October 19, 2013

Yet again, another awsome day of touring Israel with my dad and Debbie! The three of us got picked up early in the morning, to start of day. As soon as we finished breakfast at 9:30am, Ika (the tour guide0 was sitting in the lobby, waiting for us. We went upstairs, got our bags, and checked out of the hotel. Although today was a long say, there was a lot of driving. We drove out of Jerusalem and towards the north. We passed Arab villages, Israel and Jewish and Arab settlements, and Palestinian villages. Basically during the whole drive, we were following the Jordan river and driving on the actual border of Jordan and Israel.

Our first stop of the day was an old fortress called Balfour. From up there, you could see a beautiful view of the Jordan valley and Jordan and a little bit of the sea of Galilee and a little bit of Lebanon, over in the mountains. This fortress was an old castle that was built on top of a mountain. After this, we made our way up to the Golan Heights. The geography of the Golan Heights was actually really interesting. Once you get up to the Golan Heights, which is either right at sea level or a little below, the landscape is completely flat; you feel like you are on the flat ground. Anyway, from the Golan Heights, you can see beautiful views of the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan river snaking through the valleys, Jordan across the way, parts of Syria, and parts of Lebanon off in the distance. It was really pretty. One of the places that we stopped at in the Golan Heights was Gamal. It was a lookout of the canyon, on the border of Jordan and Israel and Syria. You could also see the tip of the Sea of Galilee from there. Right in the canyon, there was an old Syrian village that was built on the side of a small mountain. This little village was called Gamal. At this viewing point, there was a vulture lookout. Apparently the most amount of vultures in Israel live in this canyon. Although they are scavengers and eat dead bodies  and animals, they are very pretty birds and glide through the sky.

By the time we left the Gamal, it was about 5pm and we were all exhausted. We made our way to our new hotel, right next to the En Gev kibbutz, right across the lake from Tiberias, and right above the Sea of Galilee. On our way there, we had to drive down the mountains and we stopped at another beautiful lookout of the the Syria and Israel border, right near mount Heron. It was amazing how cold and windy it was outside, being up in the mountains, at sunset. Once we checked into our hotel, we went to our cabin and relaxed a bit, before dinner on a kibbutz. Today was another great say in the Holyland!