Egypt, Jordan, and Israel Trip
This trip began with an email from some friends asking if we wanted to go on a trip. Having traveled with them before, we wrote back "sure!". Our next email helped fill in the missing part - "Where are we going?". The answer to that question was Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. Sounded good to us.
This trip was going to be a little different from our previous ones. We knew little about the tour company arranging the trip, it was going to be by bus, and we were rarely going to spend more than one night in a place. We call this kind of trip an appetizer tour. This trip was going to prove to be a very different shooting experience from being at the dGrin shootout at Acadia. In Acadia we were able to take time to think about and setup a shot - this trip was going to be grab and go. Ella felt at home with this type of shooting as she began her career as a photo journalist when she first got out of school. She quickly fell back on her experience with this type of shooting. What neither of us had planned on was the actual amount of time we would be shooting through a bus window. Talk about using a non-neutral density filter. If we have to do this again, we are going to shoot color cards through the bus window to help with the color correction afterward. Meanwhile - PS curves to the rescue (more or less). Bus windows make for some unusual, and very ugly, color casts.
In spite of these issues we had a good trip, saw a lot of interesting stuff, and met some nice people.
GPS track of our trip:
Our arrival at the airport in Cairo was a little confusing. We had been told to wait ahead of secuity for our guide, so we did. After nothing happening and no one showing up, we went ahead and got some Egyptian pounds and our visas. No one appeared to be waiting for us and the immigration lines were near empty so we went through and found who we were looking for on the other side. We were a little concerned they were going to close the immigration stations as the people at the booths were walking away as the lines from our flight cleared.
As it turned out while we did need the visas, we did not need to change as much money as we did. If you are going to be able to get out and walk around the city, some Egyptian currency would be good to have; if you are on a tour you probably do not need to have Egyptian currency - all the shops were very glad to accept whatever currency you have.
The chaos and apparent lack of organization at Cairo airport was an appropriate introduction to the country. Cairo is a little overwhelming - over populated, polluted and congested. The streets are dusty, the roads are noisy and the traffic is laughable (but not nearly as bad as Bangkok). It is not often you see old cars, new cars, camels, horses, and donkeys sharing the same roads.
If we were do do this over, we would have liked to spend more time in Cairo walking around. We would liked to have gone to Luxor, but we did not have time to add this to the trip. As it was, we saw some of the Coptic part of the city, the pyramids, and the Egyptian Museum. The Coptic part of the city was interesting. It was a bit of a surprise to see armored guard posts and checkpoints on the streets. Not to mention the armed security man that was always with us when we were traveling in Egypt and Jordan. Traveling with a security person seems to be standard for a tour group.
The Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo was a bit of a surprise to us. While we expected the colonial era building, we did not expect to see colonial era display cases (with colonial era dust). Photography is not allowed in the museum and as they wanted you to leave your camera in a camera check room, we decided it best to leave our cameras with our driver. There is a lot in the museum and it would have been nice to spend time there. The King Tut area was too crowded to really see anything and there was too much stuff, too close together. We had seen the "Treasures of Tutankhamum" exhibit that toured the US in the late 1970s and I guess we were expecting to see something like this wonderful exhibit. The only problem with the US exhibit, we saw it in New Orleans, was having to wait all day to get in and then being rushed through.
The Giza Pyramids plateau site contains the three most famous, and most photographed of the Egyptian pyramids, those of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus); a number of ruined lesser pyramids and temples; the Great Sphinx and the Boat of Khufu (Cheops). As others have written here, the surprise about the pyramids was how much Cairo has surrounded them. However, this did not keep it from being a great experience seeing them. Here we did have some time to think about what we were going to shoot and wait until we could get the shot we wanted. We almost missed getting to see the Sphinx as our tour guide was in such a hurry to get us to a "papyrus museum" so that we could buy stuff. One of the people traveling on the tour realized what was happening and convinced the guide we were more interested in seeing the sphinx than in spending money at his friend's shop. We still got to visit the shop the next day - no way he was going to let us miss that!
From Cairo we headed east to the Sinai with the village of St. Catherine as our destination. The Sinai is the dusty, desert peninsula that extends from the Gulf of Suez in the west to the Gulf of Aqaba in the east. It was the escape route for Moses and the Israelites. St Catherine's Village is the small, desert town that exists to accommodate tourists that come to visit Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine.
We crossed under the Suez Canal through a tunnel. The friends we were traveling with had recently traveled on the canal during a cruise. They were able to find a quiet place high on the superstructure of the ship that gave them great views of the surrounding countryside. While we had the views of the countryside from the bus, we never did see the canal.
Guards at the entrance to the Suez tunnel.
