Day 19 Friday

I completed an update on the iPad and now I don't know what I am doing ... Text as back to normal again. Good or bad I do not know.

It was some sadness that we parted from Pilgerhaus and Galilee this morning but all good things must come to an end. Here was today's dawn taken as went for my nominal walk before breakfast.

Breakfast was leisurely this morning ... Enough time for me to waste time and money in the tourist shop under the reception of the resort. The prices I thought were in shekels but I found out from the singing nun at the desk they were actually in Euros and I needed to multiply by 5 for shekels and then divide by 3 point something for Aussie dollars. All I bit too hard for early in the morning.

First and only real stop today was Mount Tabor. This was the traditional site of Christ's Transfiguration - you know the story where , at the top of the mountain and in front of two of his disciples , Jesus became transfigured and appeared to be speaking with Moses and Elijah. Although the mountain doesn't sound high - 588 metres - it was a steep and narrow clump up ... so much so that we had to get into small 10 sweater taxis to make the last hairy ascent. 

 Here we are waiting for the taxis. You can see we still have some way to go.

The Basilica at the top was once again quite impressive and I managed to take a few transfiguration photos of my own.

In this one I caught a para glider circling around the sun. It seemed everyone wanted to be in on the act.

After our trip to the top, we needed to say goodbye to our two inspiring guides Ghada and Nouha Boulos, shortly before getting stuck in a congested roundabout on the way out of a village on the side of the mountain. Our driver managed to back the bus all the way up a steep hill without barely a car's width to spare on both sides combined.

Here is a shot of village taken in the taxi ride down the mountain.

The trip home was spent taking in the views of desert plains and date tree plantations along the Jordan River.

Plans have changed for tomorrow and we are off early again to Hebron. It seems if we don't go tomorrow we will miss out on visiting the mosque we have planned. 

It's Jane and my wedding anniversary tomorrow so I'll have to get up extra early for a morning - afternoon Skype link up.

Only 8487@8.50 so I might head on down to the Western Wall after this and check out if there are any Sukkot's set up. More about this later.