Bet She'an

One of the things we've seen in the last couple of days in Galilee is the large walking irrigation machines like we have in Utah.  These were invented here, because the farmers needed a way to water their land without being shelled by the Syrians from the Golan Heights.

At Bet She'an we stopped first at an ancient coliseum.  There is a lip around the edge to prevent the animals from jumping up into the seats.  We see only four rows of seats here.  The coliseum actually had 12 rows of seats, which have not all yet been reconstructed.  This is Roman, of course.  Bet She'an was one of the prominent places, the capital of the Decapolis, where Christians were fed to the lions.  The excavation here has not yet reached the floor.  The word "arena" refers to the gravel on the floor area.  The gravel would be changed every so often when it got too bloody.

We are about 50 miles from the territory of the Philistines.  Yet they built here in the time of King Saul, indicating the weakness of Saul's kingdom.

We have gone now to the city itself.  The excavation is very large.  This would have been one of the larger cities in the world at that time.

We are at a Roman bathhouse, one of the largest found in the world.  Our guide tells us that the restored pillars and columns at this, and other archaeological sites, are held together by "Elmer's glue."

The water leaving the bathhouse was distributed by a series of small ditches for agriculture.  Rain water was used for drinking.

The Romans named the city after Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.

The city was built with pretentious building fronts to impress visitors, but very little behind.  Much like a western movie set.

Next to the shop area is a small theater, or "Odeon."  This was a place to leave kids while shopping.  In the evenings, this was a place of vice and gambling.

There is a large Philistine tel next to the city.  The bodies of Jonathan and Saul were brought here and displayed on the wall as trophies.  Display of bodies is repugnant to Jews, even today, and the men of Jabesh-Gilead stole the bodies to give them proper burial.

Mt. Gilboa

We are driving now through the lower part of the Jezreel Valley, or Valley of Megiddo.

We are passing a kangaroo park.  The kangaroos were brought in from Australia, just as an entertainment attraction.

We are stopping at a kibbutz at the base of Mt. Gilboa where Jonathan and Saul died.  David cursed this mountain and nothing grows on this side.  A few years ago some of the rabbi's tried to lift the curse, but it didn't work.

On the Road South

This whole section, now that we have turned inland, looks like ordinary farmland.  It is hard to realize that just 30 years ago this was all desert; there was no cultivation here.  The water here in the desert comes from the national water carrier.  That is a large pipeline that is under the median of the road.  That is how they get water to the desert and other parts of the country.  They put it in the middle of the road to protect it from bombing and sabotage.

We are very close now to where we will turn to go to Arad and then the Dead Sea.  This will be Bedouin territory.  We have not seen any Bedouins yet, but we're told that as we move further inland we will see both camel Bedouins and Bedouins who have settled into farms.  The latter are looked down on by the camel Bedouins, because they are rooted to a single place.

There is a lot of joking at the expense of the three single fellows on the bus.  When a Bedouin girl reaches 12 years old, her father hangs a white flag over the tent or dwelling to indicate that she is available.  Purchase price may be about 7 camels.  We are all looking for white flags.  I wonder if I should give Ken and Marcia some white flags for Christmas?

We are now in the Negev, passing some Bedouin villages.  They are becoming more urbanized, living in buildings instead of tents.  Some still live in the traditional Bedouin style.  This area is green right now.  In a couple of months it will have turned brown, because it is desert.  As we go deeper into this area it becomes more and more brown.  There is still green here and there.  It looks much like the desert in southern Utah.  We are passing some Bedouins with sheep along the side of the road as they are watering them in a runoff ditch.  this is beginning to look now like the Navajo reservation.  There are no white flags.

We are skirting the West Bank.  Several helicopters and troops have been visible.  This area is well-patrolled and there seem to be maneuvers here all the time.

We are passing Arad, the city that the Israelites disobediently tried to conquer after God told them that they must remain in the desert for 40 years.  There's not much to see here now.

The road we are on is the southern border of the Roman empire.  It was set here to keep the "wild men' out.  The Bedouins were forced to live south of here.  Hadrian's wall in England was the northern border.

We have seen a lot of camels with young, but I'm not able to get pictures of them because the bus is traveling too fast.

We are only about 10 miles now from the Dead Sea.  Still no white flags.  The land is still arid all around.  It is cooling off.  It's been about 85°F or 90°F.  There is a breeze coming through here, and the weather is changing a little.  This is normally a very hot area.

We are passing through modern Arad.  It is a fairly good-sized industrial city.  There is a plywood plant here, using imported materials.

We were about 400 meters below sea level at Galilee.  We are going even lower now, and it is getting browner and browner.

We have just passed a couple of young boys riding donkeys.  We have seen women tending sheep and goats--separate flocks on the sides of these hills.  These hills now are very dune-like and tall.  They are very brown and barren.  It is hard to imagine what these animals eat.  There are caves all through here.  This may well be the way that Abraham would have gone when he parted from Lot and moved to Beer-Sheba.

The Dead Sea

We are near the south end of the Dead Sea, which is almost disconnected form the rest because of low water level.  This is being used to produce salt in ponds, just as it is done in the Great Salt Lake.  One method they use here to get salt and minerals out of the Dead Sea is blasting.   We are told to watch for geysers if we hear a boom.

The Hyatt Regency hotel here is the fanciest we have stayed in.  There is a large crowd.  People come here from all over the world, because of the mineral water, and so this is something of a resort.

After checking into our rooms, we all went for a swim.  The temperature is about 80°F.  The water is almost body temperature.  Very buoyant as expected, about 37% salt content.  All you can do is lay on your back.  Turning over is almost impossible.  I had to swim back to very shallow water and touch the sand with my hands in order to pull my feet back to the bottom.  Very pleasant, but the mineral concentration is so strong that it is important to rinse off immediately to keep too much from being absorbed by the skin.

The hotel room was hot and muggy for almost an hour, even though we opened the balcony doors and turned on the air conditioning.  Again we have a suite.  This time with a double balcony.

Dinner was a huge buffet.  The restaurant is ball-room sized.  The courses are laid out in five different parts of the room--one for each course.  There were about 2-300 people in the room when we were eating.

It is almost midnight, but I'm not sleepy tonight.  Probably because we spent most of the day on the bus.  Most nights we have all been exhausted, because we are able to squeeze in extra sites that weren't on the itinerary due to the small size of our group, and the small number of groups.  We have only seen 3 or 4 other tour groups all week.  Usually there are as many as 30.  I'm going to bed, anyway, as I plan to climb Masada tomorrow.