It was a strange experience seeing the Sinai. There were many holiday resorts along the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba that looked abandoned. It may have been the day of the week or the time of the year that made them look this way or the economy - don't know. There were may times we would have loved to stop the bus and shoot. There were some great but subtle colors in the desert and the shadows had very interesting patterns. We saw one sand dune that was fantastic, but before we could get a camera up and focused, it was gone. This was a grab and go part of the trip, not a stop and look. We did stop a few times and enjoyed getting non-bus-window shots.
Yours truly in our best blend into the dirt clothes:
In the Sinai road blocks are common, and the presence of spiked wheel puncturing devices and camouflaged gun emplacements gives the impression that the Egyptians are expecting an imminent, all out war. Needless to say, no pictures allowed. I like to get shots of the flag of the country we are in when we travel. I was not able to do this in Egypt since all the flags I saw were attached to either a military or police location.
We were stopped at one of the checkpoints just after dark near St. Catherine's village. The police there said someone on the bus was taking pictures of the checkpoint and this is clearly not allowed (and we had been told this repeatedly by the guide). For a few minutes it looked like we were all going to have to get off the bus for this offense and do I know not what. The guide looked real worried and this did not make us feel very comfortable. I was envisioning cameras being taken etc. Anyway, there was some discussion and we were allowed to go on our way. As we were leaving the checkpoint, there was another bus being unloaded - I suspect there was some kind of shakedown going on at this checkpoint. If you are a traveling photographer, this is a very good reason to have a portable backup device with you to pop your memory cards into before you go through checkpoints.
At St. Catherine we had the opportunity to walk up Mt. Sinai for the sunrise. When we heard we would have to leave the hotel at 1:30am and would not return until 9am for a 9:30 bus departure, we decided we would pass. Call us wimps but we are glad we got the sleep instead. We did get up for sunrise and got some interesting shots of the valley the hotel was in. We also got to spend some time with an Egyptian photographer who was at the hotel for an energy company conference and was out at sunrise also.
From the hotel we traveled to the Monastery of St. Catherine. St. Catherine's was constructed by order of the Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 AD. It is built around what is thought to be Moses' Burning Bush. St. Catherine's is also a formidable fortification, with granite walls measuring 8 to 35 meters tall. Prior to probably the twentieth century, the only entrance to St. Catherine's was a small door 10 meters high on the wall, where provisions and people were lifted with a system of pulleys. It is one of the oldest monasteries in the world.
From St. Catherine we headed for the Egypt/Israel border crossing at Taba. This was to prove to be a minor ordeal. It took over three hours to get across the border. Luckily it was late in the day, and the sun was not too hot. As we could not take pictures around the border area, we quickly got bored standing around. We began to entertain ourselves seeing what reason people would give to try to bypass the line waiting to get into Israel.
We were in Israel about an hour before it was out of the bus and back across a border. This time it was the Israel/Jordan border at Eilat/Aqaba. This crossing did not take as long as the previous one. The crossing itself was a bit strange. It was now dark, and we were walking through a two hundred meter long "no man's land" between the two countries. This was a real bag drag. There was lots of barbed wire, signs about land mines, and orange colored lights. I had a flashback to the late sixties when I was stationed with the US military in Germany and traveled to the East/West German border at times. Sorry, no pictures. Our next stop was Wadi Musa, Jordan for our trip into Petra.
Sunrise behind the hotel.
Petra was the peak of the trip for the two of us. How can you not love being in the desert looking at buildings carved into canyon walls. This Wikipedia article can tell you much more about Petra than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra. We entered Petra through the Siq. The Siq is a slot canyon about 3 to 5 meters wide, over a kilometer long, with walls from 90 to 180 meters high. In places we were walking on cobblestones laid over 2000 years ago. As we approached the end of the Siq, we began to get views of the most elaborate building in Petra, the Treasury (Al Khazneh) .
We found the camels here to be nice, they would let you take their picture, ride them, and not spit on you. Our guide got us to Petra in the morning. I'm glad we did not come around noon or in the early afternoon. We had some good light for a while, and it was not too hot. As we were leaving there were many people entering. It was like trying to walk upstream against a stream of ants. Too many people.
After Petra it was back on the bus for the trip to Amman for the night. More desert on the way. Sure is dry there. We got into Amman late and left early so we did not get to see any of the city. Looks like it might have been an interesting city. However, neither of us can remember anything about the hotel - it is a complete blank. I think we stared at too much desert that day. On the way to the Jordan/Israel border we stopped a Mt. Nebo for the view across the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea. No sweeping picts of the valley - there was too much haze to see anything.
Our route from Mt. Nebo to the border came with a drop in altitude of about 1300 meters. My ears were popping as the bus went around the switchbacks like a sports car (at least I think the bus driver thought he was in a sports car). The crossing back into Israel at the Allenby Bridge, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, was uneventful compared to the crossing from Egypt into Israel.
Are you beginning to get an idea of the range of colors we were working with? Israel in the next post.
