Jerusalem & Bethlehem

During our first evening in Jerusalem, we had just enough time to stop in the old city for a drink before evening shut down for the night.

Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall)

In the morning we got a little lost on our search for the dome of the rock. By the time we arrived and found the line, it was to late to get in. The hours for non-Muslims are limited so we abandoned that plan and visited the Western Wall, and then, surprise surprise, got lost on our way to the Holy Church of the Sepulchre.  The last four stations of the cross are in the Church, including the marble slab where Jesus was washed before burial (we narrowed it down to one of two slabs within the Church but without labels or pictures on the lonely planet we're not 100% which one it was). Starting at the end, we decided to walk Via Dolorosa to see the remaining stations of the cross at which point we were a bit surprised how short of a walk Jesus made. End to end it can be done in about 10 minutes. Makes you wonder just how heavy that cross was.

Our next stop was a tour of the Tunnels of the West Wall. This is an underground tour of nearly the full

Holy Church of the Sepulchre

length of the wall as well as a history lesson of the Temple Mount. Some of the stones that make up the wall are said to weigh over 500 tons which makes you wonder just how they were stacked one on top of another in times predating cranes and other heavy lifting equipment of modern times.

By the time we finished the tour we realized that we were starving and speed at what appeared to be a popular tour group lunch spot. Fortunately the food was worth the wait and came it very quickly one seated.

After lunch we headed to the Tower of David  and Citidel museum which provided a great overview of the history of Jerusalem. The short version is as follows: the Jews built a city but lost it to the Romans who lost it to the Byzantines who lost it to the Muslims who lost it to the Crusaders who lost it to the Ottomans who lost it to the British who gave it the the UN who returned it to Israel who lost it to Jordan who lost it to Israel. I think the Greeks, Egyptians and some other warring civilizations of the past were involved as well but I think you get the picture... everyone has, does, or wants to lay claim to Jerusalem.

After the museum, Colleen and I decided to create a new tradition and recommend everyone try it on their next trip. We call it "apres tour". Think of it as a liquid reward for a long day spent touring. I'm already looking forward to our next one.

Dome of the Rock

For the last day of pilgrimage, we made a second, and this time successful, attempt to see the Dome of the Rock. We spent nearly two hours in line in order to enter the Temple Mount on which the Dome of the Rock was built. While the wait was long, it was with it to see the Dome and surrounding ground up close. After snapping a few photos it was time to hop a bus to Bethlehem in the West Bank.

Church of Nativity

The "Oh Little Town..." was not so little after all. Buildings and homes fill every hill in every direction from where the bus let us off. I don't know why I'm constantly surprised by the lack of signage to tourist destinations and as a result all the tourists departing the bus kept asking each other where to go. Eventually Google maps came to our rescue and navigated us to the Church of the Nativity. It was hard to concentrate on the route because of all the wonderful aromas from the street food stands. After touring the Church of Nativity and neighboring churches we found a food stand for lunch. I don't know exactly what I ate, but it was delicious combination of kebab, grilled onion, tomato, jalapeno, potato and spices served in a fresh pita. My only regret is that I ate too much of it to be able to enjoy any of the other delicacies along the way back to the bus.

After returning to Jerusalem we decided to hit one last spot on our brief pilgrimage, the Mount of Olives. Now we have officially seen Jesus's birthplace, childhood town, the spot he walked on water and the place where he died and the spot where he ascended to heaven. It feels like a fitting end to our pilgrimage.

From the Sea to the Holy Land

We landed at the Tel Aviv airport at 3:30 AM on December 27^th and figured that by the time we made it through customs and immigration and got our rental car it wouldn’t be worth it to get a hotel.  So we immediately headed North to Haifa, using both Waze and Google maps to find our way.  At the start of the drive we were so thankful to have these tools to help us find our way.  But soon, we realized that while they were helpful, navigating roads that did not use a grid system, lacked street signs and when they existed were sometimes written in Hebrew, sometimes Arabic and occasionally English was more difficult than expected.  Especially since the English street names were rarely spelled the same way in the guide book, Google or the hotel website.  Depending on which one you looked at we were looking for Herzl, Hertzl, Hertzel, or Hertsel Street.   And when we arrived at our destination, according to Waze, we arrived on a residential street, several miles from the hotel. 

