"Golan Heights"

After we basked in the Banias experience we went a little bit further in the bus to a gorgeous waterfall. Technically I believe we were still in Banias, but this place was breathtaking for at least two reasons. As you hiked down and back from the waterfall the hike was enough to make you short of breath if you were as out of shape as I am; but more to the point is the power with which the waterfall at Banias flows and the tropical appearance of the area. One could slip a photo of the Banias waterfall into a National Geographic article on the “waterfalls in the tropics” and no one would be the wiser. I had to assume that Jesus would want to visit places like this on his trips, that the disciples would ask him; “teacher when we are up near Caesarea Philippi may we go by the waterfall…Thomas doesn’t believe it’s there…”

Although it seemed disconnected from the theme of the day (Paganism, I guess was the theme…) we went a little further to Nimrods’ fortress. I know the ladies in our group enjoyed this entire day, but in retrospect it was a guy kind of day, what with Ashtoreth poles, huge caves, and waterfalls and now a huge fortress called Nimrod’s Fortress. It sits on top of a hill like ice-cream does on a cone, very visible and impressive. Over 630 yards long the fortress has been attributed to Crusaders but was probably built by the early Turks and is made all of stone. Even the huge archways, window arches, and arrow-shooting “slits” were of hewn stone. Whoever controlled this fortress controlled the crossroads from Syria to Israel, southern Lebanon to Syria and north Jordan to Lebanon. When Yoni told us we “only’ had 45 minutes to explore the fortress I thought he was being facetious but it took every bit of the 45 min just to check out the main parts of the fortress. This is most certainly a place where pictures describe a place better than words.

Lastly we ascended a small mountain to an old Syrian lookout lost to Israel in the 1967 war. This was sobering, at least for me, in that the bunker we toured was all steel, old, and tube-like and I could imagine the Syrian soldiers chained to the steel by their own officers so to not be allowed to retreat when the Israelis overtook the site.(Yoni had told us this story as we went up to the bunker) At the same time, the view north-ward from this point was breathtaking! Lebanon to the northwest and Syria to the northeast; both sworn enemies of the LORD’S chosen…Pretty schizophrenic really.

Amazing day…