Cycling Trips
- U.S.
East Coast
- Maine to
PA
- The Edge of
N.J.
- Fahrradtour
Canada
- Skiing
Whistler Mtn.
- Canoeing
Wilderness
Lakes
Europe +
- Exploring
Heidelberg
- Bad Luck
In Germany
- Trolley
Adventure in
Milan
New Zealand
- Volcanic
Vistas
U.S.
North
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Alaskan
Roads
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the 1,000
Islands
U.S. West
- Miserable
Hawaii
- California
Redwoods
- Omaha
Surprises
- Summer at
Tahoe
Even More
-
Recent
Travels
- My
Quest For All
50
States
- About
Bob
by Bob Neubauer
I
think it all became real for me when the pilot announced we
were flying over Turkey. Turkey! Wow! I had never thought of
Turkey as anything but a distant place that I'd never see.
And now it was right here!
I looked out the window at the snow-covered landscape. Tiny villages clustered in the valleys between mountain ranges, straight roads extending from them across the barren, open landscape. Down there were thousands of Turks who had no idea who I was or what my life was about. And likewise, I could probably have never understood their lives, their struggles.
Soon we crossed over the Mediterranean Sea and I looked out at an expanse of water. Then, finally, I saw land appear over the wing. Israel. We cruised over Tel Aviv and into the country, passing more farms than I'd imagined Israel would have. Then we touched down. We landed at 4 p.m., and the evening light looked like dawn light, which seemed about right to us.
I was there with 27 other U.S. and Canadian journalists and consultants, some of whom I knew. Driving into the city on the bus I looked out the window at the Hebrew letters on the signs, the palm trees, the small cars and the stores selling liquor, fruit and candy, and I knew I was far from home.
We were driven to a large, modern hotel on the Mediterranean Sea called the Intercontinental David Hotel. After a quick check-in, I unpacked and then went outside to check out the area for an hour before our opening reception. I walked to the rocky beach, watching fishermen cast their hooks into the water. I walked down a quarter mile or so alone, passing runners, bikers and walkers. I crossed the street and walked back to the hotel along the back streets.
I walked past apartments and small stores, most of which sold just candy and soft drinks. I looked into several small restaurants, all of which had only Hebrew writing on their menus and signs. It's pretty strange not to be able to understand any signs at all. In one restaurant, two older Jewish men in black clothes and tall hats sat and debated some issues of the day. On the narrow street outside, cars rushed by much too fast.
The next morning I rose at 6:30 and went for a run in the cool morning air. I ran on the promenade along the beach, looking out at the small waves crashing on the rocks. I reached Jaffa, the old town, and eventually found myself at the wharf, running past boats. Following a sign that read "To Old Jaffa," I dashed up a set of stone stairs and emerged in a quiet, narrow, cobblestone passageway running between old stone buildings.
I walked along this ancient corridor, passing under archways, and moving past the doorways to people's homes. Other staircases and passageways branched off at odd angles. I was in an ancient part of the city, perhaps thousands of years old. And I had it all to myself. I continued through the maze of passages until they led me to an open courtyard near St. Peter's Monastery. To my left sat the Mediterranean, waves crashing against Andromeda's Rock, the very rock where legend says the maiden Andromeda was chained, awaiting death from a sea monster, when Perseus flew in and rescued her.
On
Saturday our hosts took us to the desert to entertain us. We
were bused to Jerusalem, then loaded into jeeps and driven
into the Judean Desert. This was no sandy desert, it was
rocky and very hilly. I sat in the back of a jeep with 5
others, bouncing around and looking at the hills rising all
around us. We passed Bedouin shepherds riding donkeys, their
heads wrapped in scarves. They waved at us and made
statements in Arabic. We passed herds of sheep being tended
by boys, and we went past a humble Bedouin dwelling. Two
kids came running out to greet us.
We ended up at a Bedouin tent where the nomads served us tea and bread and a guy played songs for us on strange instruments (saws, funnels, balloons and a device that consisted of a broom with a hole in the top for blowing into.)
In
a ravine next to us sat a 1700-year old monastery, built
into the cliff. It was an incredible site, rising out of the
desert. The bones of the monastery's founder had been
removed by the Crusaders and brought back to Venice to
protect them. In the 1960s, the pope visited here, and when
he returned to Rome, he made sure the founder's bones were
returned to the monastery.
We bumped along some more, going up and down steep rocky passes. The ride was making me ill, but fortunately we found a paved road and drove along it for a while.
