Geo: 31.0461, 34.8516We started the day walking to the cathedral in Nazareth. It is a spectacular modern cathedral, Church of Annunciation, is built around the home of Mary. A Byzantine church was built over the place where it is believed that the angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to the virgin Mary. In 1966 the Roman Catholic Church began constructing a new basilica over these remains and today this church is the largest church building in the Middle East. On to Mount Tabor and a visit to the Church of Transfiguration. This is reputed to be the mount where Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah. From Wikipedia: The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported by the Synoptic Gospels in which Jesus is transfigured upon a mountain (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36). Jesus becomes ... read more

Geo: 31.0461, 34.8516But before I begin Day 2, I want to mention the two guides I had yesterday. Ryan from Waco, TX led the free tour. He was quite good although maybe a bit verbose. Leah led the tunnel tour and she was exceptional! There were a few children on the tour and she very capably kept them interested by involving them in the information either by asking them easy questions or by having them hold a sign or man the computer. Ok, now day 2. I headed over to the Mechane Yehuda market. Being Friday morning I expected it to be crazy busy but it was fairly low key. I am comparing this to markets I have been to around the world where it can be frenetic. It is a Jewish market in an area ... read more

Geo: 33.417, -111.831The People: Wonderful, super friendly and no hidden agendas whatsoever! The only unfortunate thing is they really don't like having their photos taken so we only got a few with permission. They all have such happy faces - young, old, rich or poor. They are just happy people. The Wildlife:This was our first 'game viewing' experience and while I am sure it doesn't come close to the big safari destinations we did see a lot of great animals. My overall favorites are elephants but seeing both chimps and Mountain Gorillas on foot was thrilling and an experience I will never forget!The Birds:Uganda is a bird watching paradise. We saw several groups who were clearly there just for bird watching. Lots of safari vests filled with lens filters, telephoto lenses that were enormous, scopes and ... read more

Geo: -1.28116, 29.6808Today we headed out for our travels to Kisoro. Our guide, Everest, met us at Nkuringo Gorilla Camp and we drove to our drop off point to begin our walk to Lake Matunda. This part of the walk was mostly on narrow dirt, rock, sand road used mainly by locals who walk, bicycle of motor cycle to and fro. We walked by many subsistence farming areas and, once again, the children almost appear out of nowhere to say hello to the masungas. After about 2 1/2hours we arrived at Lake Matunda. It is a lovely lake with very lush islands dotted here and there. Some were even being farmed. Because the area is so hilly the farms are all terraced which makes them even more scenic. The land looks very fertile and the main ... read more

Geo: 0.664314, 30.2796Today we spent the whole day with the chimpanzees at Kanyanchu in Kibale National Forest. This area is dedicated to habituating chimps for tourism. It takes 5 – 10 years for chimps to get used to humans being close by and right now there is only one colony in this area that is habituated. We arrived just before 7am and were able to observe this group waking up and moving out of their nests, stretching, doing their morning grooming in the lower canopy, the odd one taking a dump or urinating. There is not much chatter among them at this time of day. They get much more vocal as the day goes on.Then they start coming down out of the trees which is an awesome sight to see. They are so incredibly casual about ... read more