Wednesday, April 16th — USA Today went well - except the fact that the cable I needed was on back-order from Paul’s TV. Mom mailed out my amended tax return, as well as receipts to go to GS-USA. With everything packed, my backpack (inside a duffel bag) weighed in at close to 80 pounds. I was able to take out my tripod to hopefully balance that out. In my luggage was also a model temple for Georg - one reason for cramped space. Wes & Darryl came over at 3:00 PM, and helped with the last minute stuff while I took a shower. Leaving at 3:30, we arrived at JFK airport in NYC at around 5:30. We passed a 12-15 mile backup on the N. Bound side of 95 - sure thankful we didn’t have that. Once here at the airport, (for it’s here that I write) we 3 went and grabbed Pizza Hut pizzas for dinner - Wes’ treat. They took off and I checked in my luggage. My heavy bag was not checked - and took my stuff w/ no problem. PTL! The tripod was tied on top of the box for Georg. It’s up to the Lord to get it there in one piece. With free Internet access, I was able to write Essex and Freezer. Also able to read email and access the web. Great idea! 15 min. session. Depart at 11:00 Tuesday, April 17th — Germany Zurlrich, Switzerland was fine - the place for my first layover - 4 hours. I was able to send and email to Gerog to made sure I sent him the correct arrival time, which was good because I had sent the wrong info to him before. After a short 1 hr. flight to Duesseldorf, Germany, I was able to clear customs without incident. I declared the things that I was leaving for Georg, but it wasn’t a problem - didn’t have to pay anything for that. Met up with the Cross’ at Georg’s, had dinner and then went to the Schmidt’s. Georg lives in an apartment building, 5th floor. Gordon Schmit is from S. Dakota, Iowa and California. He was w/ NTM at Fout Springs, a forest ranger for 20? years. He married a German gal when he was 35 and moved over later. I went to bed at 10:00 pm., up at 7:00 am. to go visit Martin and Mark at ZAM. Wednesday, April 18th — Germany The drive was a beautiful stroll through the autobahn and side country roads. I took a photo inside the office of ZAM and out - down the valley from their office. Once we got home, we had lunch (1:30) Pizza by Heidi, very good. Then answered some emails. Finished at 5:00. Tonight JRC speaks while Georg translates, and I’m for the ride - and also to meet Hanns too. Hanns is the fellow that built the desktop version of the tabernacle and gave it to JRC last time he was here. JRC spoke on Act 17, going through the 4 methods of teaching chronologically. Brethren Assembly - met sat opposite a table, facing each other. Women sat behind, facing the men. Plus there were at least 26 microphones hanging straight down - about 7’ off the floor. Very different, I thought. They sang one song, acapella - and that was very nice. One prayed, then John spoke. Right after John started to finish w/ prayer, a clock chime started to ring - finishing right on time! Then there was a prayer meeting - everyone got on their knees, facing their chair. The rest of the evening we talked about building the tabernacle. Many problems are being faced, much to overcome. We got home late, and couldn’t get in where I’m staying (I had the key, but it was an operator error.) But, after ringing the doorbell, waking the folks up inside, I was able to get in! Asleep by 11:45 pm. Thursday, April 19th — Germany Up at 7:30. Read, showered and talked a little w/ Gordon. Goerg picked me up at 8:29, then picked up the Cross’ to breakfast at Heidi’s. Soft boiled eggs, bread, meat and chocolate cream sauce, of which I need to buy a case! Once that was done, we tried to decide what to do today. Ended up going to an open-pit mine, with some of the largest earth moving equipment in the world. Pictures and video taken. Goerg’s dad drove us - much more aggressive than Goerg. I sat in the back this time. Janice stayed home w/ Heide and did laundry. We came back from that and went to rent a jib-arm. This fellow is inventing one - light, portable but a little too unstable. Not bad, really. It took quite a while for him to show it to us, then we went back to Heidi’s place again for dinner. Back to Gordon’s a little early, as we had an early start the next day. Friday, April 20th — Germany Up at 5:45, ready for Georg on the curb. We went to his father-in-law’s flooring store to pick up the Crosses (they are staying here) and the van we were going to take. Georg’s father and Heidi’s uncle came along for the trip to the Open Air Bible Museum. This was a 2 hour trip going into Holland. The ride was great. Nice country! There were fields of flowers,
most of which were almost in bloom - we were just a little early.