Knapp and Ella
This trip was going to be a little different from our previous ones. We knew little about the tour company arranging the trip, it was going to be by bus, and we were rarely going to spend more than one night in a place. We call this kind of trip an appetizer tour. This trip was going to prove to be a very different shooting experience from being at the dGrin shootout at Acadia. In Acadia we were able to take time to think about and setup a shot - this trip was going to be grab and go. Ella felt at home with this type of shooting as she began her career as a photo journalist when she first got out of school. She quickly fell back on her experience with this type of shooting. What neither of us had planned on was the actual amount of time we would be shooting through a bus window. Talk about using a non-neutral density filter. If we have to do this again, we are going to shoot color cards through the bus window to help with the color correction afterward. Meanwhile - PS curves to the rescue (more or less). Bus windows make for some unusual, and very ugly, color casts.
In spite of these issues we had a good trip, saw a lot of interesting stuff, and met some nice people.
GPS track of our trip:
Our arrival at the airport in Cairo was a little confusing. We had been told to wait ahead of secuity for our guide, so we did. After nothing happening and no one showing up, we went ahead and got some Egyptian pounds and our visas. No one appeared to be waiting for us and the immigration lines were near empty so we went through and found who we were looking for on the other side. We were a little concerned they were going to close the immigration stations as the people at the booths were walking away as the lines from our flight cleared.
As it turned out while we did need the visas, we did not need to change as much money as we did. If you are going to be able to get out and walk around the city, some Egyptian currency would be good to have; if you are on a tour you probably do not need to have Egyptian currency - all the shops were very glad to accept whatever currency you have.
The chaos and apparent lack of organization at Cairo airport was an appropriate introduction to the country. Cairo is a little overwhelming - over populated, polluted and congested. The streets are dusty, the roads are noisy and the traffic is laughable (but not nearly as bad as Bangkok). It is not often you see old cars, new cars, camels, horses, and donkeys sharing the same roads.
If we were do do this over, we would have liked to spend more time in Cairo walking around. We would liked to have gone to Luxor, but we did not have time to add this to the trip. As it was, we saw some of the Coptic part of the city, the pyramids, and the Egyptian Museum. The Coptic part of the city was interesting. It was a bit of a surprise to see armored guard posts and checkpoints on the streets. Not to mention the armed security man that was always with us when we were traveling in Egypt and Jordan. Traveling with a security person seems to be standard for a tour group.
The Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo was a bit of a surprise to us. While we expected the colonial era building, we did not expect to see colonial era display cases (with colonial era dust). Photography is not allowed in the museum and as they wanted you to leave your camera in a camera check room, we decided it best to leave our cameras with our driver. There is a lot in the museum and it would have been nice to spend time there. The King Tut area was too crowded to really see anything and there was too much stuff, too close together. We had seen the "Treasures of Tutankhamum" exhibit that toured the US in the late 1970s and I guess we were expecting to see something like this wonderful exhibit. The only problem with the US exhibit, we saw it in New Orleans, was having to wait all day to get in and then being rushed through.
The Giza Pyramids plateau site contains the three most famous, and most photographed of the Egyptian pyramids, those of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus); a number of ruined lesser pyramids and temples; the Great Sphinx and the Boat of Khufu (Cheops). As others have written here, the surprise about the pyramids was how much Cairo has surrounded them. However, this did not keep it from being a great experience seeing them. Here we did have some time to think about what we were going to shoot and wait until we could get the shot we wanted. We almost missed getting to see the Sphinx as our tour guide was in such a hurry to get us to a "papyrus museum" so that we could buy stuff. One of the people traveling on the tour realized what was happening and convinced the guide we were more interested in seeing the sphinx than in spending money at his friend's shop. We still got to visit the shop the next day - no way he was going to let us miss that!
From Cairo we headed east to the Sinai with the village of St. Catherine as our destination. The Sinai is the dusty, desert peninsula that extends from the Gulf of Suez in the west to the Gulf of Aqaba in the east. It was the escape route for Moses and the Israelites. St Catherine's Village is the small, desert town that exists to accommodate tourists that come to visit Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine.
We crossed under the Suez Canal through a tunnel. The friends we were traveling with had recently traveled on the canal during a cruise. They were able to find a quiet place high on the superstructure of the ship that gave them great views of the surrounding countryside. While we had the views of the countryside from the bus, we never did see the canal.
Guards at the entrance to the Suez tunnel.
It was a strange experience seeing the Sinai. There were many holiday resorts along the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba that looked abandoned. It may have been the day of the week or the time of the year that made them look this way or the economy - don't know. There were may times we would have loved to stop the bus and shoot. There were some great but subtle colors in the desert and the shadows had very interesting patterns. We saw one sand dune that was fantastic, but before we could get a camera up and focused, it was gone. This was a grab and go part of the trip, not a stop and look. We did stop a few times and enjoyed getting non-bus-window shots.
