A Cold Winter in Haifa

We have been blessed with lots of family and friends visiting Haifa in recent months - of course the camera is often not there when you really need it but we did manage to get a photo of a few friends. Muna's brother Samir and his dear wife Laal visited with their daughter Lena and we had a wonderful time together - visiting a few places of archeological interest as well as the Bahá’í Holy Places. They had perfect weather. Having a good time often involves eating together; here we are in our flat tucking into some gorgeous “Kinafeh” which Sam brought for us from his visit to Jordan, with lovely Arabic coffee (yummy!).

Shamim Kassiri also visited this blessed spot for three days and we were able to catch up - he had been to Europe and India as part of a well deserved break.

The Fozdars and the Wongs have also been on pilgrimage and we were able to catch up.

The Negev desert is a very special place in Israel - much loved by David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. We traveled down the 300km road right through the middle of Israel on a Thursday evening and spent Friday and Saturday exploring the many national parks in the vicinity. We stayed at “Mitzpe Ramon” near the famous Ramon crater. Just outside of this quite isolated city we saw traditional Bedouins herding sheep and goats (too dry for cows) and living in a combination of make-shift dwellings and tents. There had been rain in the week previous and so there were areas where the water collected and the grass grew almost green!
In Australia we are used to signs that warn of kangaroos but here there are other animals to contend with:

The Ein Avdat National Park is an oasis in a stunning deep gorge. The Ein Avdat Spring flows where the Zin River leaves the Avdat Plain (very familiar to all our Aussie blog readers!!!). Here the river creates an unusually deep, narrow canyon in the the soft white chalk. The park has a bubbling brook, a waterfall, and pools. Many animals, including ibex, are attracted to the fertile banks with their lush vegetation. The riverbed has a grove of Euphrates poplars, trees often seen in oases and known for their various-shaped leaves. The trail through the park is designed so as not to damage the landscape – mostly in the waterbed. It runs past caves which were inhabited by monks during the Byzantine period. There are two entrances - an upper entrance looks down over the deep gorge and then you walk from the lower entrance up into the beautiful landscape, with the walls of cliffs towering above you as it becomes very narrow.

One feature of the gorge is the multicoloured layers of rock - indeed the Negev is a geologists delight with so many interesting formations.

The alternating layers of hard and soft rock lead to amazing structures - so many it is not only breathtaking but overwhelming. Some are hundreds of meters wide. Ibex, who seem to like heights and crossing on the narrowest ledges, abound in this area and here is a family photo!Further up the gulley Allan found a very friendly Israeli family who adopted him for the walk back after he helped them take some group photos - they insisted on being in this blog!

We visited the home of one of the most prominent figures in the history of Israel—Ben Gurion—the main airport and many streets are named after him. After leaving politics he came to the Negev—an area he loved and believed was one of the most important areas of development for Israel—despite its harsh terrain and lack of regular rainfall. Many agricultural projects are underway here; there is also a university campus dedicated to his dream.

David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel and served as the first Prime Minister of the State. Admired throughout the world, Ben-Gurion championed the settlement of the Negev Desert and practiced what he preached.

In 1953 he and Paula were accepted as members of Kibbutz Sde Boker and in 1963 the then-former Prime Minister and his wife made it their permanent home. This “desert home” in Sde Boker, is so modest, the same as its neighbouring dwellings in the Kibbutz.We also visited the grave site of Ben Gurion which is close by and has the most amazing outlook - a hauntingly beautiful spot. Together with his wife, Paula, they are buried on the edge of a cliff overlooking the stunning landscape of the Zin Valley and the Avdat Plain. The long and winding path from the parking area to the gravesites lead through a landscaped garden with plants which successfully adapted to the dry and saline desert conditions - we saw quite a few Ibex here as well.

The Nabataeans were a remarkable people and we visited two of their settlements Avdat and Shivta situated on the ancient Spice Route between Petra and Gaza. The first city was named for the admired Nabataean monarch Avdat, who asked to be buried here. King Avdat renewed settlement in the city after Gaza's fall to the Hasmonean king, Alexander Jannaeus (100 B.C.E.). The city once again flourished during the reign of Aretes IV (9 B.C.E.-40 C.E.), but was destroyed during the attacks by Arabian tribes in the second half of the first century. Later, the last Nabataean king, Rabael II (106-70 B.C.E.), rebuilt the city. The city survived the fall of the Nabataean kingdom to the Roman Empire and became a vibrant metropolis until the Arab conquest in the seventh century C.E. As you can see in the photos, the Nabataeans were very much into arches, and after the Byzantines came to the area, they embraced Christianity and built large churches, making good use of arched ceilings and arched gateways.
In Avdat you find many clever statues (in thin metal)—an attempt by the National Parks Authority to portray different aspects of life in these ancient cities.

There are a lot of ibex in this part of the world and some of them are quite tame - (not sure about their latter-day herdsman!!!)

Muna feels quite at home in this market scene. The seller wants five dracma, the lady wants it for three and Muna recons they will agree on four, though three and a half is all it is worth.

After the Nabataeans became Christians, they incorporated several churches into their amazingly large cities. Here are the remnants of a church in Shivta.

Avdat alone housed more than 2,000 defenders of the precious spice route. They knew how to build to last. The other city, Shivta, is currently undeveloped - giving a very good idea of the huge amount of work required to restore these fascinating places.

It’s been cold in Haifa— well, relative to what the locals have been used to—this has caused some of us to resort to drastic measures!!! Unfortunately, frosts have killed so many crops, so prices are up and lots of produce is not available in the market. A lot of the fish farmed around the country have also perished in the frosty conditions. It even recently snowed in Jerusalem – we only got the cold winds off the snow. Of course, it has also been very dry in January; rain would have been most welcome and given us milder temps.

It is the 2nd anniversary of our arrival in Haifa on Tuesday 6th February; when we scroll down to the earlier postings, we realize we have been very fortunate to have seen so much of this fascinating country then it is possible to believe we have been here for two years!

A friend sent us this very colourful image and so we pass it along!

Oh, and Mike Day has encouraged us to point you to the national web site http://www.bahai.org.au/ where you can find all sorts of interesting news.