Day 5 - Around the Sea of Galilee and Looking into Syria

(Randy) We ate breakfast at the House of Prayer and had short devotions. We went to the “Big," a small mall in Tiberius, to get medical supplies and  cash from the ATM.  We were on the road in 20 minutes. Unfortunately we promptly ran into traffic and road blocks because today was the holiday of Purim and everyone was out of school and many were off work.       There were families and children with costumes heading to the main street for a parade.  Since we couldn’t head North as planned, we headed South and    looped around the east side of the Sea of Galilee and on northward into     the Golan Heights.

The first stop was an overlook with a view of the valley where the border   to Syria is located. There was a small UN camp (white buildings)  near the  border. I doubt they would be able to stop anything if it got started.

[(Charlene) Actually the UN officials deserted the buildings and ran into       Israel a couple months ago when they were threatened by ISIS in Syria.]

From there we went on to the Banias Springs. The town of Banias was also called Caesarea Philippi during the time of Jesus. This was a properous city during that time based on the number of idol temples that we saw. These  springs are one of the three major sources of water for the Jordan River.

About half of all the water for the Jordan River comes from the springs at Tel Dan. This National Park is a small archaeological site  surrounded by a larger wildlife refuge with nature trails. We enjoyed hiking around the site and viewing the Israelite Gate to the city and the large walls. The city was large but much of it has not been excavated. Other things of interest were the Canaanite Gate and the High Place where one of the two idolatrous golden calves was worshipped.

Mark and I walked the trail up into "Paradise" or the "Garden of Eden." We did not see the twelve fruit trees but had already determined to not eat     any of the fruit if we did find them.

On our way back south we stopped at a burger place that had internet so Mark could Skype with his girls who were just on their way to school. And Charles made a free call to Charlene on “Magic Jack.”

Then Mark and I spent about 20 minutes in the new dig at the village of    Magdala.  This is a new site that was started in 2010 which is well done.     They will continue to have more finds but already have uncovered a first    century church, marketplace, purification baths (Mikvah), and houses. This will develop nicely into a site worth making a return visit.

(Charlene - Sorry about the crazy formatting. They are using Word docx to write and it won't format correctly in the blog no matter how many times I try to edit it.)