Beautiful Hike, Digging in the dirt, and arrival in Jerusalem

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It was another early start of the day so we could go for a hike in the desert. We traveled to the Ein Ovdat national park. Ein Ovdat is like a small grand canyon. It is a beautiful gorge in the middle of the desert. After hiking along the river flowing through the gorge we started our ascent to the top of the gorge. You follow a winding path of steep stone stairs cut into the gorge face and in some place you had to use ladders to get up to the top. It was a hard but wonderful climb with a spectacular view at the top where we met our bus.

After our hike in Ein Ovdat we stopped in Beer She'va to pick up 8 Israeli soldiers to join us on the rest of the trip. The Israeli's were all friendly and spoke excellent english.

Later on we headed over Beit Guvrin to go on an archeological dig. This settlement from the 4th century B.C. had an underground city. After descending via ladder we entered the first chamber and we started to dig and fill buckets and find artifacts. We found lots of bits of pottery and animal bones. We took the buckets up top and began to sift the dirt were we discovered more pottery and one person found a piece from a necklace. After digging we went over to an unexcavated cave and went on a spelunking trip. Our group crawled under the ground with candles lighting path, and crawling through small holes. At the end we were covered in dirt but happy with the experience.

Finally, we heading back north to Jerusalem were we stopped at a high vantage point to view the city. Jerusalem is at the center of the controversies over which religion Jerusalem belongs too. With only an hour of daylight left we headed to our hotel and a night out on the town on Ben Yehuda street. Tomorrow we will tour this ancient and holy city. So I say Shalom and Good night from the hold city of Jerusalem.

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Photos

Ein Ovdat
View from the top of Gorge that we climbed to the top of.

Hiking in Ein Ovdat
This was the easy part.

Digging for Artifacts
Our group helped dig for artifacts in this underground city.

Spelunking
Exploring unexcavated parts of the underground city.

Comments

[Chase N. Tales]

What a veiw... Whew!
I tired just looking at what you had to climb. As long as young and having fun... then a little gorge like this is easy... Have fun and be safe...

[anglepie]

hiking
This is a beter workout then the gym for you, think you will be in great shape when you finish playing Indiana Jones , HA HA. Take care as always , Mom

[Daniel Langner]

Way to go, Bro' !!!!!!
I am a bit jealous of my friend; that is so cool to be so far over there... When I was in the Azores for 18 months, we would go cave exploring, on our own, crawling into little places we had no idea of what was behind the next corner... I'm glad you have guides and a hotel... I will be teaching in the Life Skills Unit, the little M.R. kids across the hall... Ms. Gonzalez went to Harlandale Middle School; Mr. Cody went to Kingsborough Middle, down by 410, feeds into McCollum HS... That's about all the news from Camp Woebegon that's fit to print... Herb, way to go; I am so excited for you. This has got to be the neatest way to keep in touch with my traveling friend there is... Keep up the tremendous work; I am so happy for you. We'll all be here when you come in on that big bird to the sleepy little berg of S. A. You are in my Prayers, Daniel.