Yours truly in our best blend into the dirt clothes:
In the Sinai road blocks are common, and the presence of spiked wheel puncturing devices and camouflaged gun emplacements gives the impression that the Egyptians are expecting an imminent, all out war. Needless to say, no pictures allowed. I like to get shots of the flag of the country we are in when we travel. I was not able to do this in Egypt since all the flags I saw were attached to either a military or police location.
We were stopped at one of the checkpoints just after dark near St. Catherine's village. The police there said someone on the bus was taking pictures of the checkpoint and this is clearly not allowed (and we had been told this repeatedly by the guide). For a few minutes it looked like we were all going to have to get off the bus for this offense and do I know not what. The guide looked real worried and this did not make us feel very comfortable. I was envisioning cameras being taken etc. Anyway, there was some discussion and we were allowed to go on our way. As we were leaving the checkpoint, there was another bus being unloaded - I suspect there was some kind of shakedown going on at this checkpoint. If you are a traveling photographer, this is a very good reason to have a portable backup device with you to pop your memory cards into before you go through checkpoints.
At St. Catherine we had the opportunity to walk up Mt. Sinai for the sunrise. When we heard we would have to leave the hotel at 1:30am and would not return until 9am for a 9:30 bus departure, we decided we would pass. Call us wimps but we are glad we got the sleep instead. We did get up for sunrise and got some interesting shots of the valley the hotel was in. We also got to spend some time with an Egyptian photographer who was at the hotel for an energy company conference and was out at sunrise also.
From the hotel we traveled to the Monastery of St. Catherine. St. Catherine's was constructed by order of the Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 AD. It is built around what is thought to be Moses' Burning Bush. St. Catherine's is also a formidable fortification, with granite walls measuring 8 to 35 meters tall. Prior to probably the twentieth century, the only entrance to St. Catherine's was a small door 10 meters high on the wall, where provisions and people were lifted with a system of pulleys. It is one of the oldest monasteries in the world.
From St. Catherine we headed for the Egypt/Israel border crossing at Taba. This was to prove to be a minor ordeal. It took over three hours to get across the border. Luckily it was late in the day, and the sun was not too hot. As we could not take pictures around the border area, we quickly got bored standing around. We began to entertain ourselves seeing what reason people would give to try to bypass the line waiting to get into Israel.
We were in Israel about an hour before it was out of the bus and back across a border. This time it was the Israel/Jordan border at Eilat/Aqaba. This crossing did not take as long as the previous one. The crossing itself was a bit strange. It was now dark, and we were walking through a two hundred meter long "no man's land" between the two countries. This was a real bag drag. There was lots of barbed wire, signs about land mines, and orange colored lights. I had a flashback to the late sixties when I was stationed with the US military in Germany and traveled to the East/West German border at times. Sorry, no pictures. Our next stop was Wadi Musa, Jordan for our trip into Petra.
Sunrise behind the hotel.
Petra was the peak of the trip for the two of us. How can you not love being in the desert looking at buildings carved into canyon walls. This Wikipedia article can tell you much more about Petra than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra. We entered Petra through the Siq. The Siq is a slot canyon about 3 to 5 meters wide, over a kilometer long, with walls from 90 to 180 meters high. In places we were walking on cobblestones laid over 2000 years ago. As we approached the end of the Siq, we began to get views of the most elaborate building in Petra, the Treasury (Al Khazneh) .
We found the camels here to be nice, they would let you take their picture, ride them, and not spit on you. Our guide got us to Petra in the morning. I'm glad we did not come around noon or in the early afternoon. We had some good light for a while, and it was not too hot. As we were leaving there were many people entering. It was like trying to walk upstream against a stream of ants. Too many people.
After Petra it was back on the bus for the trip to Amman for the night. More desert on the way. Sure is dry there. We got into Amman late and left early so we did not get to see any of the city. Looks like it might have been an interesting city. However, neither of us can remember anything about the hotel - it is a complete blank. I think we stared at too much desert that day. On the way to the Jordan/Israel border we stopped a Mt. Nebo for the view across the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea. No sweeping picts of the valley - there was too much haze to see anything.
Our route from Mt. Nebo to the border came with a drop in altitude of about 1300 meters. My ears were popping as the bus went around the switchbacks like a sports car (at least I think the bus driver thought he was in a sports car). The crossing back into Israel at the Allenby Bridge, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, was uneventful compared to the crossing from Egypt into Israel.
Are you beginning to get an idea of the range of colors we were working with? Israel in the next post.
Knapp and Ella
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After crossing the Israel/Jordan border we drove across Israel to Jaffa. Here we enjoyed a quick walk around Jaffa, checked into the hotel in Tel Aviv, and took a dip into the Med. The next morning we were on the road to our next stop, Tiberia, on the Sea of Galilee. Along the way we stopped to visit Caesarea Maritima, Mount Carmel, Tel Megiddo and the Valley of Armageddon. All these places were interesting places to get some shots.
