Day 5 in pictures.

I was sad to say goodbye to Jerusalem. Hopefully I can come back some time; it’s such a great city.

Today, everything moved at a slower pace. We were out of the crazy traffic of Jerusalem, and the schedule was not quite as tight. Most of the sites today were ancient cities in southern Israel. Some of these actually had remains that we got to see, but for many, we just stopped in a field in the area and someone would give their site presentation.

The first site was Beth Shemesh. This is where the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Israel by the Philistines. It was an important control point in ancient times. Because of the layout of the valleys in the area, it is one of the few easy access points from the sea into the Jerusalem area. We didn’t have any ruins to look at for this one, just a nice landscape.

Up next was Gath, the home of Goliath. This is also the city that the Ark started out from on its journey to Beth Shemesh after the Philistines realized that the plagues and tumors they were suffering came from The Lord. We could see some ruins at the top of a hill, but didn’t have time to go up. The field we stopped at was beside an orchard of some sort, and I could see a road leading off into the distance from where we were standing. The weather was beautiful and I really wanted to just take the rest of the day off and go walking around enjoying the surroundings. But, we had other things to do.

Lachish was the next site. It was one of the cities defeated by Joshua the day the sun stood still. It was also the same city that we saw a mosaic depicting its destruction at the Israel Museum earlier. It was one of the last cities to remain standing during the conquest of Babylon. The siege ramp can still be clearly seen. Interestingly enough, according to the sign outside the area, creation of the park was sponsored by Intel.

For lunch we had what is called a Shawarma. It is one of the most amazing things ever created by man. To start with, the meat (turkey with some lamb fat) is slowly cooked by packing it into a large, vertical cylinder shape and spinning the whole thing over heating elements. It was mesmerizing; I could have watched it spin for hours, dripping with meat juice, mmmmm. Then, they shave off portions of the meat and stuff it into pita bread with some sauce. If you’re ever in Israel, you must try one.

We finally got to walk around some ruins for the next site, which was Tel-Beersheva. This town was where Abraham moved after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra and was traditionally the lower limit of Israel. The waterworks made by these ancient people were particularly impressive. The well just outside the city gates is over 200 feet deep and dates all the way back to the Iron Age. They also built a large cistern system for collecting flood overflow during the rainy season. We descended down a long stairway that was almost entirely of the original stone used to build it and went through some of the caverns that would have held massive amounts of water for the city.

Arad was our final ancient city of the day. Like Gath, it was an ancient Canaanite city. Arad is the city that captured some of the Israelites while they were wandering in the desert. However, God destroyed them and the city never completely recovered. One thing that would have been really neat to see if we could have gone up to the ruins was the remains of a temple from Solomon’s time. This temple apparently had two altars in its Holy of Holies. One large on for God and another smaller one for a Canaanite God, demonstrating Israel’s continuous struggle with maintaining true monotheism.

Our stop for the night was in a Bedouin camp. Well, it’s not actually a Bedouin camp; it’s a tourist trap dressed up like a Bedouin camp. Despite some aspects of it being obviously fake (did the traditional Bedouin’s really have permanent bathroom facilities, electric lights, and cars?), the camp was still fun. We started off with a camel ride. I’m sure the people that led the camels for us think us American tourists are crazy for making such a big deal out of a camel ride, but it was a very unique experience. I can see how it would be convenient to have something like that to ride through the wilderness, but I never was able to get quite comfortable. It was still fun, though!

The camel ride was followed by a tea and coffee ceremony. The tea was sweet tea. Oh well, at least it wasn’t as sweet as most of the stuff in Texas was. This was followed by an awesome dinner. They had meat shiskabobs (still not sure what kind of meat exactly, but it sure did taste good), with a tortilla-like bread to wrap the meat in, dipping sauce, little pizza things, cucumbers, more sweet tea, a desert pastry, and more. If the quality of the food wasn’t enough, the quantity was also very impressive. They kept bringing more and more meat, even after we said we were done. Yum.

After dinner, Caleb and I went hiking in the desert wilderness. We didn’t go very far because I needed to get back and write these journals, but it was still great. There was a full moon, so we didn’t need any flashlights. The impressive thing about the wilderness area around there is how empty it truly is. I don’t think I saw a single plant the entire time we were hiking. It’s just endless mountains covered with rocks. Nothing else. It must have been crazy for people of ancient times to travel across something like this. We were able to get over a ridge where we couldn’t see any unnatural light. It was nice to get away from civilization, at least for a little while. Unfortunately, the full moon meant the stars couldn’t been seen too clearly.

I give my site presentation over En-gedi tomorrow. I should probably figure out what I’ll be saying.

Day 5 in pictures.