Finally the third part of my post about Passover, sorry for my delay. We had a crazy 2 day trip to the north of Israel. Myself, my sister, Katie, and Prosnit in a tiny little rented Hundai Getz. We went to Akko first for the evening. It was a bizarre site because the city itself is mixed of Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs, but durring passover all of these Orthodox tourists come to the city. Its like a fish out of water staring at another fish out of water. Akko is one of the oldest ports in the world, and to this day is functioning, but mostly for small fishing vessels (as is the port in Yaffo). Walking through the Shuk we saw this unbelievable site below... One of the fishermen must have picked up a 4 foot manta ray by mistake (I love the little Orthodox boy staring at it.)
That night we hung out in Nahariya, this tiny little Ashkenazi beach community about 20 minutes south of the border with Lebanon. There were all of 3 bars in the city. That night we camped on the beach north of Nahariya, and the following morning went all the way up to the border, where they have these underground caves. Below is our little tent on the sand.
We were at the caves (called Rosh Hanikra) at 8:30am, when they opened, and by 9am we were on our way again across northern Galilee toward the Golan Heights, stopping by for a 4 hour hike up Mount Meron, the highest in the Galilee. From there we went to lunch to Tzfat, eating Kosher for Passover food at this not-so-decent cafe that had an amazing view. Below is the view from Mt. Meron looking down in to the valley. The view is toward the North West, and it was a very hazy day, but you can see the outlines of the mountains of the Golan in the far off distance.
From Tzfat we went on a crazy car trip up to the Golan, where the scenery is absolutely amazing. There was still snow on Mt. Hermon (the tallest in Israel, which sits on the border with Syria). The picture below is of the largest village in the Golan, called Madjal El Shams, which is a Druze village. The border of the village is the actual crossing to Syria.
We drove south down the Golan and stopped at another mountain that you can climb up, which had a lot of historical significance from the 1967 war when the Golan was Annexed, again the view was amazing, below is a photo of Prosnit. You can see the turrets of the mountain that were cut in by the Israeli army in 1967 to protect the region, and there is an underground bunker as well. Very interesting stuff.
We continued south and had dinner in the Israeli town of Katzrin, the largest town in the Golan. From there we continued to the hot springs of Hamat Gader, which is in the little corner where Israel, Jordan, and Syria meet. It was packed with people, and open till 11pm on the holiday. Too many people, in fact, it was very overwhelming.
There are plenty of photos to share, I will put them up in the coming days on the flickr site, but for now you can check out the photo below that Ofra took of me driving behind the massive military vehicle. (I had to pass a lot of them on the street).