After checking in to our hotel and grabbing a little something to eat, it was time to start exploring.  We started by heading further north to the walled city of Akko that seems to jut out into the Mediterranean in a way that it is surrounded by water on three sides.  We walked along the coastal wall for a while before entering in to old town to check out some sites.  First stop was the Templar tunnel that was discovered only about 20 years ago when a nearby resident’s toilet backed up.  That unfortunate plumbing incident resulted in lots of tourist dollars for this small town.  After the tunnel we found ourselves lost wandering the streets in search of the citadel.  There were occasional signs marking the path but many intersections that required us to make a turn lacked the friendly brown tourist sign and we inadvertently chose wrong.  But our determination finally led the way.  The citadel looks like it is going to be a great tourist spot in about six months.  For us, there was not much to see but construction and signs indicating new attractions opening in the Spring 2014. 

After leaving Akko, we continued north to the town if Rosh Hanikra on the border of Lebanon. In Rosh Hanikra we took a cable car down a cliff to visit the caves created from the waves of the Mediterranean crashing against the cliffs. You can also see the railroad tunnel built by the British but never opened after Israel took control of the land in the 40's. After a late lunch we headed back to Haifa where we hit the worst traffic either Colleen and I had ever seen.

In Haifa, we headed to the German Colony for a drink before doing at the falafel shop described by one patron on Trip Advisor as the best in the world. It was definitely delicious but I'll be to try a few more before I weigh in.

On our second day, we decided to start our pilgrimage to some of the holy sights of Israel with our first stop in Nazareth. Nazareth is not the small village that one would expect but rather the largest Arab city in Israel. This turned out to be good for us since it was the Shabbat. After visiting the Church of the Annunciation we followed the Jesus trail to the Church of Jesus the Adolescent at which point I decided that Jesus must have had quads of steel under his robes climbing up and down the steps in Nazareth during his youth.

After Nazareth we made a quick stop at the Sea of Galilee. The spot where Jesus walked on water has been turned into a boardwalk complete with a McDonald's and tacky tourist spots. Needles to say, we didn't stay long and instead headed to the car to drive to Jerusalem.

Post Vacation Recovery Vacation

After 5 days on safari we were finally headed for the vacation part of our vacation.  We boarded a 12-seat Cessna 802 for our flight to Zanzibar.  I was a little nervous flying in a plane where the cockpit was just a few rows in front of me and fully visible and the seatbelts were less advanced than the ones in my car, but once we took off and the plane cooled down a bit all was fine.

Colleen had emailed our hotel as well as two tour companies to find out about arranging transportation from the airport to our hotel on the east side of the island.  After some negotiations, she narrowed it down to one of the tour companies.  Although she notified the hotel that she made other arrangements and never heard from the other company, this did not stop either from sending cars.  There were three drivers holding up signs with Colleen’s name and the name of our hotel. Fortunately one of them was wearing a polo shirt with the tour company’s logo so we went with him.  Once he handed each of us an ice cold bottle of water, we were certain we made the right choice.

The ride to the hotel was surprisingly smooth.  We were all so used to the bumps and dust of the safari vehicle, we found the air-conditioned, smooth ride a wonderful treat.  Especially given the extreme temperature and humidity of Zanzibar.  After an hour or so, we arrived at the hotel and took a seat at the beach-front, pool-side bar for our complementary juice while they checked us in.  We were thrilled to find a cool breeze coming off the ocean and even happier to learn that the rooms were air-conditioned.

