The Sea of Galilee among other things

It's a good thing they don't put a limit on fun on this cross-cultural! I've had a pretty fantastic last 5 days! Just to get it out of the way, here is where I've been: Caerasea, Mt Carmel, Megiddo, Ein Gev, Hazor, Dan, Caesarea Phillipi, Golan Heights, Hippos, Kursi, Gamla, Capernaum, Mt of Beatitudes, Cliffs of Arbel, Nazareth, Mt Gilboa, Bet Shean, Old Testament Jericho, New Testament Jericho, and Gethsemane. Woah! It seems like a whole lot of traveling, but actually all this places are pretty close together. Most of those sites we hit on our 4 day trip up to the region of the Sea of Galilee.

I have no idea what of that to explain. I have over 50 pages written from those sites, but there's no way I'm typing it all. I'll pick a top 3 and if you want to here about another place just say so in a comment. No guarantees, but I do have some more free time these next few day that I could write more.

#3 Cliffs of Arbel. These are on the west side of the Sea of Galilee and are sheer cliffs with caves in the middle. I don't have numbers on the height, but when Herod tried to capture that area his soldiers could neither climb down of the caves nor climb up to them. So the soldiers were let down in baskets over the side and killed anyone who didn't surrender. Some that didn't surrender chose suicide instead. That seems to be a sad theme for a lot of the battles at these sites.

The bus dropped us off at the top of the cliffs and we all climbed down. For a little while there are just stairs, but then there's a place where stairs are even impossible. In that section they have a bunch of climbing staples and cables on the side of the cliff face. It was a tad bit dangerous to be sure, but no one died. 3 of us challenged ourselves to do it without hands. Turns out that's possible!

Unfortunately, the caves were receiving some sort of repair work so we couldn't climb the stairs to the large caves where the resistors lived. Instead we could climb up to the smaller, but still impressively large caves. Caves and cliffs are a good combination!

#2 Dan. By defaut I think I have to like this place, but even without the name I would still like it. Most of the ancient sites we visited had one main problem: water. Apparently water is important to survival or something like that. So people went through huge amounts of effort to secure a lasting water source for every city. Dan did not have that problem. Dan Spring is the largest spring in the Middle East and the largest supplier of the Sea of Galilee! We've seen all sorts of trickles or puddles or creeks called springs, but this was a full blown river! The sound was amazing as we walked along it. Running water is not a familiar sound here. The river also allows for all sorts of animal and plant life that we had never seen before. It seemed life a rainforest by comparison. We found a turtle and some lizards and some gorgeous flowers! It was a great little hike!

There were 2 significant buildings at Dan that our guide pointed out. The first was an arched gateway from long before Rome or Greece had any influence on the region. So the thought that Europeans invented the arch apparently isn't true. The second building was the temple built by Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12. It's an impressive ruin but not one of good news for the ancient Israelites. That was the beginning of the end for the Northern kingdom.

#1 Hippos. A lot of people thought we were crazy and it was entirely conceivable that we were, but I wouldn't take it back for the world! At 4:30am after a full day of travel and before another one, 7 of us got up to climb the decapolis city of Hippos. Our goal was to make it to the top of this mountain from our resort on the Sea by sunrise. We had to hustle if we wanted to make it! Some of you know that my Dad's side of the family is notorious for walking really fast. Well, I was with 6 other people that must be able to claim even quicker ancestry! I struggled to keep up! We all made it up in time though!

The city was beautiful! I suppose anything will be beautiful after a blistering 90 minute climb at 4:30 in the morning. The ruined city was all made out of dark basalt rock and the central road stretched much longer than any other Roman road I had seen! There were columns every where and I can only hope that the rock came from the top of the mountain and not the bottom. We walked through a seemingly random tunnel and rested as the sun poked above the mountains. Then we climbed all the way back down to start the real day. Yeah, that was excellent! I've certainly skipped a lot of details.

Alright, it's late. I have an exam tomorrow and then the JUC portion of this cross-cultural will be finished! Next on the schedule is free travel and I'll be heading over to Istanbul! The plane leaves on Sunday, so I get one more full day in Jerusalem before I leave.

By the way, I'm listening to the soundtrack to Spirit as I type all this. Thanks, bro! All sorts of random songs have been in my head, usually involving a random phrase from a scripture passage we read. Or from a VeggieTales movie, that happens a lot too. I finished "Three" last week some time and now I'm reading "Shadow of the Hegemon," part of the "Ender's Game" collection. That's all for now.