One shot we also got was Heidi’s uncle. We have on picture and video him dressed up as a scribe, writing on a scroll. I think it’ll turn out great. After the drive home, we had a dinner at “Heidi’s Place” again, and she drove us home at 10:00 pm to be able to ‘get out of the house.’ Saturday, April 21st — Germany Apparently I did not write anything for this day, and have since forgotten what we did, except that we had breakfast at 8:30. But I do know this is where I started feeling a little sick. Slight fever. I do remember sleeping on the couch, working on emails. I don’t think we did anything major today. Sunday, April 22nd — Germany I stayed home from church today, to rest up for the trip ahead. John, Janice and Naomi went - John and Goerg went early, Heidi and the rest went to the later service. I basically slept / visited with Gordon till 4:00 pm. Georg and the Crosses picked me up at 4:00 pm. We drove to ‘the old city’ of Duesseldorf, which was along the Rhine river. Took a couple photos here. It was a pleasant walk, temperature was perfect, trees starting to bud - quite nice. We went back to Georg’s apartment - picked up Heidi and walked to a Greek restaurant to take them out to dinner. It was smoke-filled, but the food was good. Got home late - at Gordon’s. Monday, April 23rd — Germany Georg was up to get me by 7:30, so I had to be up / ready / packed by then. Still not feeling well. Basically spend the day at Georg’s, waiting to go to the airport by 4:00 pm. We sat at the airport for a good while, checked in our luggage no problem. Stopped in Zurich for a 2-3 hour layover, then arrived in TelAviv at 3:00 am or so. Not much sleep on this flight for some reason. The flight was about 4 hours. Tuesday, April 24th — Israel After getting a rental car (a little bigger than what we ordered, because they felt bad for us that our credit cards didn’t work- something that we got fixed) we drove to Cessarea. This is where we tried to sleep in the car. I couldn’t - too cramped, and a sore throat made it very difficult to get any sleep. But we filmed after having a hard time finding a place to eat - from 8:30 to 2:00 pm. This was both in the theater and then the Roman aqueduct. In the theater, we had to work around about 10 different tour groups. One would come, speak to the group, then they would sing, some would dance on the stage, etc. It made for a long day, trying to get the shots that we needed. I was about dead from no sleep and being sick. We ate at McDonalds on the way to Tiberias, on the shores of Galilee. It took us a while to find the place in which we were to stay - a Catholic place. Clean, cheap, decent. Wednesday, April 25th - Sunday, April 29th —
Israel This is where I was sick. Fever, sinus infection, sore throat, then the big D. Andrew Cross was able to leave the Kibbutz early, which was good, because he was able to film in my stead. They went all over the place up here, but I don’t have the details. I thought it was a good day if I could walk to the kitchen (shared - down the hall) 2 times in one day! Monday, April 30th — Israel Feeling a little better. We drove to N. of Galilee to film JRC by the river Jordan. What better place to go than the Jordan River Park? Only catch is, that from this park, you can’t see the Jordan. Hmm. But in this park is also a city - BethSaida, a city that Jesus cursed. Took a couple stills of flowers, ruins, countryside. We drove down to another place where JRC has been before - and had a good shot of the Jordan. It actually looked good - so that’s what we did. From here, we drove up the Golan Heights, all the way to the border of Syria. Last picture of the day overlooked the valley into Syria, with a UN compound (Canadian and Swiss inside) in the foreground, and in the background the Syrian military, and on the left and empty city that is right on the border. Thus ended the trip in Galilee. Came home, had dinner on the porch, trying to use up all the left overs. There came in a dark orange cloud, lots of dirt in the air, and pretty windy. There were white caps on Galilee. You could feel the dirt hitting your face. With the sky that color, the water looked very green. I’ve never seen weather like this before. We packed everything and hit the sack. Tuesday, May 1st — Israel Early rise this morning - up at 4:00 am, on the road by 4:45. We had to go back to Cessarea to film because there was too much background noise on the audio, and we had to do the aqueduct shot again for some reason as well. We arrived at the aqueduct at 6:15, and finished everything by 9:15! A record :) There wasn’t many tour groups this day giving us trouble, just the guys cleaning up after the dust storm from the day before. We were able to work around them just fine. We did have to buy another day pass for everyone, because we used our pass up on that before. (We were able to buy a park pass that got us to every national park in Israel for a period of 2 weeks.) Big Mac Attack! on the way to Jerusalem. Then we had to find our hotel. It wasn’t the easiest, but much better driving now. The hotel is great - on a ridge, overlooking a valley. It’s actually a Kibbutz - not a hotel, but it works just great. Once settled in, we drove to Jerusalem to check it out. Fist drove around the old city, parked and walked to the Garden Tomb (took some photos.) Then back to the car to get 2 books (Stranger / Prophets). We walked in the Damascus gate and found our way to the Christian book store, where JRC was talking to the manager about TS and AP. We ate before leaving out the Jaffa gate, and back to the car. We got lost trying to leave the city - not a surprise. The old city is just a fraction of today’s Jerusalem. It seems very un-organized if I may say so myself. But you must remember it’s built on top of a hill, so it has that to work around too. Once back home, we crashed for an early rise of 6:15. Wednesday, May 2nd — Israel It rained just about all night - thunder, lightning. This is very rare - even in the rainy season (winter) it doesn’t rain that hard. Breakfast at 7:00 - eggs (boiled, scrambled, fried), bread, cheese, cereal, etc. We got to the Garden Tomb at 8:45 - late due to wrong turns / traffic congestion. Filming went well here, then we took the tour - Here’s some reasons why this place fits the crucifixion site: Reasons why it’s a crucifixion site: 1. The cliff looks like a skull. Another reason of “The place of the Skull” might be due to actual human skulls on the ground - but not as strong as the fact that the cliff looks like a skull. 