  

We spent the rest of the day at the bar enjoying the view, breeze and books.  A well-deserved treat after the dusty, rainy safari.  In fact, we staked out the same spot for most of the following day as well.  We did take the time to test out the bath-water-like Indian Ocean and take a stroll down the beach.  It didn’t take long for us to return to our little oasis at the bar.

For dinner we headed to The Rock.  We were expecting Sean Connery to greet us upon arrival but he apparently escaped again.  The Rock is a restaurant a little north of our hotel in a little house on a rock in the ocean.  We could walk out due to the low tide, but apparently during high tide you have the option to take a boat. After the sun goes down, the only lights are the candles at each table which made for amazing star gazing. 

For our last full day in Africa, we headed west to Stonestown with a short stop at a spice plantation.  Similar to my spice tour in Goa, we began to melt as soon as we stepped out of the car.  In addition to our tour guide, we had a plantation worker escort us on the tour. When he wasn’t climbing trees to access some leaves or flowers for us to smell he was weaving the fronds of a coconut tree.  By the end of the tour, he made Colleen, Holly and I necklaces, bracelets, crowns and purses and for Dan a tie and top hat.  And just for me, a ring.

From the spice plantation, the driver took us to our hotel in Stonestown.  I quickly realized how much time I spent sitting in cars during the last two weeks when my quads yelped at me walking up the stairs to our room.  After cleaning up briefly, we headed in to town.  It didn’t take long to realize that Stonestown was not charming enough to warrant the unbelievable heat and humidity.  I think I lost five pounds in water weight just trying to find a place to eat.  After lunch, we walked past the fort where the slave trade took place and stopped in a couple shops (one, fortunately, with A/C) before we decided that we needed ice cream or we might pass out.  We looked at the map and quickly discovered that most of the streets are actually allies that are neither named on the map or on the street.  But that didn’t stop us from finding what we were looking for.  A couple of scoops later and we were almost human again… sticky, but human.

During our ice cream break, we decided that for our last morning, rather than melting on the street again, we would all go to the spa for a traditional Zanzibari scrub and massage.  Something to look forward to for tomorrow before the 30+ hour trip home.  

In the Bush

Our safari and Tanzania started in Lake Manyara in search of the famous tree-climbing lions.  Shortly after entering the park we found ourselves surrounded by baboons.  At the start of any safari, which I learned from my time in South Africa, all new animals are exciting and you feel like you could watch them for hours.  However, by the fourth or fifth time you see them, you barely give them a glance.  But this was day one, and we were ready for anything.  After about 30 minutes of watching the baboons playing, fighting, eating and grooming, we move on and spent a similar amount of time with the elephants.  And then again with the zebra, giraffe, monkey etc.  But, like I said, we were really hoping to find the lions. A couple hours into the excursion, we saw a number of safari trucks lined up, which is usually a sign of something good.  We were told it was, in fact, a lion in a tree.  However, even with the binoculars I had inadvertently stolen from my parents, I couldn’t tell.  To me it looked like part of the tree was a slightly lighter color of brown than another part.   Shortly after searching and failing to really  see anything, it was time to leave the park and make for camp.

I was actually a bit nervous about this because the town where we were setting up camp was called Mto wa Mbu which translates to River of Mosquitos.  While the 98 percent Deet bug spray I was using was capable of destroying my pedicure and melting Holly’s shoes, it was largely successful in keeping the mosquitos at bay.

The next morning, we headed along a rather bouncy and winding road through the Ngorongoro conservation area to the Serengeti.  Along this road we saw a number of Masai villages and many Masai people herding cattle.  Next to the cattle were thousands of wildebeest and hundreds of zebra.  At one point we had to stop for a while and wait for about a thousand wildebeest to cross the road.  Watching this was spectacular and made you wonder what it must be like during the great wildebeest migration in the Serengeti when there are tens of thousands of wildebeest running in search of water. 

