Pilgrims' Progress 4

I've been home here at Hebron for over a week and I don't want the memories to fade before I jot down our journey so I'll pick up our tale again at Petra....

Petra

This is a place where I've always wanted to visit and it didn't disappoint.  The whole site is quite spectacular and the history, both ancient and recent, is very interesting.  Our Bedouin guide did a marvellous job and organised a couple of horse carriages to take us down to the Treasury site.  The carriage ride is certainly not very glamorous and in some ways didn't allow you the opportunity to take in the extraordinary carvings in the rock face but it certainly helped in saving time walking in the heat.

Extraordinary to see the timelines represented by the tombs, temples and churches carved into the cliff face.  Being so hot it certainly dissipated the desire to walk for too many k's or scale the cliffs to investigate all of the structures but our guide spent the time going through the history and answering our questions in the comfort of a shady tent with a cold drink in hand.

I found it quite interesting to see how the Romans and then the advance of the church through the christianised Byzantine emperor, Constantine, is clearly seen in the region, including Petra.

Bedouin tents

 After our time at Petra our tour driver drove us down to Aqaba to drop us off at the border crossing.  Even though I enjoyed touring Jordan for a couple of days it felt wonderful to be back in Israel.  I can't recommend Eco Desert Tours highly enough for ensuring our short stay in Jordan was well facilitated and enjoyable.

Eilat

After a hot and tiring few days we were more than ready to have a day of rest.  Once again we were blessed to stay in a perfectly located Jewish run hotel.  As we were sitting in the dining room for tea we were wondering how far away the car rental place was and lo and behold, there is the sign outside the window.  Such a blessing.  

Eilat is on the shores of the Red Sea and at the very bottom tip of Israel.  It had been described by some people as the Las Vegas of Israel so it has a very touristy vibe.  After a rest day we packed up our chattels and headed to Timna Park.

Sail boats on the Red Sea - just for Neal

Timna Park

Timna is a state park which houses the life-size replica of the tabernacle.  I found the desert region quite beautiful, which also made viewing the tabernacle more realistic.

We discovered that the tabernacle is run by Christians so naturally the guided tour took on a very christianised flavour.

  However, it was well worth the visit and interesting to see the scale of the tabernacle complex, as well as appreciating the amount of work to erect, dismantle and carry the various items. 

Dead Sea Region

From here we headed north through the Judean desert to the Dead Sea.  I had booked accommodation in Arad, which is reasonably central to where we wanted to be.  We were doing the trip with a 3 star budget and online this hosted accommodation seemed quite adequate; unfortunately it didn't meet expectations but we made do.

Masada

Our mission here was to visit Masada and of course, take a dip in the Dead Sea.  We had also intended to travel up to the Qumran Caves but this would have made the day too long.

It was amazing to think that this area was once highly sought after by Lot for it's grazing land and water.  It's now desolate and dry.  

We really enjoyed visiting Masada and taking the time to walk through the various sites and buildings.  It has a fascinating history and of course the views out across the Dead Sea from the top are far-reaching.  Even though we were all obviously up for the hike to the top we decided for time sake to take the cable car up ....

I do love history and throughout this entire journey it's been quite surreal to think that the sites we were visiting, the land we was walking on, would have been the same sites and land that Yeshua and the disciples walked on, visited and knew about.

 Perhaps because our Australian history is relatively young since colonialism it's quite surreal visiting a land with such ancient sites.

Dead Sea 

Finding a spot to take the classic dip into the Dead Sea proved not as easy as it first may appear.  The main free beach, which was at the more attractive place, was closed due to sink holes appearing in the banks and the Ein Gedi access was owned by a resort.  So we headed down to Ein Bokek, which we were told was not such a nice beach area.  However, we found it okay for what we wanted because unlike the locals, we were not all that impressed with any of their beach areas, no matter how nicely they were advertised.  We truly are spoilt with the most beautiful country!

Floating in the Dead Sea was a cool experience and one I can tick off my bucket list.  

Tomorrow we head off to Tel Aviv; our final destination.  Dad is still wanting to duck up to Haifa to visit the Ba'hai gardens so we'll see if we can make that happen before we leave Israel.

While I was planning this trip over the last year one of the things I really wanted to do was have a few days in the Judean desert alone so I could spend some time in prayer and fasting.  But no matter how I tried to fit this time into the schedule it would not line up, mainly because of Shavuot.  Another thing I wanted to do was to stay at a kibbutz instead of a motel, which didn't happen either.  Obviously these things were not all that important in the grand scheme of things as our visit was rich and full.