2. It was a rock quarry. — They used to throw people off a cliff, and if that didn’t kill them, they would stone them to death. This place has both- a cliff, and plenty of rocks in which to stone (not hard to find in Israel. 3. Place of execution. a.) Stephen was martyred here. — “Stephen’s Gate” was nearby - which is under the Damascus Gate. — also in the area here, there is an old Bible college dedicated to Stephen. b.) Roman style of execution — this place is on the main roads from both Jerico (a major trade route) and also the main road from Damascus. When you execute people, you want as many people to see it to make an example out of the people being executed. c.) The property was not used until 1950’s - until they put a bus depot there. If it were an execution place, it would have little value, and nobody would want to buy it / live there. 4.) It was outside the city walls, as we know in Scripture it had to be. 5.) It did use to be a part of Mt. Moriah, but has been separated by the quarrying process. Reasons for the Garden Tomb: 1.) It was close to the “execution site” as described above. The Bible says that the garden was “at” the execution site. 2.) Garden - not a flower or small vegetable garden, but rather compared to a farm. In other words, bigger than a small project. a.) There is a cistern right there - the third largest in the Jerusalem area. b.) Also, there is a wine press on the grounds as well. 3.) Tomb - needed to be a new tomb in which no one had been laid. a.) There are early Christian signs in the area: (1.) There is a cross engraved outside (and painted inside) (2.) There is a shallow baptistry carved in the rock (kneel and pour) (3.) Foot washing spot (?) also carved in the floor. (4.) Place in the wall for a wooden ridge beam. (5.) The side of the tomb was opened, so one could see inside. b.) The tomb has to be in such a way that one could see that the body had been removed without even entering the tomb, as witnessed by the early morning observers. Another interesting thought - this was all filled in, totally covered over, and had to be excavated before people knew it was there. After spending time at the tomb, we drove and parked on Mt. Zion - just outside the Zion gate. We walked to the Anthropology Museum, where they have excavated to the original city street - under Robinson’s Archway. It’s all broken up, possibly from the temple being thrown down on top of it. This is the Southern side of the West wall (the same as the Wailing Wall, but south from there.) There were also the “monumental staircase” - set of stairs that are staggered so you couldn’t keep rhythm going up to the temple. These were on the South side of the Temple Mount. All of this overlooks the Mount of Olives, Gehenna Valley, and even Bethlehem which is out of site just over a ridge to the South. The landscape is very steep all around. From here we went to the Wailing Wall, passing through security (here it was just a hand check, going through our bags, etc.) We went in, and also under the archway. Not too many people present. We then left, and tried to find the organization that supposedly has all the temple furniture ready for the next temple. But where we were going was closed, due to a blood drive. We then came home (5:30) and at 6:30 went for supper, Lebanese, real good, which became our place of eating for the next few days. Thursday, May 3rd — Israel Off again to Jerusalem. Brad is with us still. We started at the Mt. of Olives - filmed John from there. It’s a long, steep, narrow road up. If you meet oncoming traffic, someone has to give way for sure. From here, we drove down and stopped by the Garden of Gethsemene. Remember about the ‘garden’ concept? This was an olive grove, with many trees dating back to the time of Christ. But now there is a big Catholic church in the middle of it all. Much the same like this all over Israel. Then we took off to film the SE corner of the Temple mount. Some believe this is where the devil tempted Christ, and others hold to the SW corner. So, we filmed both, and will use the one that looks the best! Then Andrew and I walked to the Golden Gate, both took video and stills. This is where Brad left us, to meet up with us tonight. We drove just up the hill Mt. Zion again to park. We had lunch at the same place as yesterday, filafels I think it was. Then we walked to David’s Citadel - didn’t like filming there, so we walked down in front of the walls. It was 1:00 / 1:30 - lighting was too high for my liking. So we waited till about 4:30. John and Janice stayed with the stuff, Andrew and Naomi went to get on the internet at the internet cafe. When they came back, I went. We filmed John, and this was the introduction to the video series. Once finished, we headed home (a 35 min drive if all goes well.) Friday, May 4th — Israel Fridays are supposedly the Muslim Sabbath. We headed back to Jerusalem, a little later this time. We dropped Brad off at the bus station, where he had 10 more days in the Middle East, some of which is going to be spent learning how to dive in Egypt. We then again parked at Mt. Zion (it’s a good place to park) and split up in the Old City. John and Janice went to buy gifts and what for people back home. Andrew, Naomi and I went to take a tour of the tunnel they have dug that is alongside the Temple Mount - and starts just alongside the Wailing Wall. The tour was only in Hebrew that day, and the ticket fellow didn’t want to let us go, but we insisted because it was our last day in Jerusalem. Finally he let us - it was a good tour, but we didn’t learn as