Shortly after entering the park, we came across a leopard napping in a tree conveniently located near the road.  (I really came to appreciate the animals that recognized how much we appreciated road-side posing).  The leopard more than made up for missing out on the tree-climbing lions of Lake Manyara.  It looked so content just lying there, tail swinging in the wind, eyes closed with just the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth.  Shortly after, we came across a pride of lions.  They were a bit hard to see in the tall grass but one of them was nice enough to lay on her back, foot straight up in the air as if holding up a flag to let us know where to look.  But all the lions were, like the leopard, comfortably dreaming and not interested in putting on a show for us.

We spent much of the next two days on game drives.  By this point, we barely gave elephants, giraffes, zebra, baboons or antelope a second glance.  We had seen so many by this point that they really needed to work for it if they wanted us to stop.  And one baboon was indeed determined to put on a show.  We all regret that no one thought to video the baby baboon learning to climb and balance on a tree limb. He was up, he was down, he was hanging on to his brother’s tail, he was back up and then his brother stepped on the tree limb and both the limb and the baby went down.  But even this didn’t stop the determined baboon.

By contrast we could spend hours watching large cats doing nothing.  We came across a rather large pride of lions sunning themselves and spent 30 minutes watching their heads popping up and then lying back down.  Eventually all of the lions rose up, one at a time, walked about 50 feet to the left and then laid back down again in the shade.  We found another leopard that was a little more active.  We followed it (along with 30 or so other trucks jockeying for the best position) about 300 yards as it slowly worked it’s way through the grass.  At one point, it did manage to nab itself a rabbit but was clearly looking for something with a little more meat on it’s bones.  She finally diverted from the roadside and moved out of view to continue her hunt.  The cheetahs put on the best show.  We came across four that had spread themselves out in a perfect line such as a search party might.  They were clearly on the prowl for something good but the nearby impalas and wildebeest were on to them and moved safely out of the way.  But we enjoyed watching them work together to identify lunch even though it did not work out as planned.

The last day of our safari took place in the Ngorongoro crater.  I liked Colleen’s description, “it looks like an illustration from a fairy tale”.  Inside the crater was amazing, large green fields with a clear lake in the middle and a forest off to the side.  Here was where all the animals came together to play.  Elephants, zebras, wildebeest, buffalo, dik diks, gazelle, and a large variety of birds were all hanging out on the same fields of green.  As Dan said, it’s just like Dolores Park on a sunny day in San Francisco.  Here we finally saw the last of the big five, the rhino (others being elephant, lion, leopard, and buffalo).  Unlike some animals, the rhino were a bit shy and only visible via binoculars and cameras.  From the naked eye, they looked more like slow moving boulders. 

I think one of our biggest revelations is that, in nature, women do all the work (I’m not sure why we were surprised).  Men fight amongst themselves to be able to mate with the women but that’s about it.  Women do most of the hunting at which point the dominant male comes back to claim first dibs on the food.  Holly kept imagining the large male lions wearing white wife-beater t-shirts.  Headshots at the post office with all the rest of the dead-beat-dads.  I think this actually reduced her excitement when we finally came across a full-grown male lion.  But it wouldn’t just be lions in the wife-beaters. The same would be true for the majority of the male animals we saw.  That being said, this was my third safari, and I hope not my last.  I highly recommend that everyone, if given the opportunity go to Africa and go on a safari.  It is worth the long flights and the price for those few moments when you are face to face with a lion.

Penetrating the Imprentable

We arrived in Uganda to little fanfare.  It took us over an hour to get through customs and immigration and then another hour to get to the hotel. By the time we arrived, we both were hungry and in need of a shower.  After showering, Colleen and I met Holly and Dan in the lobby for a late lunch.  Soon thereafter, Colleen decided to nap but I was trying to stay awake until bedtime so I ordered a coffee and pulled out my book.  After an hour of shift position and trying to keep my eyes opem, I gave in and headed up to the room for a power nap before dinner.