We
stopped near the Dead Sea and walked to the foot of some
steep rocky hills for lunch. Then we saw the cave where the
Dead Sea Scrolls had been discovered. Saw foundations of the
buildings used by the tribes that had lived there 2,000
years ago and stashed the scrolls.
We rode a cable car up to the Mount of Temptation, which is where Jesus retreated for 40 days to fast, and where the Devil tempted him. Into the cliffs, a monastery had been built. We got permission to enter and a Greek Orthodox monk showed us a special chamber containing a rock where Christ is said to have sat and prayed during his time here. I touched it. Imagine, touching a rock that Jesus had once sat on! I was in awe of the whole place: the solemnity, the antiquity, it was all spellbinding..
On a humorous note, some entrepreneur had built a fancy French restaurant in the cliffs also, just the thing for a holy site where Jesus had fasted. We imagined their advertising slogan: "The Devil tempted Christ here. Now let us tempt you with our delicious French cuisine!"
We attempted to
drive to the Jordan River, the site where Christ was
baptized by John the Baptist, but it was a military zone,
with high fences and enemies across the river, so we
retreated. At night we went into Jerusalem for dinner. Our
guide directed our bus to this hilltop where we had our
first view out across the city in the fading twilight. The
gold Dome of the Rock
mosque
stood out clearly, rising above the old city walls.
Our dinner was at an Arabic place, which served strange food that you were supposed to put on a pita. They also served rice and shish kabobs of lamb and chicken. I ate a lot of strange food while in Israel. Most tasted fine, though I was never sure what it was. In fact, our hosts treated us so well that I never had to pay for a single meal.
The next day we had to work all day. That evening, as it was Sunday, I decided to go to church. I had found a Catholic church in Jaffa that purportedly had masses in English, so I arranged to take a cab to church, and then meet the group at the restaurant, in Jaffa, where dinner was planned.
The cab dropped me at the church and I took a seat on an old wooden bench, with wooden kneelers. I thought several people were looking at me and laughing, but I ignored it. Then I noticed that I was still wearing my Scitex name badge.
The church was not heated and it got very cold. I had not worn a coat, so I was freezing. Then I learned that the mass was in Arabic. They did one reading in English, and the rest was unintelligible. Fortunately it followed the same order as usual, and I was able to follow along in an English book.
My hosts had given me a map, with street names written in Hebrew, showing the restaurant. I was supposed to find another cab and give the driver the map. But I thought maybe the place was nearby and I could walk, since I had a lot of time to kill. So I asked the man who had been taking up the collection if he could read the map and tell me if the restaurant was close. He studied it and conversed in Arabic with another man, pointing at the various streets and turning the map this way and that. I looked at it too, pretending to be following along with their discussion. The man told me it was too far to walk. Then he surprised me by telling me he'd drive me there himself.
A young lady had
been standing by, and she, it turned out, was the man's
driver. So we walked to her small car and both the man and I
got in the back seat. (It didn't occur to me at the time, in
my naiveté, that I might be getting myself into a
dangerous situation, in this land of eternal war.) We set
off and he began giving orders in Arabic to the woman. We
turned left and right, going down side streets and through
busy intersections. The man kept turning the map different
directions and then seemingly changing his mind about where
we were going and telling the girl to back track. I looked
on with interest and a little bit of concern-not for my
safety but out of fear that they were getting annoyed with
this little treasure hunt. 
Finally,
hidden away at the end of a long driveway, we found the
restaurant. I shook the man's hand and gave him and the lady
a hearty thank-you, and then they drove off into the
night.
The next day was all business, but on our last day we finally went to Jerusalem. What an amazing place. I can't do it justice in words. We walked down the Mount of Olives, through the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went to pray on the night he was arrested. So cool to think we were right there, where he had been, while his disciples slept, boozed up from the wine at the Last Supper. From that vantage point, our guide pointed out where they took Jesus to the high priest's place, where he saw Ponteus Pilot, and where he was crucified. It put everything in perspective to see it all in one amazing view like that. We went into a chapel built near there and poked around.
Though
I was grateful to our hosts for setting up this tour, I wish
they had given us some time to wander instead of
choreographing it all. Our guide was so adamant that we
stick to the schedule and not linger anywhere that it was
very annoying. She told us we wouldn't have time to see the
Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. And then, instead,
they wasted our time with little side trips to places none
of us cared about.
