Welcome

Hello, and welcome to the next step in my post-military globe-trotting. Many of you followed my first blog (tonyrides.com) as I traveled the United States on my Motorcycle, riding over 18,000 miles and reaching 49 states and three countries.

In this next installment, my friend Jerod and I will be going abroad for an open-ended jaunt. We will start in the Middle-East at the end of February and see where the roads and the winds take us.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Back to Israel...

Good afternoon all, Jerod here--my first actual internet blog, on Tony's site or otherwise.  Yes, I am somewhat of technological caveman, so bear with me.  I just wanted to add a few additional notes on Tony's otherwise stellar documentation of the last day or two...

Last night we camped out at Zelon beach on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee--where it's believed that Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fish, among several lesser known feats.  We were pretty worn out from a long day of public transport and the notoriously stringent Israeli border crossing, but were treated to something of a miracle in itself--as we walked onto the clearly deserted beach, a couple of staff for the campground took us in, gave us tea and some food, and after getting the tent set up, we also shared a sip or two of Arak, a very popular middle east liquor similar to Sambuca back in the States.  Despite the language barrier we managed to share a few laughs.

Our first hitchhiking experiences of the trip were rather positive--it's a way of life in Israel, especially these nothern sections that aren't particularly well served by public transport.  Despite our large backpacks and rather shaggy looks we managed to get rides relatively easily.  It's also helpful if you can make friends with an Israeli who can assist with the language barrier, and today Tony and I were lucky enough to do just that.  We hitched somewhere around 60 km or so today to the town of Tsfat, where we plan to spend Passover and use as our general outpost for the next several days. 

One last note, just to demonstrate the issues of transliterations between Hebrew and English, take the town we're currently in for example--we've seen at least this many derivations of it during our travels--Zefat, Tzfat, Safed, Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat...I guess you can see why it was pretty helpful to make friends who can help you out.

3 comments:

  1. Jerod, I would like to commend you on an outstanding first blog! Kudos! Miss you guys :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also send my props on your first blog, Jer! Good work. I liked the part about seeing the spot where Jesus performed the miracles. That's pretty amazing stuff... Stay safe you guys.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Jerod - Hillary here from Ramallah. Nice work on the blogging! I especially liked the comment about the different spellings of Tzafat haha!
    Nice to hear about the travels you guys are having :)
    Stay safe!

    ReplyDelete