Dead Sea and Jerusalem

Floating in the Dead Sea has to be one of the funniest experiences ever, particularly the first time  you take your feet off the bottom and they pop up to the surface.  And then trying to figure out how to get your feet back ON the bottom once you've rolled over...  Painting yourself with black theraputic mud only adds to  the hilarity of it all.  Next stop was a couple  of days in Jerusalem, where we stayed in a convent in the old city (and missed the rocket  from Gaza that landed in Ashkelon).  What an amazing place to learn about religion and history.  Kids' favorite was the tour the Western Wall from the tunnels below the Muslim quarter, while I particularly liked the Israel Museum.  And it's been wonderful to have company on our excursions, first from friends who joined us on the sail from Turkey, and then some of the other liveaboards in the marina, especially the wonderful Israeli family with four kids!



Road sign near a Bedouin village



Late afternoon float in the Dead Sea

Old City in Jerusalem,

Western Wall and Dome of the Rock





The Western Wall:  seemed a bit sacrilegious to wear

a kippa if you're not Jewish, but head coverings were

mandatory (and complimentary).  Here are John and

Hugo trying to blend in, while Maggie and I went to the 

much smaller women's section, where women stood

on chairs to peer over the fence to the men's side



Jerusalem's Old City at night from the convent roof

Boat jungle gym

arrived in Ashkelon Israel

Seventy-two hours and about 500 nautical miles....first day a bit bumpy, second day great sailing, third day mostly motoring.  We'd e-mailed all our passport info ahead of time, then called it in to the Israeli Navy at 40 miles out, had an Israeli Navy escort at 20 miles and gave them the same info, then were met on the dock by 7 security people.  We were separated for questioning, every hold and space on the boat opened and inspected (Hugo's black saxophone case seemed to cause momentary alarm until they had John open it), swabs taken on various surfaces, and then we were free to go to immigration, customs and marina check-in. 

So here we are in Ashkelon, about 6 miles above the Gaza Strip.  First time we've been a country where our guide book includes a section on "What to do in a Rocket Attack," but this looks like a good homebase for exploring the Dead Sea and Jerusaleum!

Israeli Navy escort off the coast

heading to Israel

After a relaxing three months in Marmaris Turkey, we're getting ready to start moving again.  Not the best weather yet, but all we need is a three or four day weather window to make it to Israel.  We're all set to go...last engine maintenance finished, meals ready to go in the freezer in case weather is not conducive to cooking, cat has a fresh round of rabies shots and paperwork, friends arrive tomorrow to join us, and if the weather cooperates, we'll clear out of immigration/customs and set sail in the next few days.  We'll always have great memories of our time here: fascinating side trips around Egypt and to Turkey, good chance to learn new hobbies and do boat work, but mostly it's been about meeting wonderful people from around the world.  Next post will be from Israel, or somewhere on the way there, depending on weather...

The kids will miss their friends

The kids' favorite staff at the

workers' canteen

 

Recorder performance



 


Field trip to a turtle rescue center with Slovenian friends

 



Creating things from "treasures of the bilge"





 

 

 

 



Red Sea diving

Happy Birthday, Hugo!  What a lucky kid, for his 12th birthday, he earned his PADI Junior Open Water Diver certification and discovered the incredible underwater world of crocodile fish, pajamas slugs and sea cucumbers.  Another day and then back to Turkey, the boat and cat.  We opted to skip the trip to the burning bush/Mount Sinai for a variety of safety-related reasons and watched Cecil DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" instead.  :)

   

 

Egypt - Giza, Western Desert and Luxor

Egypt makes your head spin, as every day you see both the ancient and modern life side by side.  One day, we’re leaning over our hotel balcony to watch a protest in Tahrir Square over the people who died in the 2012 Port Said stadium riot, as the mighty Nile, the lifeblood of early human civilization, flows past just beyond.  The next day, we’re wandering around 4,000 year old pyramids, with the incessant accompaniment of  countless touts trying to make poverty wages by selling camel rides to the few tourists who haven’t been scared away by the revolution, and, in Maggie’s case, patiently humoring the Muslim women who apparently love photographing themselves with little blond-haired girls.  