much because it was all in Hebrew! We met with John and Janice again, had lunch and then John wanted to get some more shots at the Wailing Wall. I stayed with Janice and Noami, watching from a distance. There were Police, Military everywhere - trucks just filled the area. Then a Palisinian threw a rock over the top of the Wailing Wall, and it landed in the women’s side of the area. I heard it - sounded almost like a gun shot. The people fled and the military rushed up to the door to the temple mount. They waited there a few minutes before going in - probably to patrol the wall from the inside so no one else would throw anything. Then we went home. Once at the hotel, Andrew and I drove down to the military museum - where they have tons of tanks and good stuff all around. But it was closed due to the Sabbath the next day. Things close early here in Israel. So we left, came home, took a nap and had dinner again at the Lebanese restaurant - chicken shishlick - like a Kabob. Saturday, May 5th — Israel Packed up everything first thing. Breakfast at 7:00. We drove
around Jerusalem (so we didn’t get lost!) and down to the
dead sea. (We found out later this evening that the Israelis were
shelling the Palestinian security stations in Jerico, which we drove
by on the way - this was in response to a Jewish shop owner getting
shot in Bethlehem.) We arrived at Qumran about 10 min. after it
opened (8:10). Once we found the cave, we did some filming inside. From here, we kept going south - stopping at EnGedi. Plan here - JRC was to capture the Ibex (like a small deer) and Andrew and I would climb up to the waterfall to film that. Time was short, as we wanted to get to Masada the same day. While there were a lot of people here (it was the Sabbath, many people tour around a little like this) we were still able to get footage of the falls without anybody in it. It’s called using the foreground to hide what you don’t want in the picture. It seemed like it was very hot, until we got to the bottom of the falls, where it was so enjoyable - nice and cool, with a breeze too. (Later, looking at the map we only went to one of the falls. I guess the bigger one is to the south, and we went to the northern one. I guess I have to go back some day.) Masada was next. We bought tickets, and just missed the ride going up, so we had to wait another half hour before going up. In this time, we watched the video presentation which was very well done. 10 min. long, 3 screens wide, much like Qumran. A 3 min. cable car ride (made in Switzerland) and a 300 m. (900’) climb brought us to the top. It was an experience for sure - thinking of all those people killing their families and themselves before going into slavery. Quiet, mysterious - and you were right there. Headed back to EnGedi Kibbutz - a Five Star Hotel - the worst place we stayed at yet. But it worked (we slept and showered up!) had breakfast and left the next day. Sunday, May 6th — Israel We left early after breakfast to drive to Timna, where the tabernacle
is set up (full size version). We took a detour that took us about
200 km out of the way, but were able to salvage some of that, because
we filmed in the Judean Wilderness (it was planned this way.) Once we got back, we took a tour of the tabernacle. I can remember the feeling of the seriousness of the blood, the death all because of sin. The building was not that big either. Well, today we filmed establishing shots of the tabernacle from two different angles. We plan on coming back on the way through to film inside the courtyard. It went well. We climbed to the top of King Solomon’s Pillars for one of the shots. On the way down, a big dust storm came in - I have a picture of that. Very eerie, like the one up in Galilee. We were here till about 7:30 pm. From here we drove to Elat, the south most city in Israel, on the Gulf of Aqaba. After filling up with gas, we found our hotel - Petra Hotel. Since we were coming through again, we asked if we could leave some things so we didn’t have to cart all our junk over Egypt and Jordan. So, we packed up what we didn’t need to leave here. This was a BIG HELP. Probably let behind 100 pounds of stuff. But Scott was to come at 10:00 and it was 8:30 already, nothing packed yet. So we jumped in the car and off to Burger King. We were able to get everything done, packed and ready. I remember being very tired after this day for some reason. Monday, May 7th — Egypt Again, breakfast once the restaurant opens - this time at 7:00 am. Leave ASAP. Hard boiled eggs again, bread yogurt. JRC drove us to the border to Taba, Egypt, dropped us off, and then took the car back to Thrifty. We waited about an hour before he came back via the Thrifty folks. Crossing the border out of Israel was not a problem. Basically just paid the departure tax, then they stamped our passports and we were on our way. The trouble started going through the security side of Egypt. With all our camera gear the fellow was very upset. “I’ve been working here 14 years and have never seen this much camera equipment.” It was a big deal. Unpack all the camera stuff “I want to see every piece of camera equipment on this table!” He called the customs officials over, and it was quite tense. I was praying, but also confident in Jer 32:17. No worries, and was able to relax. This one individual was also very harsh on other people coming through. But the other officials were all joking and laughing around. We finally go through and proceeded to get a taxi. The taxi took us to the bus station, for about $1.25, a 2-3 km drive. We hired a mini-van (like in PNG) for 500LE, about $125 to drive us all the way to Cairo (should be a 5 hour drive.) This is my most un-favorite part of the trip. You can’t speak the language, don’t know the culture, and hence are at their mercy. But it did work out just fine. We had an empty water bottle and asked, “Where do we throw this away?” “Oh, I’ll show you.” The driver takes it out of Janice’s hands and threw it over the top of the car - “That’s what we do with our trash.” And it was evident