth while. This also some what softened the fact that Jen (didn’t Adam blame Eve?) almost broke the bank in the adjoining shop buying “trinkets and baubles” (these are Rob’s words – I mean, what lady would call beautiful jewellery “trinkets and baubles”?)  Jen found the ring she’d wanted for a long time – the very expensive one she loved on the web was too thick so it was a relief not to have ordered it, but she found another ring of the same “theme” which looked a lot better.  Rob bought CDs, a kippah and Israeli recipe book.   Jen also bought a T-shirt saying “Wherever I stand, I stand behind Israel”.

Driving on south alongside Galilee we stopped at Yardenit, the Jordan baptism site. A fair crowd was there basically swimming since being good Catholics they could not get re-baptised but wanted to be “well coated” in “Holy Water”.  There was of course the usual money-making spin on the side – a 125ml bottle of holy water cost $3, a 500ml bottle cost $5 and a “two for the price of one” holy oil and holy water $6.  A 5 litre bottle could be had for the bargain price of $20.. or you could buy an empty but BRANDED bottle for $1.5….

The first kibbutz established in Israel (Deganya Alef) was, according to the guide books supposed to have a coffee shop and pioneer museum but it was closed.  A little disappointing, but still good to see a place that we have read about, and is a part of the history of Israel.

Passing around the southern end of Galilee we then started heading north up the east side. We stopped at Kursi, which was “recently” rediscovered in 1969 and excavated.

 While constructing a road, a Byzantine church was discovered, this church commemorated the place where Jesus drove the demon out of the man and into a herd of swine. While not a “special” place, going to these places puts the bible into perspective especially in terms of distances and locations.   One of the significant events was Rob tripping and using Jen as a stabiliser, nearly ripping her ear off when he grabbed her sunglasses (okay, maybe a bit over-dramatic).  He twisted his ankle slightly but is fine with only a aching ego as a fond memory.
Continuing north and going up on to the Golan we went to Gamla, which is sometimes referred to as the “Masada of the north”.  This was a Jewish town is perched on the spine of a hill shaped like a camel’s back (hence the name – Gamla is “camel” in Hebrew).  Gamla joined the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE, and was destroyed soon after by Vespasian.  After putting up a brave fight against the Romans, and not before having killed a large number, most of the Jews committed suicide after the final fall of Gamla, rather than being captured and made slaves.  It is extremely inaccessible and involves a steep 2 hour hike to get to the actual site and as we were running short on time decided to leave for another time (2010?  Or later this year if mom wins the lottery?)

Returning to the road around the lake we turned into Korazim. This town’s claim to fame is that it rejected Jesus and His miracles.  As a result, no miracles were performed there. The only miracle is that now there are some remains of the synagogue that Jesus no doubt would have spoken in.

By this point the hunger pangs were starting to sound a little louder than instructions of the navigator (Jen) who had done a great job of keeping the sometimes hazardous driver (Rob) not only on the right road and taking the right turn and driving on the right hand-side of the road while drive a left hand drive car.  We turned into a restaurant at a filling station. Once more we were presented with a trilingual menu with what seems to be standard offerings – hummus, salad, shish kebabs, etc etc.  Rob settled for a Mushroom Hummus with pita bread.  Jen very bravely tried a stuffed pepper.  She was not a happy camper – she wanted “real” food for a change and not this Arab stuff… The Humus and mushroom was good but the stuffed pepper… perhaps it should have been stuffed somewhere the sun don’t shine.  While Jen was eating as much as she could, she was imagining having to ask “eifo beit cholim” on yet another holiday … she made it out there with out being ill or having any other form of dramatics.

Since we had not been able to access the Net all day and the youth hostel did not have WiFi we drove on into Tiberius and parked in the same spot as the night before and uploaded the blog page before returning to Karei Deshe for a early supper of Moroccan chicken, Turkish style chicken schnitzels, kebabs, a vegetarian dish and yet more hummus and salad selection…

The food at the hostel while simple was tasty, well presented and plentiful, certainly not rating a Michelin star but would recommend the hostel to anyone.

As we write this we have a new riot of kids.  We are being “entertained” by a disco with some rap.  We were both horrified at the kind of language used, eg. “so who the f… are you?  You can suck my …. “ etc etc.  Do parents actually know and/or care what their kids listen to?   Maybe we Are getting old !

More later ….. The Golan Day 4