Jesus Trail

There is a trail I found out about a few months ago and determined to do before I left Israel.  The trail is a 4 day hike from Nazareth to Capernaum and is called the "Jesus Trail".  The trail was created a few years ago and is supposed to recreate the experience Jesus had when leaving his home town of Nazareth and walking to the Sea of Galilee (and specifically Capernaum) to preach.

I decided to do as much as I could in two days, walking from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee (I figured Tiberias was enough, as long as I made it to the sea).  And so with my backpack, peanut butter, granola, apples, water, firestarter, flashlight, ipod, and guidebook, I took two buses early Friday morning to get from Jerusalem to Nazareth (about 2.5 hours north).

Starting off the adventure, on the bus ride to Nazareth, I met Rami. Rami is an Arab Christian from Nazareth and it was fascinating talking to him. He works during the week in the Old City in Jerusalem as a "detective" for the Israeli police.  He did his 3 year army service like all the Israelis, even though he is Arab.  Nazareth is an Arab city, 1/3 Christian and 2/3 Muslim, and I asked him about the tension between Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.  He said there was tension and the Muslims resented the Christians for things like Rami's Israeli army service.  He told me how they lived in separate neighborhoods in Nazareth and pointing to one side of the street we were walking on, he said, "this is a Muslim neighborhood" and pointing to the other side of the street, "this is a Christian neighborhood". Rami did not have any Muslim friends.
I officially started the trail at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the church that commemorates when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary.

This is the inside of the Church

 The Basilica of the Annunciation is special because all inside and outside the Church are hundreds of mosaics depicting the Annunciation.  Each mosaic is from a different country, each showing their cultural representation of the event.  I took a picture of the Vatican, as I particularly love that the Pope is the dominating figure in the mosaic, haha.

All the mosaics

From the Church, the trail leads through the city of Nazareth, climbing up hundreds of steps to reach the outskirts.  Even in this first part, I already was lost!  All I knew was that I needed to go up, and I hoped that as long as I climbed up, I would eventually find the trail marker.  Phew, it worked!

This is the first trail marker to lead me out of Nazareth! White and Orange stripes

As I was leaving, the Muslim prayer call (5X a day) began, echoed through the hills, and followed me out the city.

And so it begins! I leave Nazareth and am immediately in beautiful agricultural countryside.

Sheep and their Shepherd in the Galilee

I quickly had my first of many encounters with cows, passing right through several of them.  As I did, they all turned and stared and I become a little unsettled.  I assumed cows were friendly but I had very little experience with them.  As I walked by, images from the Temple Grandin movie flashed through my mind. Temple could lay down right in the middle of a herd of cattle and she was just fine!  I would be too... right?

Luckily I made it through.

After walking for a while through these fields, and having not seen a trail marker for an hour or so, I suddenly walked into a major road!  

I wasn't sure what the expect on the trail, but I knew that I wasn't supposed to be by any big roads at this point.  Second time being lost, just a few hours into it, but this time I was quite a bit out of the way.  With my maps and critical thinking skills, I guessed which road I was by, and decided to follow it for a little bit to the next city that was on my designated trail.  

(see town on hill off in the distance?)

When I arrived to the next town, I approached a father and his 5 year old son working on the car in their driveway.  I asked the father, "Where is Cana?" because Cana was the next big town I was to pass through on the trail.  He spoke no english but offered me a chair and called out his wife, who brought me a glass of water.  He then proceeded to draw me a map and explain to me how to get to Cana. The whole time the little boy stood staring at me, and whenever I would look at him, he smiled and turned away shyly. So cute!  They were a very kind, helpful Arab family.

I followed his directions as best I could until I came to a mosque that I recognized from my book!  And underneath were those blessed white and orange stripes leading my way. 

the mosque I recognized

the house of the Arab family who helped me

a beautiful Muslim cemetery in the town

Finally in Cana.  Cana is another Arab city, this is also the same Cana where Jesus performed his first recorded miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding.  I walked through "Street of the Churches", lined with several different Christian churches commemorating the miracle.  Also in Cana, I was greeted at every corner by children following me and calling out "Shalom, Shalom!".  A couple of boys even asked me to take their picture, so I did :)

Leaving Cana was exhausting, with a continuous climb upwards. I had finished only about half the hiking for the day, but I was done.  My feet hurt, my legs ached, I was tired and hungry for something other than peanut butter and apples (this craving would only worsen).  But I knew my destination for that night and I took a break and then continued on.

laying in the grass, on a break

pretty flower

The next stretch was in the countryside again, this time passing through seemingly endless olive tree groves.

