That Time We Swam in the Jordan River

We awoke after a comfortable sleep, and headed down the hill to get some breakfast provided by the hostel. It was a surprisingly nice spread, and I even took some vanilla pudding for the road.

We had several long drives during the day, and generally only Humberto, Mustafa, and I remained awake. I took the opportunity to view the changing scenery and reflect on my time here in the region, thinking about the conflict and about how different life in the US is. Several of my students gave me a brief history of Israel on Thursday, which wasn't fully digested until these long car rides.

One of the many cool things about this region is the availability of fresh squeezed fruit juice. Fruit stands dot the streets, and fruit juice in restaurants is also fresh squeezed. One of the fruit stands in Nazareth offered a wide range of fruit options.

Nazareth is an important city in the Christian faith. It is where Joseph and Mary are from, where an angel announced to Mary that she would be carrying the son of God, and also where Jesus grew up. We visited the Basilica of Annunctiation, which is a Roman Catholic church built in 1969 by Giovanni Muzio. The church is the largest church in the Middle East and stands on the site where Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce her pregnancy. The church contained mosaics of Mother Mary from all over the world, but my camera seemed to be more captivated by the stained glassed windows.

As well as a house behind the church.

After visiting the Basilica of Annunciation, we continued to head East towards the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is fed by the Jordan River and serves as the main source of Israel's water supply. It's name is actually a misnomer: it is not really a sea, but a freshwater lake. In fact, it's actually Lake Kinneret in Hebrew. Like the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee is below sea level, 209 meters in fact.

Here's an interesting quote from the Lonely Planet guide book:

The blue eye of this corner of our country... Lake Kinneret is no ordinary landscape or even a corner of nature. It is the site of a people's destiny. Here, our past winks its thousand eyes and rocks us in its thousand lips.
-Rahel, On the Shores of Lake Kinneret.

We stopped first to get some food at "Fish Restaurant Kfar Nahum" which was overpriced and not very good. But c'est la vie. It was all-you-can-eat, so we took advantage to prepare for our hike.

Then, we went down to put our feet in the sea.

After lunch, we headed down to the wet hike. En route, I took a picture of the hills surrounding the Sea of Galilee. In the autumn, winter, and spring, these hills are probably lush and green. However, in the summer, many areas that aren't irrigated turn golden.

We went to the Bet Zayda Nature Reserve to the Daliyot Lagoon, which is the delta of the Daliyot Stream. (According to the sign, this is called the Majrasa, but I couldn't find any more information about this name.)

The signs (and Abeer!) warned us that we might get a little wet during the hike. However, we weren't really prepared for HOW wet!

And, my favorite picture of the wet hike....

Afterwards, we took some time to dry off

Then we convinced our tour guide to take us to swim in the Jordan River. The Jordan River is one of the most sacred rivers in the world. Among many other important events, it was the site of Jesus's baptism. The actual baptism took place in Jordan in Bethabara; however, there is a representative baptismal site in Israel. We went to this site, and instead of going to the actual site, we went around back.

There was a sign which said "Swimming is Prohibited". And in the river, there were a bunch of people swimming. So, we did the only logical thing... we joined them! A handful of us jumped into the Jordan River in our clothes and joined the locals. We swam around, and then decided to try out the awesome rope swing. I obviously didn't take any pictures of any of this because it was so much fun, but Jon stayed on the shore:

Hanging out in this river was one of my favorite trip moments in MEET thusfar. And being a little bit wet on the way home was totally worth the hour we spent in and around the river.

After returning to the cars, we went to the closest gas station to change into dry clothes. The gas station had a restaurant with a free observation tower, so we climbed up the 80ish steps to get a great view of the sea.

Also, I'd like to say a big hello to Kim's family members!! She says that many of you have been reading my blog in addition to hers. So here is a picture of Kim just for you! Yay roommates!

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