Caesarea Maritima was a city built by Herod the Great about 25 BC. The site is along the Med and it gives a great backdrop as you are looking around. In addition to the the standard columns, there is an aqueduct, a theater and a hippodrome. There were several groups of Israeli school children there for outings. One of the groups staged a race for us in the hippodrome. As with the other school groups we saw in Israel, this one had armed security people with them.
Mount Carmel church:
Tel Megiddo is a hill in modern Israel near the Kibbutz of Megiddo, known for its historical, geographical, and strategic importance. The site was inhabited from about 7000 BC to 586 BC. Since that time it has remained uninhabited and this has preserved the site. About twenty levels of habitation have been identified. The site is famous for the battles that were fought at its strategic location and for the battle the Book of Revelation says will be start there in the future - Armageddon, a name derived from the Hebrew words, Har Megiddo, for Hill of Megiddo.
Mt Precipice overlooks Nazareth and gives great views of the surrounding valley. While we were there there was a film crew taping something for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Ella caught a shot of their talent against the setting sun.
After this it was on to the hotel. We were going to be in the hotel at Tiberia for two nights. We thought this would be a good time to have someone else wash some clothes for us. Wrong - there was no such thing as next day laundry delivery at the hotel we were in. Back to the sink.
Our next morning began with a wonderful boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. This was a pleasant change from the bus.
But we were soon back on the bus headed for the Golan Heights. Some of the stops along the way: Caesarea Philippi is an ancient Roman city located at the southwestern base of Mount Hermon. This is one of the sources of the Jordan River.
On this leg of the trip we ate lunch in a wonderful Druz restaurant. The GPS reading puts us somewhere near Mas’adeh.
The land we traveled through on the way to our next stop, Capernaum, shows sign of the fighting that has taken place in this part of Israel. We saw several IDF camps, tanks, and memorials.
Capernaum was inhabited from 150 BC to about 750 AD but is a ruin today. The town is mentioned in the New Testament: in the Gospel of Luke it was reported to have been the home of the apostles Peter, Andrew, James and John, as well as the tax collector Matthew. In Matthew, the town was reported to have been the home of Jesus.
During our ride I had been seeing an interestihg looking plant along the road. Here I got to see one up close - nasty looking thing!
We next stopped to see the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha on the north-west shore of the Sea of Galilee. There were some wonderful mosiacs on the floor. In the Bible this is where Jesus fed the crowd with a few loaves and fishes.
The gradient tool in Lightroom was very helpful in evening out the flash exposure on the floor - the ceiling was too high to bounce the flash.
The next day had us back on the road to the southern end of the Dead Sea. We stopped at Bet She'an and Ein Gedi National Parks. Bet She'an is located at the strategic junction of the Jordan River and the Jazreel Valley. Its location has made it an important place since early times. The first mention of the town was in the 15th century BC. Remains of an Egyptian administrative center from the XVII dynasty have been excavated. Many of the ruins visible today date from the Greco-Roman period.
Ella's homage to Federico Fellini.
Between Bet She'an and Ein Gedi we continued to see Israeli memorials.
Ein Gedi was where I found I will probably never be a wildlife photographer - I could not get a good shot of goats in a pen. I don't stand a chance of getting one in the wild. I better stick to things that do not have fur or feathers.
Does anyone know what this monument is for? That is Jordan and the Dead Sea in the background.
I don't think the hotel we stayed in at Neve Zohar is technically on the Dead Sea. The beach there looked more like an evaporation and mineral recovery area. That did not stop it from being an interesting experience floating in the water. This the only place I have ever been where it was difficult to not float. As you got into deeper water or just lifted your feet - on your back you went. The hard part was getting back onto your feet. The water had the best reflective properties of any I have ever seen. I found myself looking everywhere for reflections to shoot. When I went down to the Dead Sea to float and shoot I decided to leave the SLR at the hotel and take a smaller camera. I'm glad I did. I was getting just above the top of the water to shoot, and water or minerals began to condense on the camera body. And this was after leaving the camera in the sun to warm up.
The mineral deposits in the sea bed were interesting. I saw some postcards in the hotel gift shop of shots someone had taken of the mineral deposits - I was ready to spend a few days here shooting the fantastic shapes they made.
After the overnight on the Dead Sea, Masada was our next stop as we traveled to Jerusalem. You can read the history of Masada on-line. We think it was a interesting place to visit. From the top of the plateau you can see the outlines of the Roman camps that were built during the siege of the first Jewish-Roman war. Herod the Great is supposed to have fortified Masada in about 35BC as a refuge in the event of a revolt. The cliffs on the edge of the plateau vary from 300 to 400 meters high. I'm glad there was a cable car for us to ride up in.
After Masada we visited Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. Took a few pictures but the main point of interest was the factory store for Ahava cosmetics. Got to get some gifts to take home at some point during the trip.
