We are in a fabulous apartment in Haifa, in the Carmel Centre neighbourhood. And the internet is good.
We did a last walk around the Ein Gedi Kibbutz this morning before leaving. It looks like a beautiful place to live, but the summers must be brutal and they are far away from any town or city. Today was hot - mid 80s with a strong sun.
We drove up highway 90 along the edge of the Dead Sea. Jordan was visible across the water. We were going back the way we came, but once we passed highway 1, near the West Bank city of Jericho, we were in a new area for us.
The boundaries of the West Bank are confusing. Highways 1 and 90 pass through the West Bank but the Palestinian Authority does not have control of the highway. You pass through a type of border though, entering (just north of Ein Gedi) and leaving (just before our destination of a Beit Shean). Going in we were waved through, but leaving we were stopped.
The road and area was rougher driving north with the Jordan River on the right and dry empty hills on the left. We drove through a few scruffy towns, saw two large herds of sheep walking near the road, saw several date palm plantations and other agricultural fields. It is one lane in each direction (I was driving) and drivers were aggressive, tail gating and passing. The road was bumpy. It reminded me of our early days driving in Italy.
We were stopped as we left the West Bank area. The young woman at the checkpoint stood on the passenger side and asked for passports. She opened mine, said “Kenny”, looked at me and handed it back. She opened Steve’s, said “Cohen”, then looked at Steve and smiled, back to the passport and said “Stephen David Cohen” pronouncing the first and middle names the way a French person might, then smiled at Steve and said “what a beautiful name” and gave him his passport back. Steve was thrilled. It is a very good name for this country.
Once we were past the checkpoint we stopped at a roadside coffee shop. The woman working at the gas station snarled at me when I asked if we were parked in the right area saying “I don’t speak English”. Finally, this is more what I was expecting. They park like Italians - ignoring lines.
Soon we got to Beit Shean, the best Roman Ruins in Israel. It was lunch time and the site was nearly empty. We spent two hours in the hot sun walking around these incredible ruins of a large Roman City. As we left tour buses were arriving.
Driving across the southern Galilee area we encountered more traffic and some delays. The area was flat and agricultural. We saw Nazareth on hills in the distance. We passed Meddigo, ruins that relate to Armageddon (but we had no time to stop), and finally came into Haifa. The Waze app worked well but it drained my iPhone battery and we arrived just as the phone was dying. I tried plugging it into the car USB but that made the sound stop working. I’ll have to look into that.
We checked into the apartment, walked out to the Carmel Centre shopping area, got groceries and had dinner at home.
Another fabulous day. Beit Shean was fabulous. It is cooler here, which is nice.