throughout Egypt this was the case. So we set out. There was an entry tax. Then a passport checkpoint. Then another checkpoint. There are more checkpoints here in Egypt than any other country I’ve ever been in before. We drove straight west across the Sinai Dessert, but it was surprisingly cool. This was good because our air conditioning didn’t work. On the other side of the Suez Canal (via a tunnel) we stopped at a little restaurant, and switched vans. Once inside, we started out. About 1km the van quit. It took a little, but figured out the battery was dead (2.8 volts.) I told them it probably was a bad alternator, and that we couldn’t go on. We waited about an hour here, till another van came and picked us up to take us the rest of the way to Cairo. This fellow drove up to 150 km/hr. but we did make it safely. In Cairo it was rush hour traffic, but that’s not much different than normal driving in Cairo. If 2 lanes are marked on the road, they drive in 3 lanes. Very different driving here! We got dropped off at the local bus depot - very crowded, but the fellow that joined us before the van broke down hailed us a taxi and we all squeezed in to go to our hotel. We finally got to our hotel, nice and comfortable and quiet. Ate and slept. Tuesday, May 8th — Egypt Breakfast again at 7:00, but ready soon after that. Matt was there at 7:30 and took us to get the one live shot we needed to get of John in Giza. We drove around, trying to find a suitable place - and we did. A field, pyramids in the background, and a pile of dirt between us and the road (which was good because no one could see what we were doing.) Then we drove to the ‘mids, took video / pictures of the Sphinx and the ‘mids. In the ‘50’s they found a boat that was buried for one of the Pharaohs, which they reconstructed. It was built with no nails. New ropes were used to tie the wood together. The ropes would shrink, the wood would swell, making a water tight boat. Time for lunch - Pizza Hut overlooking the sphinx and the 3 pyramids. From here, we drove to a step-pyramid. Driving here we drove along a canal from the Nile. This was the poor side of town, very dirty. JRC say 2 dead horses in the water, which is the source of water for everything here. Not a pleasant thought. This pyramid was the first one that was made with limestone. The ones before this were made with mud brick. It was very impressive. All the limestone (and one entire pyramid) were dismantled to build churches / mosques. The burial chamber was 9m. square, 27m. deep carved into the limestone, and was the center of the pyramid. There was a couple other holes alongside this one that were connected to the burial chamber, and filed with sand. The thought was that if someone came to rob the grave, the wouldn’t be able to remove all the sand, because it would keep filling in as they dug. Once finished, we drove to Mat’s house for dinner. That was very good. But we stayed till about 10:00 pm, and Mat caught us a taxi back to the hotel (I love riding in a taxi here - you just have to try it.) After 1/2 hour on the internet, we went to sleep. Wednesday, May 9th — Egypt Slept in today - 8:00. Shower, breakfast—and laundry! We did the laundry in the bathtub, and hung ropes in the room to dry. It took a while. I think we finished by 10:30. Then it was time to catch a taxi (2 taxi’s this time) and went to the Cairo Museum. They can only legally haul 4 people in one vehicle, but often times they will let us squeeze 5 in (most are small Fiats.) The museum is expensive again. Here in Egypt, they charge extra for cameras ($10) and even more for a video camera ($25.) And, they didn’t allow a tripod or even a monopod. The museum was full of things to shoot - many many gods, and lots and lots of caskets, mummies and tombs. Stills were all 17mm (no flash allowed), JRC and I shot video. From here, we caught 1 taxi to go to the restaurant that we arranged to meet Mat and his family for dinner. I was videoing as we were going. We were flying along, and I heard this “HEY HEY HEEEEY!!!” It was Mat singing out to the taxi driver :) So, he backs up and we made it just fine. Dinner was good - beef, chicken, pigeon and other stuff. The pita bread was the BEST! Hot and fresh. Then we went to the felucca - a sail boat ride on the Nile. (24 LE, or $6) It was very relaxing - just coasting on the Nile watching the sun set. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Finally decided to go to the Swirling Dirmish Dance. It’s free, unless you get there late, and then you have to pay a bakshish (bribe) to get in. But it was worth it, except for the fact that it was very loud. I wish I had my earplugs. I have a set in the video case, but didn’t have that here today. Here I vowed to have a set on me here on out. Andrew got better pictures than I did here. It was an Egyptian culture show. These guys play flutes, drums, etc and dance. They are famous for twirling, causing their skirts to fly out horizontally. Yeah, it’s cool, but they do this for 20 minutes at a time! I ended up holding my ears because it was too loud. We got home late again - took 2 taxi’s. Note: gas here is about 1LE per liter - it figures out to roughly $1 per gallon. Thursday, May 10th — Egypt Slept in (rare treat) to 8:30 or so. The plan was to meet Hemi, and he would drive us around today. He came at 10:00 am. we checked out of our rooms, left our bags at the front desk, and went to the Pharonic Village. While it was a little make-shift at times, we did learn a lot, as well as we were able to get some good shots of papyrus growing along the bank. It was a boat ride for part of the trip - very smooth dolly shots. Only problem is that it’s all the same direction. Then we disembarked and walked through the rest of the museums - mummification (they took out the internal organs, except the heart which ‘gets weighted at judgement’, then dehydrated the body with salt (40 days,) then they wrapped and packed the guy) Napoleon, Greek, Roman periods, early Church period, rich / poor people’s houses, and of course - Islam. Then we went to meet Hemi’s wife and family for lunch at 2:30. Muha is his wife, and children- Sarah (11) and their son Nader (9). Another excellent meal. Very hospitable. Hemi took off at 4:00 to go to a lecture (he’s a medical doctor) and we left about 20 min after. Muha caught a single taxi for us, and we were off to the market. I basically watched the stuff while everybody shopped. At 6:30 Andrew and I caught a taxi and went to the hotel to fetch our luggage. We then went to the train station to meet JRC and crew. We arrived at the station at 7:30 or so, and waited till 9:00 before they showed up. Hemi caught up with them in the market (I still don’t know how he did that,) and did a bit more shopping before taking them to the train station. The train wasn’t the best. While we went ‘first class’ it wasn’t what we expected (what we usually think of as being first class.) We sat right by a door, many people coming and going all night. They didn’t turn the lights off, either. But 60 LE ($15) for a 10 hour train ride it wasn’t too bad. It left right on time (10:00 pm) and we were able to get some sleep. Friday, May 11th — Egypt Arrived in Luxor. Truly the markings of a 3rd world country. Average wage in Cairo was $3000 US a year. I’m sure it would be less here in Luxor. We caught a taxi to take us to our hotel. It was nice to be able to check in, take a shower and have a ‘proper sleep’ for a couple hours. At about 11:00 / 11:30 we headed out to find the tourist information office. JRC booked our tickets for the bus ride to leave Luxor in a couple days, and then for the ferry ride to Sinai. Then to find a place to eat. Hmmm. McDonalds! It was as if we ate in Groton, CT. We ate for less than 70LE - about $17.50 for the 5 of us. Once fed and full, we caught a taxi to the Karnak temple. Again - very impressive structures. There was over 150 columns with huge beams of rock on top in one part. There were two obelisk here, as well as pieces parts laying around of others. From here - another taxi (10LE - $2.50) back to the hotel for
a rest. At 6:00 JRC, Andrew and I went to the temple just down the
street. It was dusk, and were able to captured some very interesting
video and pictures. This is the temple where the row of sphinxes
are. Saturday, May 12th — Egypt 5:30 rise. Breakfast at 6:00 and on the road by 6:30 am. This is good, as today they said it was going to be around 42° C today. I think that’s around 107.6° F. Not sure how hot it did get, but it’s nice and cool in the mornings anyway. We walked to the Nile, caught a boat for 5 LE which took us across the river Nile. A taxi driver came with us, who came to be our guide for the day. Now, this is where it gets confusing, as there are a lot of things one can see on this, the west side of the Nile. So we picked 5 of them. Here’s a list of places that we went to: 1. Temple of Hatshepsut 2. Valley of Kings: a). Ramsus III - most popular tomb b). Amenophis II - deepest tomb c). Tuthmosis III (oldest tomb - the same guy who defaced Hatshepsut’s images.) 3. Ramesseum temple -- built by Ramasees II (we just took some video / pictures from outside.) 4. Tomb of the Nobels - 2 Tombs 5. Village of workers - Deirlelmedina - also the temple with the weigh scales in them. 6. Medinethaby - another temple. Hatshepsut - the only woman Pharaoh in Egypt. When she died, Tuthmosis III had her image taken off most of the hieroglyphics, even from her tomb. It is thought that she was the Queen of Sheba that met Solomon, and converted to believing the One True God. JRC said that her writings show her belief in only One God. We came back from the ‘dead city’ or ‘city of the dead’ - the west side of the Nile by the same boat as we ran with this morning. walking back, JRC, Janice and Naomi took a carriage to McDonalds, Andrew and I walked. McDonalds was clean, but lacked the appeal that it had the day before. Walked back to the hotel and stopped for email. I stayed 30 min. Andrew and Naomi for an hour. We all had a good sleep, and headed out shopping. There is a papyrus place where we purchased some things. Then we took a couple carriages to another market - a local market that was only “open one day a week.” We went through a nice market (foods basically) and ended up down some back alley. Here was an alabaster shop. Lots of nice things, but tactics were lacking. They offered us drinks, but we refused. You had to pick out what you wanted, put it on a table, and then sit down to talk price. You ask “How much?” before and they said, “Don’t worry about that, we’ll talk about that later.” Anyway, he quoted 175 LE for one, 150 LE for the other. Then he gave me a ‘generous’ 10% discount off that. I just sat there - not knowing what a good, fair price would be. I went and talked to JRC, and he got 4 jars before for 80 LE total. So, going back, he kept talking, and started asking me for what I wanted to pay. I said, “I don’t know.” because I didn’t know what fair price was. He’s getting mad at me, as I’m not answering his question to his satisfaction. I got up to leave, and as I walked past, he banged the table. Then I knew for sure I should be going. Before they said they would give a price, and if you didn’t like it then no worries. Obviously that was not true. Outside he’s still on me, dropping his price. Finally before leaving was $20 per piece. “Why? What’s your price?” he would ask. “It’s not the price anymore, but how you are selling. That’s the reason.” And we left. The carriage drivers took us back - sort of (not quite all the
way) and tried to take us to the papyrus place. “To the hotel”
I think JRC stopped them early at another market. Now these guys
(who agreed to 1 Egyptian Pound per person to go to the market)
were asking for 1 Pound Sterling per person - or 30 LE total. No
way, buster. “I don’t like to get ripped off,”
Andrew said. This went on for a while. “Alright, just give
us 25 LE.” JRC said - “Get their license numbers and
we’ll turn them into the Tourist Police.” I went and
wrote the numbers on my hand and that settled things right there.