Jerusalem next.
Knapp and Ella
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We began our trip through Jerusalem looking over the city from the Mount of Olives. Ella found the patterns made by the Jewish tombs there to be worthy of more than a few shots. She especially liked shooting the rocks that had been placed on the tombs to honor the person buried there. Ella has a photographic thing for rocks. As we walked down the slope there was more and more to shoot. This sure beat taking pictures through a bus window.
Near the top I was able to find a spot to take a pano. We like the shot as it shows much of the area we spent time in over the next few days. This picture looks across the Kidron Valley to the old city of Jerusalem. The gold dome of the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount can be seen left of center.
On our way down the hill we stopped at the Church of all Nations at the Garden of Gethsemane.
After this it was time for the hotel. Clothes washing again; we were still getting the dirt from Petra out of the clothes we wore there. While we were in the valley at Petra, there was a wind blowing at times that was strong enough to cause us to turn our backs to it to protect our faces and the cameras. Between the wind blown dirt and what we picked up when we were on the ground trying to frame a shot it made for yellow colored wash water. The hotel in Jerusalem seemed to have more people in it that the others we stayed in during the trip. There were many tour groups there from all parts of the world. It was good to see that people from the US are not the only ones to abuse a buffet table. What we could not figure out was why people rush to be the first in the restaurant, the feeding hall, grab a table, and then fill several large plates with desserts before getting more very large plates filled with food.
Ella and I tried to find the foods prepared with a middle east style as opposed to only getting food we were familiar with. There is very little middle eastern food available in Maine so it was not difficult to find something we did not know about. While we are familiar with hummus, pita bread and certainly olives, we have never eaten such good tasting hummus, etc as we did there - can't get this in Maine. It reminded me of returning the US after living in Germany for two years and trying to find some beer I thought was drinkable. All during our trip in Israel our guide took us to non-tourist bus places to eat at noon. It was great.
Next it was time to explore the old city. We went to all the usual tourist places and enjoyed seeing it all. We began at the Western Wall and the tunnels.
The mens side of the wall.
An out of work peace dove.
Prayers in the cracks in the wall.
The Western Wall Tunnel is an underground tunnel exposing the Western Wall in its full length. The tunnel is adjacent to the Western Wall and is located under buildings of the Old City in Jerusalem. The Western Stone, located in the northern section of Wilson's Arch, is a stone block forming part of the lower level of the Western Wall. The stone is 13 meters (44 feet) long, 3 meters (10 feet) high and has an estimated width of 3 meters (10 feet). It weighs 500 plus tons.
Western Stone
The tunnels
Back onto the streets we enjoyed getting shots of the old city.
Lots of churches to look at.
More street scenes
Ella's favorite dessert - fried dough covered with honey.
Two of Ella's favorite things to photograph - chairs and rocks.
We walked part of the Via Delorosa. There were so many people here we were unable to get many interesting shots. Every time we stopped to get a shot we were in danger of being left by our group or were blocking the way of someone and were getting bumped into too much to get the shot.
Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Since the Crusades the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been in the possession of three major denominations: the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Orthodox and the (Latin) Roman Catholic. Other communities - the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox - also possess certain rights and small properties in or about the building. There seems to be a somewhat uneasy truce among all these groups within the church. The most important element of the complex is the rotunda which contains the sepulcher itself. The sepulcher stands in an elaborate structure within the rotunda, surrounded by columns supporting an ornamented, domed roof.
The Church of St. John the Baptist in Ein Karem is a Catholic church built in the second half of the 19th century on the remnants of earlier Byzantine and Crusader churches. Inside are the remains of an ancient mosaic floor and a cave where, according to Christian tradition, John the Baptist was born. The church has been in the hands of the Franciscans since 1674.
Bethlehem and some thoughts about the trip in the next post.
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Our trip into Bethlehem was an eye-opener. We knew about the wall that has been constructed and have heard from the Israelis we talked with about the security it has brought to their side. When we went into Bethlehem, we saw and heard about the economic destruction the wall has caused on the Palestinian side. One of the notable things about the wall is the graffiti on the Palestinian side of the wall. Since we were not able to get out of the bus all the shots of the wall were the grab and go type.
The political art did not stop at the wall.
Our reason for traveling to Bethlehem was to see the Church of the Nativity. This is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world. The first basilica on this site was begun by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine I. The construction started in 327 and was completed in 333. That structure was burnt down in the Samaritan Revolt of 529. The current basilica was rebuilt in its present form in 565 by the Emperor Justinian I. The main Basilica of the Nativity is maintained by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. It is designed like a typical Roman basilica, with five aisles (formed by Corinthian columns) and an apse in the eastern end, where the sanctuary is. While we were in the square outside the church, one of the Muslim calls to prayer began. It was quite loud. When we looked at the speakers on the top of the Minaret, we saw the speakers were pointing down at the church - a battle of words.