Our next day consisted of 10+ hours in a Land Rover driving across Uganda to Kisoro.  To be honest, I spent most of the time sleeping but while awake I couldn’t help to notice the beauty.  I was surprised by how lush and green the country was.  This was striking, even when departing the airport, but more so the further away we travelled from the city.  Just after arriving at the Travellers Rest House (second home to Dian Fossey while she was living with the Gorillas) the rain began.  Not just a sprinkling but an outright downpour.  I wasn’t sure how this would impact our trek.

Gorilla day was finally upon us.  We woke up early so we could eat breakfast and be on the road by 6:00 AM for the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, home to 300+ mountain gorillas.  Although the drive was a mere 2 hours, the winding roads and rough conditions made it seem just as long as the previous day.  Shortly after arriving at the park we were greeted by our guide, Hobart, and guard, John and headed off into the jungle. 

Both Hobart and John were extremely friendly but being led by a man dressed in camouflage, rubber boots and a machete and being followed by another dressed the same and carrying an AK-47 kept me imagining how quickly this could turn from a tour to see the gorillas to something much worse.  It reminded me so much of the book that I read while travelling in Colombia about the presidential candidate being kidnapped by the FARC and required to trek all over the jungles. 

We had been hiking for a little over an hour when Hobart received word from the two gorilla trackers that had left much earlier in search of our gorilla family that we were close.  In fact, we just need to climb the hill to our right and we would be there.  Hobart asked us to wait a moment while he went in search of the best route but quickly returned with the news that we need to climb straight up.  Just to help you visualize, we had been walking a well-worn path up to the point with a practically wall of vegetation to our right.  Now we find out that we need to climb the 60 to 70 percent grade straight up to get to the gorillas.  We quickly learned what the machete was for as Hobart led the way.  For the next half hour or so, we climbed; walking stick in one hand, hand full of vegetation in the other as we worked our way up the hill.  The only things I could think of on the climb was 1) I needed some sugar to combat my rapidly falling blood sugar (thank you Santa Claus for the Tabasco Chocolate in my Christmas stocking) and 2) how would we ever get down? 

Once we reached the top we were greeted by two more men in camouflage pointing up into the trees were a handful of mountain gorillas were hanging out.  It was hard to make out any features, they were just large black blobs, but it didn’t matter at that point, they were the coolest black blobs I’d ever seen.  Quickly the climb was forgotten, cameras were retrieved and our hour with the gorillas had begun.  A few minutes after arriving, the gorillas were on the move heading to lunch.  As they swung tree-to-tree 20 feet above us, we quickly tried to keep up on the ground.  Fortunately, one female decided to head to the ground for her picnic lunch and we were able to really get some close ups.  The silverback (leader of the pack) made his way down to a lower branch to pose for pictures.  But as soon as our allotted hour was up, the silverback climbed out of the tree and exited stage left. 

Fortunately, the climb back down to the main path was easier (not easy) than expected.  The gorillas were nice enough to lead us to an area where the grade was closer to 45 degrees for the decent.  Once back on the main path, the route back to the trailhead was easy and fast.  About 5 minutes shy of the start, and a much needed lunch break, the rain began to fall.  Light at first but right after we made it to the covered enclosure, it really started to come down.  We felt very lucky that we were not still out in the jungle at this point tracking the gorillas like all of the other groups (about 30 people) that started at the same time as us but were assigned to other gorilla families.  Even after a leisurely lunch, none of the other groups returned.  Finally, we took the rainy path back to our Land Rover for the treacherous road back to the Rest House for a much need shower and, for me, a nap.

Although it was New Years Eve, we learned that we were once again to have an early morning departure to Entembe and after the work we all had put in, decided to head to bed prior to ringing in the New Year.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, the people of Kisora let us know when the time hit by driving the streets and honking horns, playing loud music.  Even the local dogs got into the spirit by barking out “Happy New Year” for an hour or so.  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much, but who needs rest for a 10-hour drive. 

Next up… Safari in Tanzania.