Then we went into the vortex of the Western Desert with a Bedouin driver and back 20 million years to a time when prehistoric shellfish, sharks and whale-like creatures swam overhead, leaving their fossils for us to find.  Then, whisk back into the present with the police escort that briefly followed us to keep us safe (a honor preserved apparently for travelers from America, Israel and Denmark?). We stopped occasionally in the oases along the way to clean off in the water being pumped from the massive aquifer under the desert to irrigate new fields.  Everywhere from Cairo through the desert to Luxor, we saw gas stations either closed, or with long lines of trucks and minibuses lined up waiting overnight for the next fuel delivery.  Makes the ubiquitous donkey seem awfully dependable.

For me, my favorite scene of the old and new Egypt will always be the man on a donkey cart, pulling a load of hand-cut Egyptian clover for fodder, talking on his cell phone.  For the kids, they’ve learned about ancient  alphabets, from the hieroglyphs on the temples to Arabic numbers around the campfire in the desert sand from our Bedouin driver, but also about the hard side of modern Egypt, seeing for their first time bands of kids living on the streets of Cairo. 

Hands down, our favorite family experience was the mind-bending experience of being in the desert, where the quiet and wide open emptiness gives you time to think, while the wind creates the best ever sand dunes for rolling down. 

We’re now in Dahab on the Red Sea, hoping to do some snorkeling and perhaps a side trip to see the site of the burning bush and Mount Sinai…but not sure given the recent flooding.

Tahrir Square protest from our hotel balcony

 

Pyramid & sphinx in Giza

Everyone wants a photo with Maggie

Maggie and Hugo run off to roll down a dune

Anyone have a shovel? 



Fossils

Cleaning off in Well Number 7, Bahariya Oasis



Donkey cart along the Nile

Temple of Karnak in Luxor

 

Side trip to Egypt - Cairo

Flew into Cairo Egypt yesterday - what a crazy city!  The anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution is on January 25th -  staying in Tahrir Square really brings the recent history alive.  Quite a day today walking the streets and especially crossing them (stand next to local, hold onto your kid with a death grip, and walk when the locals do) and then spent a fascinating afternoon with my high school French teacher and her friend - seeing the sights and hearing about the events of the past few years.  Egyptian hospitality is amazing. 

Egyptian Museum, with burned out former 

Mubarak National Democratic Party HQ behind

Tahrir Square

Tahrir Square, getting ready for January 25

A lovely lunch on the Nile

travels around Turkey

What an amazing two weeks traveling in Turkey with our Alaska friends.  Each leg of the trip took us progressively back in time, starting from the Ottoman empire grandeur of Istanbul near the Black Sea, then back to the Christian towns of Cappadocia in central Turkey, and finally the Greek/Roman cities of the Aegean coast. Nice to trade in homeschooling books for on-the road school for a while!

Our Istanbul apartment was in the old part of town, a perfect location for exploring the mosques and palace built by the Ottomans after they captured the city in 1453 - will never forget the mosque-dominated skyline with the reverberating call to prayer from all sides (and in the background the kids singing the 1950s ditty about “take me back to Constantinople, no you can’t go back to Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul…”).  Cappadocia was like being a kid again – sleeping in a “fairy chimney” formed by erosion of volcanic tuff where the Christians lived from the 4^th to 11^th century, descending into the underground city where they hid from invaders, topped off with a sunrise balloon ride.  Then we rented a van for a road trip to the ancient cities of Aphrodisias, Hierapolis and Ephesus to explore the temples, theaters, stadium, library, roads and market places built as far back as 10^th century BC…highlighted by deliciously fresh winter vegies and oranges straight from the fields and the scrumptious warmth of mineral springs and saunas to soak the winter chill from our bones.   

Our merry band of travelers, Christmas in Istanbul

Istanbul by night from Bosporus River

Fishing from Galata Bridge

Daily call-to-prayer times

View from our apartment overlooking Bosphorus.  Note 

mosque minaret - first daily call to prayer was 5:46 am!

Sunrise at the Blue Mosque

Mandatory headscarves in the Blue Mosque

Hiking in Cappadocia

View from our balloon ride

"Fairy chimney" housing

from early Christian communities

 in Cappadocia

Church carved inside rocks

Underground city to hide from invaders

Gateway to the Temple of Aphrodite, 

pilgrimage site since 6th century BC

The kids hamming it up on stage at Aphrodisias

Library of Celsus at Ephesus,

built 2nd century AD

Swimming over toppled marble columns
 in sacred hot springs of Hierapolis

Enjoying the warm water running down the
mineral travertines at Pamukkale