The next day was the last of our trip. Our flight departed at 12:30am the following morning and we had to be at the airport in Tel Aviv about three hours ahead of time. We spent time walking around the old city until it was time to check out of the hotel.
The hotel had a nice lobby with good food at the bar so we decided to camp out there and edit pictures until it was time to leave for the airport. We looked through all 10,000 or so shots and got the number down to about 1500 as the first cut for a slide show. Our eyes were crossing by then.
Getting through security at the airport in Tel Aviv involved less hassle than we had expected. All the security people were very professional and a pleasure to deal with. Taking off from Tel Aviv was beautiful. We were sitting just forward of the wings and with the light of the plane on the engine and the lights of the streets of Tel Aviv below it was quite a sight. All the cameras were in the overhead and I did not get a shot of it. This would have made a great ending for the DVD of the trip. I usually keep the G9 with me for shooting while flying - I'm still kicking myself for missing this one.
The flight back was good - we went to sleep just after take off and did not wake up until late into the flight. We landed at JFK and were once again reminded why do not like to go through customs there. While we were waiting at the gate for our flight to Maine, we were greeted by one of our neighbors. He is a Delta pilot and was just returning home from being the standby pilot for flights to Narita. He gave us a ride home from the airport in Portland. It was nice not having to take a taxi. This was a good arrival.
We hope this has given you some of the flavor of our trip.
Travel thoughts:
Cameras: Since we have done this type of trip several times we have been getting an idea of the type of gear to take. We thought a lot about taking super-zooms after seeing the type of pictures Beth Parks takes with one at the dGrin Shootout at Acadia. Beth is the most traveled person we have ever met. At last count Beth had been to 67 countries - she's our hero. If you want to read one of Beth's articles for the Bangor Daily News go to http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/108316.html and http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/108823.html.
For this trip we wanted to go lighter than we have done in the past but still use our better camera bodies (Nikon stuff). So the fast, heavy lenses had to stay at home. After a bunch of looking around I read some articles by Thom Hogan on the Nikon 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses. They sounded like what we wanted. Light weight, sharp, and inexpensive. If they got trashed during the trip - no great loss. We bought a few of these lenses and were very happy with the results. We found we had to be aware of lens flare but that was the only problem we had with them. But when you are shooting through a bus window 70% of the time, you should not be too picky about your lens choice. We did not take our wide angle lens as I had decided to shoot hand held panos in place of having a wide lens. This works much better when you are shooting on the move. I can shoot the pano faster than changing to another lens.
Ella shot with two bodies so she did not have to change lenses. We have had lots of dirt problems when changing lenses in the type of conditions we find ourselves in on these trips. In addition, it just takes too long to change when you have to shoot fast. I used just one body as our fourth body had been converted to IR and I did not think I wanted to shoot IR on the trip. Wish I had taken the IR body now. I would have loved to see what Petra looked like in IR. I took a Canon G9 as a backup camera and in case I wanted to get some sound clips or short video. I should have used the G9 as my wide or long lens camera but I just do not like looking through its viewfinder or using an LCD screen to frame a shot. While I had a longer lens for the DSLR with me, I found I used the 18-55 most of the time; it was just too much of a hassle to change lenses. Next trip I will either use two cameras or carry an extra lens on my belt instead of in a backpack.
To travel with the cameras on the plane, I used a standard backpack and Ella a Crumpler bag with the dividers removed. We packed two cameras and lenses into Eagle Creek hard side cases inside my backpack with the computer and locked the backpack when we put it into the overhead. Since I have sleep apnea I also had a small travel CPAP machine in my backpack. Ella had the other camera and lens, cleaning equipment, batteries, CF cards, etc in her camera bag. We always travel with extra locks, a small cable, and a Pacsafe pack back protector. We use the Pacsafe when in hotel rooms without safes to give some protection to the camera equipment, external hard drives, and computer. We had one of everything we could not shoot without in our carry-on luggage, e.g. battery chargers. We also try to keep everything split between us so if one bag is stolen we still have a camera to use.
Backup: Each night I would copy the image files from the CF cards to a Sony Vaio laptop using a Delkin cardbus card reader. This seems much faster than using a usb reader. This is an old laptop so it runs usb 1. To copy the files from the cards I use ImageIngester. As I copy the files over, they are renamed with the date-time stamp and put into a separate folder for that day's date. I preface each file name with the initial of the person who was using a given camera body and fill in the IPTC location fields. From the laptop I used MS SyncToy to copy the files to two external usb powered drives. The hard drive on the laptop is too small to store more than a few days shooting. I was usually doing this at night when we were trying to eat, clean our bodies, and wash our clothes so there was no image chimping. The two external drives were always kept separate from each other. After I checked to make sure the images were on the external drives, I would re-format the CF cards. I also backed up the gps track each night. I like using SyncToy as this could run unattended while we were doing other stuff - like getting some sleep.