In one case, she
told us that our hosts had set up a "surprise" for us. She
wouldn't tell us what. Was it a trip to the Dome of the
Rock? A walk along the top of the city walls? What could it
be? Our bus parked next to the walls and we
followed
our guide, anxiously. She led us to a little clearing next
to the wall where awaited…all the other journalists
from the other buses. This was our "surprise?" A chance to
hang out with the people we'd been hanging out with all
week? Tea and little pastries were being served--just what
we wanted a half hour before lunch.
Finally, after lunch, we got to go inside the Old City. It's surrounded completely by an ancient wall, some parts hundreds, some thousands of years old. We went first to the Wailing Wall, which is a portion of the wall that surrounded the second Temple. This Temple was the one that was around when Jesus was strolling through town. The Temple is long gone, but Jews revere this wall as the one standing trace of that era.
The
area in front of the wall is considered a religious zone, so
visitors must follow Jewish tradition, which means men and
women go to separate places, and men must wear a hat. A guy
at the entrance handed us paper yarmulkes, which did not
stay on my head very well. At the base of this ancient wall
stood hundreds of Orthodox Jewish men dressed all in black
with tall black hats, beards and long hair on the sides.
They faced the wall, praying, singing and in some cases
bowing repeatedly (dovening). To the left was a synagogue,
one wall of which was a continuation of the Wailing Wall. We
went in there to find other men praying and chanting,
reading aloud from Hebrew books.
I
felt totally out of place with my camera and my paper hat
that screamed "impostor!" Still, no one paid us any
mind.
I walked up to the wall and touched it, mindful of its antiquity. After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD, this wall, which had surrounded the Temple, was one of the only things left standing. Unbelievable. I wrote a short prayer and stuffed it into one of the cracks. Every single crack was already jammed with paper.
After that visit, we walked through a tunnel and emerged along the Via de la Rosa, which is revered as the path that Christ walked with his cross on the way to his crucifixion. Small signs on the buildings noted which of the "Stations of the Cross" had happened there. We saw the places where he stumbled, where a woman named Veronica wiped his face, where Simon was forced to help him. All pretty incredible to see, and to know that Christ had fallen right at that spot.
The "street" is just
a very narrow passage for foot traffic. It is lined on both
sides with small shops selling all kinds of things. It's
packed with people so we had to squirm our way through. It's
so wild to see a place like this, with ancient stone steps
and walls. 
Other
passages branch off to the side, going under stone arches
and through tunnels. People of every kind crowd past: Jews
in tall black hats, Arabs in street clothes, women with
scarves around their faces.
Then we went in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the hill where Jesus met his (temporary) end. The site has been revered as the place of the crucifixion since 326 AD, when The Roman Emperor Constantine sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to "find" the holy sites. She discovered a Roman temple built on the spot, decided that the temple had been built on a holy place, and deduced that this spot was the hill where Jesus had been crucified. She built a church there, but both it and its successor were destroyed later. In the 12th Century, the Crusaders built the present church.
In an upstairs loft is a shrine with an altar, and below that altar, covered in glass, is the bedrock of the hill on which the cross stood. Quite amazing to be right there, even if the spot is not precisely the authentic one. A hole in the glass below the altar lets you touch the rock where the cross stood.
Below
the church is the tomb where Jesus was (temporarily) buried.
We didn't get to see that, unfortunately, because of our
guide's obsession with sticking to the schedule. But we did
go in a similar tomb also in the church.
All day our guide had been warning us not to stop and buy anything from vendors. She told us we would have no time for shopping. But then, miraculously, at the end of the tour we had 15 minutes of time to shop, and she led us right to this one big store that had the answers to all our souvenir needs. It was obvious she had a deal with the shop keeper. I bought nothing there.
Before going to dinner we stopped to look out over the city as it began to glow in the darkness. The Muslim call to prayer echoed out from loudspeakers below us.
That night we had
dinner in a cave underneath the city. Called King Solomon's
Quarry, it is the quarry where the stone was mined for the
Temple. It goes down and down, really deep. They had set up
rugs and cushions for us to sit on, and small tables. They
had a bar down there and lots of exotic food. 
The
place was lit by candles. It was so wild to be down there,
underneath the city. A great way to end our trip. A choir
made up of high school girls came in and sang for us,
haunting melodies echoing off the rocky subterranean walls.
Later, we ventured to the very bottom of the quarry, far
below the earth. I collected a rock there.
But soon we had to say our good-byes. Then all the Americans loaded onto a bus and were taken to the airport. Getting through security was a long process, but we did it. I was happy to get my seat on the plane and rest. I ate the dinner, then crashed. The flight was 12.5 hours, with 3 more hours in Toronto and then another hour home.