Friday we planned to go to the Carmel Forest. On Thursday afternoon I went to the entrance of the park to get a map so we could plan our day. While I was there I saw a huge vulture circling in the sky. It was cool! Unfortunately they only had a map in Hebrew. It looks like there are a lot of cool trails but without being able to read the signs we could probably get lost pretty easily and being lost in the HOT sun would not be fun. The park Ranger did circle a couple of spots on the map for reference points and showed me where Daliyat Al-Karmel was. This city is one of 14 Druze villages in Israel. The members of this community are an independent sect of Shiite Muslims. Jethro (Moses father-in-law) is there most revered prophet and they are forbidden to smoke, drink alcohol or eat pork. There are many places to shop along the main street but we decided not to stop to look. Just past Daliyat Al-Karmel is a small monastery that commemorates the site where Elijah defeated 450 prophets of Baal. There was a tour bus there and we tried to listen in to the monk until we realized he was speaking Italian. At the end he walked by and he said in English... did you understand what I said? I said no, but we followed them to the rooftop of the monastery to look at the view of the carmel forest and the surrounding plans. It was not a clear day so we were unable to see Mt Hermon :-( I was hoping to get an abbreviated version from the monk once we went back downstairs, but it looks like he was part of the Italian tour group and left on the bus with them. We walked around the small garden and took pictures of some of the statues and then left.
On to Megiddo. This excavation site has uncovered ruins dating from 7000 BC to 332 BC! Apparently (like most cities here) it was controlled (built/rebuilt) by many different people groups including the Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Israelites. The ruins included a Cannanite Temple, chariot stables, a palace from Solomon's time, a grain silo, and a tunnel engineerd by King Ahab to allow acces to water if they were attacked. We were surprised at the number of archeologists on site digging while we were there. It seems like there were at least 5 groups of 10-15 people each (some spoke English, we didn't bother any of them though). It was amazing to see the ruins, but the tunnel was the coolest thing to see. There were some intersting veiw points of the Jezreel Valley below. And to think this is where the Battle of Armageddon referenced in Revelation takes place. What a site.
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