GPS: I have messed around with geo tagging on some local shooting and decided to do it for this trip. This was a good decision; I really liked having a map of the trip and the shooting locations ID'ed. Since we would have four cameras, I decided I wanted to have a GPS with data logging. I thought about getting the Nikon unit but did not know a way of syncing the information from the in camera tagged shots to the files from the other cameras. I have an older Garmin gps I decided to use. This unit is not as sensitive as the newer units but I did not want to buy a new gps just for this trip. I bought an external antenna for the gps and this worked great. To increase the effectiveness of the antenna, I mounted it on a small metal plate. The antenna has a magnetic mount. I kept the gps unit inside my pack and mounted the antenna on the outside of the pack at first. However, I found the best way to use the antenna was to have Velcro strips inside the pack and on the metal plate. I would put the antenna between the metal plate and the inside of the pack material all held into place by the Velcro. This way the antenna would not get knocked off when I was in a crowd and I felt it would draw less attention when I was going through the many checkpoints we traveled through. While on the bus, I kept the pack near a window and it was able to get a signal most of the time. While this worked well, I would like to have a smaller gps unit I can easily have with me when not carrying a back pack. The di-GPS Pro L looks to be about what I want. I used RoboGeo to upload the gps track every night so that I would have it backed up. I could not find a way to use RoboGeo to backup the waypoints I created. I think it can do it, I just could not get it to work correctly. I should have tested this before I left on the trip. To backup the waypoints, I took pictures of the gps waypoint screens. I would also make a note in my travel notebook of the time we were at a site I wanted to remember the name of in addition to taking a picture of any signs that might help me remember. I used 1 minute updating for the gps track. I will change this to a smaller interval on the next trip.
We have just about got the clothes dialed in. We have carried over a saying from our kayaking days to our travel clothes – cotton kills. Some of the people we traveled with this time wanted to know if we had been on a safari before this trip started. I think Ella would like to have some clothes with a little more fashion to them. All of our clothes pack small, are light weight, and can be washed in the sink and be dry in the morning. The socks are the only exception to this as they do not dry completely overnight. However they are usually dry enough to wear if needed and there is always a hair dryer.
We only take long sleeved shirts to give us protection from the sun and insects when needed. The brands we have come to rely on are ExOfficio (pants, shirts and underwear), and LL Bean (shirts and supporting a local business). I also like Kuhl jeans; they are light weight, have room in the legs to easily get down on the ground for low shots, dry fast, and the fabric is tough. Since we are often traveling out of Maine in the winter and going someplace warmer, our outer wear has come to be light weight fleece jackets and light weight, waterproof rain jackets. We also usually have a pair of light gloves and warm hats. Light weight hiking boots with some ankle protection rounds out the outer wear. This combo has worked well for us.
Things to do different:
Shoot RAW + jpg: I want to spend some time getting a good out of the camera jpg image so that I do not have to spend so much time processing the images for a slide show. We shot color checker charts for each of the cameras and the profiles I built helped with some batch processing. Still I need to get faster at doing the post for a slide show.
If we find ourselves shooting through bus windows again, we are going to shoot the color checker through the bus window. This should make doing color correction after the fact easier.
Still need to pack lighter. Although we were under the limits for international travel, we, make that me, still take too much stuff. I made a list of everything I took as I was unpacking and will use this list to help get back to less stuff. We have made a two week trip in China with only carry-on bags and two small backpacks so we know we can do it.
We do not read enough in advance about the places we are to visit. We are better than we used to be but still need improvement. Our favorite guide books at this time are the ones published by Rough Guides.
Well, that's it. Hope you enjoy the pictures. If you would like to see shots from our travels in Asia please go to http://www.stonecoastphotography.com/Places.
Thanks for looking,
Knapp and Ella
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I just visited Jordan myself, will certainly try to find time for Israel, Syria, Egypt, and other surrounding (and relatively tourist safe) countries
Great shots, guys. I really envy your visit to Petra. Fortunately for me, I booked with another operator to Egypt and skipped Petra. Just as well. My hotel was blown up!
I'm off to Borneo in April. Should be fabulous!
Beth
Thanks Beth,
Hope you have a great trip. We are not sure where we will head next. We have been talking about it but have been unable to agree on even what part of the world much less where.
Petra is worth another trip to see. We would have liked to go into there at night and spent at least a day exploring.
We appreciated your warnings about the toilets in Egypt and went prepared.
Knapp
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Thanks, Knapp
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Ditto. Read it all with relish! And, of course, the photos.
My husband was posted to the Golan Heights when he was in the Canadian Military several years ago (he's retired now) - before we met - and I always wondered what it was like. I'll be forwarding your link to his computer for sure. Thanks so much for sharing with us.
Ceci
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