A critter hiding in the rocks. In this picture it looks like a bear, but it was much smaller than that!

All this time I was alternating between navigation, trying to stay on or find my way back to the trail, scrutinizing the surrounding rocks and trees for trail markers, and listening to the New Testament Gospels on my iPod.  I wondered if Jesus felt this tired and sore on the walk.  I mean, I know they did a lot more walking thousands of years ago, but he was just a carpenter, right? So did he stick to the little town of Nazareth most of the time, and then when it came time to travel, it was just was painful for him as it was for me?  I could suddenly understand how he could sleep in the middle of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. He was probably exhausted!   

Also, I was doing this hike in January, with sunshine and 70 degrees. I couldn't ask for better weather.  What if he were doing the walk in the summer, with blistering heat, up and down and up and down the Galilee hills?  Yikes!  I felt sympathy for him, because after all he did, he was also a man subject to the same bodily sufferings as the rest of us.  And as children called out and swarmed me, I wondered if it was at all similar to Jesus passing through towns later on in his ministry, with people following him and calling out to be healed.   I was starting to get a better sense for how he might have felt.

The sun was sinking behind the hills and I still had a few kilometers to go.  I had gotten lost once again (how did I keep missing those trail markers?) and spent a fair amount of time cutting straight through plowed fields and olive tree groves. But I knew where I was and made it to my sleeping spot just after dark: the Yarok Az Goat Farm.

They put me in their "dorms" which was a little shack outside with several beds, along with another Jesus trail hiker, Miriam from Germany.  I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go immediately to sleep, but I stayed up just long enough (until 8.30pm) to take a hot shower (absolutely wonderful) and have pasta with Miriam and a farm volunteer, Gil.  Gil was the nicest Israeli I think I have ever met.  He gave me a hug and said that people should hug more often (so completely un-Israeli), and told Miriam and me about his beliefs in good people and a heaven where we all came from and would return to after this life.  He said that people needed to remember that more, and he felt like it was his job to remind them.  

I went to bed to the farm sounds of dogs barking, sheep baaing, and chickens crowing.  The next morning I was able to see just how beautiful this little family farm was.

my favorite goat. he likes to be pet

garden

my dorm shack

my bed

 Before I left, I added my name to their Jesus trail wall, forever leaving my mark on the Yarok Az goat farm.

adding a string from my name to Utah

Jesus Trail wall: where the hikers come from.  Tons from Germany

me pointing to my pin in Utah (even though it looks like I am pointing to Israel)

As sore and tired and unwilling as I felt, I left the peace of the goat farm to begin my second day of hiking. The second day turned out to be my favorite.

I passed a beautiful forest...

a Holocaust memorial...

and walked for miles through cattle pasture, away from all roads and towns in what was my favorite part of the hike.  I remember I kept hearing a noise above me, thinking it must be an airplane or a car nearby, and I look up to see that it is the swoosh of a flock of birds above me instead. I loved the quiet and the green and of course, the cows.

those hills in the distance: Horns of Hattin

I loved how when I passed, they all stopped to stare at me!

From the cattle pastures, I hiked up the "Horns of Hattin", two peaks that offered a tremendous view of the valleys below and my first glimpse of the Sea of Galilee!

The Horns of Hattin are famous because it is where the final decisive Crusader battle took place.  Saladin and his army defeated the Crusaders here and drove them out of the Holy Land. 

It was also the first time I saw other hikers on the trail and it was clearly a hotspot for Israeli families to come on the weekend.  I could see why. It was spectacularly green with an amazing viewpoint.

view from one side

top of the horn

hard to see through the haze but there is the Sea of Galilee!

top of the horns

after hiking down, showing the steep trail

the hike down was a little steep!

After the Horns, I walked along a country road for a long time, cut through more olive tree groves, and ate delicious oranges off of a tree (much better than peanut butter).  I reached the Sea and cut down through the city of Tiberias to the Central Bus Station to catch a bus home to Jerusalem.

I hiked about 25 miles in 2 days and felt that I had at least a glimpse of the same scenery and feelings that Jesus might have had 2000 years ago.  I felt a huge sense of relief when I could finally see the Sea of Galilee and imagined that it was probably the same for him.  After all, Jerusalem was where Jesus went went required, but the Galilee was where he made his home. The Galilee was the country that he loved.