We paid 10LE and left. Thinking back we should not have paid anything! Finally walked home (bought 5 more bottles of water) and had dinner at the hotel again. Laundry again. Sunday, May 13th — Luxor, Egypt Up, breakfast, packed and in the lobby by 7:30 AM. 7:40 our bus driver came and we loaded up. Around the city a little - to come to find out that we travel by caravan. Apparently some one has been taking shots at the busses on this route according to the guide book. Many many police / people w/ Guns on this trip. 2 police trucks w/ 4 police each lead the group. Our van’s air conditioning didn’t work. My thermometer read 38.4°C - 101.2 °F. JRC thinks it was hotter, but I’m not sure. Being so dry, it wasn’t too bad. The trip was 4 hours long through the desert to “The Three Corners Village” in Hurghanda, Egypt. 1 hr. of the trip we were going North down the Nile, and was all agriculture farmland. The rest - desert - mountains - sand - rocks. Not much sand, but in the valley floors. Very rugged, dry, hot, hard land. Once we got to the Read Sea, it got a little cooler, but also it was more humid. Take your pick! The driver took us to the hotel, and wanted a tip. “Sorry - no air conditioning. We paid for air conditioning.” That took care of that. Settled in our rooms and then went for lunch. Pizza Hut was too far away (would have to take a taxi) so we walked up the street and went to a diner. We ordered burgers - they came with fries and a tomato slice. Three patties on a plate - no bread! Interesting. Slept till 5:30. JRC and the family went to dinner (Mother’s Day.) and I went to the Internet. Bought a Snickers and Twix on the way home for my dinner. Before retiring, I walked out to the water for a few minutes. Lots of crabs on the pier. Monday, May 14th — Egypt Up real early to catch the high speed ferry to Na’ama Bay. It left at 5:00, so we were there by 4:00 am. It was very nice - almost cruise style (what I would consider first class.) We arrived by 6:30, caught a taxi to our hotel (Camel Hotel and Dive Club - www.cameldive.com.) After catching up on some sleep, JRC, Naomi and Andrew went diving. It was a check dive for JRC and Naomi, but Andrew went for the ride. I stayed in the hotel - watched TV and read. Dinner at 6:30, we did Chinese. Wasn’t bad, but a bit expensive. Tuesday, May 15th — Egypt Much the same as yesterday. The three went diving, Janice and I stayed in our rooms. Tonight was Pizza Hut. Wednesday, May 16th — Egypt Another good breakfast (breakfast is most always included with
the price of the room.) Then we took a taxi at 8:30 to go to St.
Catherine’s. This was the taxi driver from hell. It wasn’t
that bad- just that he kept falling asleep. One time in the tour,
on a long straight part of the road, a car coming the opposite direction
was in our lane (it’s a two lane road.) He kept coming closer
and closer, and our driver didn’t notice. Finally I tapped
our driver on the shoulder and pointed (I was sitting behind him.)
He flashed his lights, honked, moved over a little, and gave a disgusted
look as the offending car moved out of our way with a few hundred
feet to spare. Half way there he picked up another fellow that spoke Arabic, and kept him up the rest of the trip. Answer to prayer! Once we got to St. Catherine’s, we checked in our hotel. JRC, Andrew and I walked to the monastery to see what the mountain looked like (you couldn’t see it from the hotel.) We took a short camel ride - 40 min - to see the mountain. Just scoping out the scene. Back at our room, we filmed what we needed with John. Then Andrew and I had an early supper then climbed Mt. Sinai. There are 2 trails, the ‘Camel Trail’ and the ‘3,000 Step Trail.’ We went up the 3,000 step trail to save time, and it took me 1:45 to get to the top. Andrew took a detour to get some pictures and came up later. I was up for a half an hour, and started back down, meeting Andrew 15 min. later. I gave him my jacket and extra clothes and tripod. He spent the night on top, renting two mattresses and two blankets. I came down the same way - 3,000 step trail, and made it home by 10:30. Thursday, May 17th — Egypt JRC / Andrew gathered footage before breakfast. Good meal, caught a taxi to go to Nuweiba to catch a ferry to Jordan. We had to stop at 2 Tourist Police stations before we could leave. It was a beautiful drive. Wonderful mountains. No pictures taken. We got to Nuwieba, bought our tickets, immigration, customs and got on the ferry by 1:00 pm. The ferry left at 2:10 pm, arrived in Aqaba, Jordan at 6:30, the distance traveled being only 100 km. They didn’t call it the slow speed ferry without reason. It was a really big boat - many tractor trailer trucks inside. We stayed on top in the fresh air. Now we find ourselves in Jordan. Immigration (purchase visas for $15 US each) and walked through customs. That was very nice, no hassle or anything. The people are very friendly, and speak with good English. Getting a taxi was an experience. Many drivers all talking very loudly trying to get their point across. The crowd directed us to two different taxi’s before we got in the third. Finally we got in and underway to the hotel. It was very nice and went to sleep - it was a long day. Friday, May 18th — Jordan Up early, and drove to Petra. It was about a 2 hr drive, but there was a catch. Breakfast was at 7:00 am, and everything was in the lobby by 8:00. Thrifty was