Galilee and the Golan Heights

Laura watching Gamla waterfall
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After a confusing checkout (the lady would ask a question, we would answer, she would assume what our answer was and not listen to the actual one and then talk about something else - a trait we found common in Israelis), we caught a bus to Haifa Budget Car Rental so we could drive ourselves around Galilee and the Golan Heights.  The Lonely Planet warns that Israeli drivers are a bit crazy so to be careful of them and the lady at Budget confirmed it.  We got in the car, out of the carpark, onto Highway No 4 and BOOM!  3 car pile up, or sandwich or whatever right in front of us.  James drove through it like Mosed parting the Red Sea as the 3 cars skidded towards us and we sped off after a quick glance in the review to make sure no one had died.  The cars were crumpled like a piece of paper but it looked like everyone was unhurt.  Not sure how we could've helped them if they were hurt seeing as our Hebrew is limited to "shalom" and "doba" (hello and thanks).  After that there were no more mishaps on the road though and drove safely to Tiberias, appreciating Israel's music taste.  (the radio was great when we were in range but when we weren't, there was a copy of Ramstein in the glovebox that someone had left behind)  After popping into the Tiberias Information Centre (a complete waste of time, confusing conversation once more as questions were asked and answers not listened to) we drove around the Sea of Galilee to Gamla Reserve where there is an ancient fort/city on top of a pointy hill jutting out by itself where the Jewish rebels in the area made a stand against the Romans.  We climbed down then up to the ruins and saw the wall where the Jews threw themselves over onto the rocks far below, rather than being captured and enslaved by Romans.  We then walked along the valley to the Gamla waterfall and watched vultures circling the valley.  After a few hours spent in the reserve, we went on the hunt for accomodation.  Everything the Information Centre lady had told us was wrong so we hunted for a couple hours, driving further north east into the Golan Heights.  We stopped everywhere where the map said there was a B&B or guesthouse but sometimes there was just old decrepit empty houses and a few others were just plain creepy, suburbs living behind barbed wire with empty streets and signs on the fences warning about land mines in the area.  So we left there and head to a hotel area, on the way we saw a few tanks and James pulled over to have his photo with what he thought was an empty tank but a couple guys popped up with guns, so that didn't happen.  We finally found a town (still surrounded with barbed wire) with an actual restaurant and people.  Booked into a zimmer which is a wooden cabin equipped with bathroom, kitchen, lounge room, bed room, jacuzzi, front yard with fish pond and hammocks.  Very nice.

James at Banias Waterfall
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The next day we went up to Banias Nature Reserve to see the Banias Waterfall and springs.  There were a lot of ruins of structures that Herod built, apparently Jesus went to Banias as well because there was an American tour group walking around yelling "Praise the Lord" and "Jesus is good".  The crusaders managed to hold Banias for 40 years but it was an important military point so the Muslims took it back.  In the 40 years though, they managed to build quite a bit so we saw those ruins too.  Then drove and hiked up to Nimrod Fortress which was built by Saladin's nephew to pre-empt an attempt on Damascus by the 6th crusade.  It's been ruined by an earthquake (as they all have) but it was still pretty impressive sitting 800m above sea level while everything else around is below sea level.  You can see the Sea of Galilee from there too.

Our hire car parked at Nimrod fortress
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We drove back to Haifa, through Akko and dropped the car off, then hopped on a train to Tel Aviv and then changed to a train to Jerusalem.

Conversation with Hostel Lady:

Hostel Lady:  So where are you off to today?

Laura: We're going to hire a car to Galilee.

Akko
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HL:   Ok, what you do is get on the number 10 bus, that will take you to the bus station which has buses to Tiberias.

L: Right, but we're going to hire a car.

HL: Yes, Galilee is very beautiful, will you stay in Tiberias the night?  Tiberias is where the bus will drop you.

L:  No, because we're going to DRIVE to the Golan Heights tonight and stay there.

HL: Behind you is a flyer for a hostel in Tiberias, it's very nice.  I would recomend staying there if you haven't already booked somewhere.

L: Thanks.  Can I just get the key deposit back?

HL: Yes, have you brought your sheets down?

L: No, didn't realise we had to.  If you give me the key back I'll run up and get them.

HL: You don't need the key.

L: Yes I do, I locked the room.

HL: Yes, you can go through this door here, it is not locked.

L: But I locked the room with the key.

HL: So why do you need a key?

(Eventually she understood and gave us the key, we brought her down the sheets and she gave us the deposit back.  We found the key in our bags a couple days later, hee hee.