supposed to open at 8:00, and he would have, because we had a reservation at that time. But our reservation was filed under the wrong day, so he came in at his regular time - around 9:30 am. “Now I have to make you my friend” he says. Free upgrade, map and a couple extras. So we drove up the Edom mountains, then along the King’s Highway - which goes across the ridge of the mountains (like rolling hills up here.) We arrived at our hotel of 2 nights - the Petra Palace Hotel. Dropped our bags, and Janice and Naomi stayed to do the laundry. Naomi wasn’t feeling very well. The rest of us drove to find Sodom. It took another 3-4 hours getting there / finding the spot - but we never found it. We drove from I don’t know how high to 1200 feet below sea level again, and then half way up the Dead Sea on the East (Jordan) side. The gorges / mountains are very steep, deep, rugged. Quite the drive. Even though we didn’t find ‘Sodom’, it still was ‘an education’ as John put it. John and Andrew picked up some salt from the Dead Sea here before heading home. We got back to the hotel at 7:45 pm - went to eat at a Bedowin restaurant. Not too bad, not the cleanest, though. It didn’t take long to get to sleep tonight! Saturday, May 19th — Jordan Breakfast at 6:00. At the gate of Petra by 6:45. In at 7:00. Petra is an old city / tomb place dating to the 1st century BC. There are some awesome rock formations, colors of rock, and neat layers in the rock. Also, there is a huge gorge - must be 100 feet deep, and 1/2 mile long? and it’s only the width of a small two lane road. Anyway, we took many pictures / video. There was a high place where it’s been said human sacrifices have taken place. Pictures here too. It was a long day. The farthest place was 5 km. away at the top of a mountain. I had all the equipment, only about 40 pounds, but I still went through 3 quarts of water. We made it back by 4:00 pm, and cleaned up to go for pizza. Not the best, but it was ok and it did manage to fill the void inside. Sunday, May 20th — Jordan to Israel Up at 5:30, eat at 6:00, leave at 7:00. We drove (via the King’s Highway) back to Aqaba, returned the car, then crossed the border to Israel. No problems here. The Egyptian Official did read Andrew’s visa very carefully (to work in Israel at a Kibbutz,) then set it aside. Once he looked at the other passports, he went ahead and stamped them all. Security on Israel side was thorough, but not a problem. Once through, Andrew and John took a taxi to Elat to get the rental car. It took longer than expected, but they came back with a new Peogeut. We drove to Timna, checked into the Kibbutz, dropped our luggage. Andrew and I stayed back to get our rooms, the rest went to the Tabernacle to see if they had our luggage that we dropped off before. They weren’t. So they drove to Elat to get them, taking about 45 min. Once we had everything set, we packed up and headed to the Tabernacle at 3:00 pm. 7:30 we finished filming. It was good talking to the guys running the place, and met a fellow - Dan, who lives just down the street from my brother in Colorado. For dinner, we drove to Elat, as there are no places to eat where we were at that time. Then we planned our next day - which was our last shooting day. Monday, May 21st — Israel Our last day for shooting. We decided to sleep in a little, breakfast
at 8:00, then drive up to the big crater, and on to Ein Avdat. We did stop at the crater observation center, but drove on to the spring (Ein Avdat.) Too many people there, so we decided to get that shot later. Instead we went for the desert scene. It was hot, probably the hottest on the trip so far. But we were able to finish in good time. Gas was getting low, so we drove back to the crater, as there was a town there. So, we stopped for some food (at a shopping center) as well as film the valley. Last shot - back at the spring. It is still hot, but at least we were able to park the car somewhat in the shade. This shot didn’t take long either, so thankful to get it all done. A group shot and a few deer by the water ended this trip. So we drove to Andrew’s Kibbutz. We stopped in Beer-Sheba for dinner. First Pizza Hut- but it didn’t pan out, as the pizza is kosher (you can’t have pork, or beef with cheese.) So we went and found a food court in a local mall. Andrew and I had Shwarmas, and the rest had Chinese. Only an hours’ drive brought us to the Kibbutz. Nice place. Since we ate, we set up to pack everything for the trip home the next say. I was so tired, but was able to get everything done before retiring for the night. Tuesday, May 22nd — Israel to Germany Up early, as John took Andrew to the airport at 6:15 to get his ticket changed. Janice, Naomi and I had breakfast at 7:00, and waited till they got back (10:30 or so.) It’s a 45 min drive to TelAviv. We got to the car rental in good time (12:30) and preceded to the check in counters. There was a security check there - where they pulled John, Janice, and Noami to one table, and myself to another. Then the questions began. They asked us both similar questions and compared stories. Finally they went through all our luggage, very thoroughly. 2 1/2 hours later we went through immigration. The whole ordeal was pretty intense. But, made it to Zurich ok, and then to Duesseldorf. Goerg picked
us all up, and we all stayed at the Floor shop, me staying downstairs. So, we made it home on this day. |
