A visit to "Safari" in Ramat Gan

Yesterday, for his birthday, I took David to Safari in Ramat Gan. Safari is a combination of a drive-through wild animal park and a more conventional zoo. When I got home and uploaded the pictures to my computer, I found that I had shot more than 270 of them! Here are just a few of the best, with some words about each:
It's a good thing that I had my window rolled up, because this ostrich was a determined pecker!

Here's that same ostrich before he started his pecking campaign. He was moving his head a lot, so I was lucky to get this great shot!

Even without the zoom, these two hippos were pretty close to the car, but the zoom on my camera really brings them in for us to see. Quite interesting animals, I think.

This zebra was right in front of our car. As you may notice, this picture was actually taken through the windshield!

I took this zebra's picture through my left window, which was rolled down. The wild animal park has LOTS and LOTS of zebras. Aren't they beautiful creatures!

Beautiful or not, some of them are definitely striped beggars!

Just a little reminder that this wild animal park is right in the city! Ramat Gan is the city immediately inland from Tel Aviv. In fact, the Ayalon freeway is really all that separates them. In this view, you can see some of the buildings of Ramat Gan, a big power line tower, and a pretty little deer, all in the same picture.

The King of the Beasts! David counted about 9 or 10 lions in the lion area, but this one seemed to be the king. Once again, a power line tower reminds us where we really are.

Here are some of the other lions in a nice group photo.

I thought these antelope with their wavy horns and their interesting coloration were very beautiful.

Hard to believe, but this is a real animal. It looks like some kind of strange morph between a primate and a poodle. There were quite a number of these in the same enclosure, and several of them seemed to enjoy sitting and posing like this for the visitors. I call them the Posing Poodle Primates -- it has a sort of a ring to us, doesn't it?

This was the biggest bird we saw at the zoo! Yes, I really did shoot this from right in the zoo, using the maximum optical zoom on my camera! As some of you may know, the final approach path to the Ben Gurion International Airport passes right over Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. I don't know if you can see it in this somewhat reduced-sized photo, but the words on the plane spell out "Russia" in Cyrillic (Russian) letters!

This zoo has quite a large collection of various primates, and this gorilla family was one of the most interesting. The big one on the left had a gray back and seemed like the patriarch of the clan.

When I first saw these bears (there were several of them), I thought they were polar bears, but then I read the sign, which said that they were "Syrian brown bears", which used to be quite common in this area but which are now endangered. It also said that these were the kind of bears we read about in II Kings 2:23-24 regarding the prophet Elisha, shortly after his predecessor, Elijah, had been taken up into heaven in the fiery chariot: "He went up from there to Beth-el. As he was going up on the road. some young lads came out from the city and mocked him, saying to him, 'Go on up, Baldhead! Go on up Baldhead!' He turned around and saw them and cursed them in the name of HaShem. Two bears then came out of the forest and tore apart forty-two of the lads." So, I think I won't be messing with these bears, even though this one actually looks pretty nice!

We saw quite a number of giraffes at Safari, both in the zoo and out in the wild animal park. I took several pictures, of course, and I think this one is the nicest, at least partly because the dark background contrasts so nicely with his beautiful long neck.

Here's a nice ostrich picture where you can actually see the whole bird. Notice his daintily raised foot, and also notice the contrast between the ostrich and the crow. Normally, we think of the crows as one of the larger birds (and they are indeed bigger than most of the common birds we see -- although they are 2-toned here rather than solid black as in the U.S., they are the same size and they sound identical!), but this one looks incredibly small next to an ostrich!

Return to Gamla

Today, I made sure to feed the snakes first thing so that we'd have time for a little trip. So, we headed out once again to Gamla Nature Reserve. This time, we decided to hike out on the trail to the waterfalls (the highest in Israel, at 51 meters), about 45 minutes each way according to the guy at the gate. And, I think that's actually about how much time it took us. David didn't make it all the way, but sat he and waited for me while I walked to the place from which one can view the falls. The trail was rocky and somewhat muddy, which made it a little more difficult to walk on, but it was still an interesting hike. We also walked a short distance down a paved trail to the vulture lookout area, and, sure enough quite a few vultures were soaring over the canyon.

The following are several pictures that I took along the way, with some commentary on each of them. Enjoy!
These are some small yellow flowers that were blooming everywhere in that area.

This is an example of something called a "dolmen". There are thousands of these in the Golan, including about 700 around Gamla. They were erected 4000 years ago (!) during the period of the intermediate Bronze Age.

Here's a picture of the waterfall itself. In the background, in the upper left, you can see the round moutain (Har Peres), which we can also see directly east from our house.

In case the flower picture made you think of Spring, here are a couple of photos that will make you think of Autumn: a tree in full Fall color, near the parking lot, and a detail of some beautiful leaves on another tree, along the trail.

This is a picture of a fennel plant. These grow quite abundantly is this area.

Finally, a vulture. Although there were quite a few soaring over the canyon, it was very difficult to actually capture one in a picture with my camera, which is really not fast enough for this kind of photography. Nevertheless, I did get one fairly good picture, which you see here. The vulture is in the extreme upper right corner. In the lower left corner, you can see the Kinneret. The second picture is simply a detail from the first showing only the vulture.

A tiyul on the 25th of December

Yesterday, 25 December 2008, we decided to take a drive just to get out of the house. Local light showers were predicted for the day, so we didn't count on being able to get out and walk much. So, we decided to head for the קריון Krayon, a big mall in the קריות Krayot, the area northeast of חיפה Haifa along the sea. The area got that name because it is the plural of קריה Kiryah, and there are several towns in that area whose names begin with קרית Kiryat (which means "cluster of", "town of", or "suburb of"): קרית ים, קרית מוצקין, קרית ביאליק, קרית אתא. The name of the mall, קריון Krayon, is no doubt a contraction of the words קריות krayot and קניון kanyon, which means "shopping center" (and NOT "canyon" -- incidentally, there IS a mall in Haifa whose name is גרנד קניון Grand Kanyon!).

At any rate, when we got there we drove all over the parking structures and the open parking lots, but we could not find a single open parking space (and there were plenty of other cars looking for spaces, too!). So, after 45 minutes of this, we decided just to skip it and continue down the road to קניון לב המפרץ Kanyon Lev HaMifratz ("Heart of the Gulf Shopping Center"), where we have been many times and where we can ALWAYS find a parking spot!

Sure enough, we did find a place right away. We went into the mall and browsed a little. We considered trying to go to a movie at the new 23-theater complex that they recently added, but we weren't able to figure out which movies were actually playing, so we decided against it. After quenching our thirst, we decided to get back into the car and head for טבריה Tverya ("Tiberias").

I had seen a description in one of our atlases about a place called ארבל Arbel, which is a national park located on the top of some cliffs near Tverya, so we decided to check it out. By time we got into the area, we were beginning to get hungry, so we went down into Tverya first (remember, Tverya is next to ים כנרת Yam Kineret, also known in English at the "Sea of Galilee", which is more than 200 m BELOW sea level) and had French onion soup at a nice little restaurant there where we had eaten a couple of times before.

Then we drove back up to where the road to Arbel leaves the main highway (just above sea level) and headed out for Arbel. We got there at about 3:15, leaving us enough time to hike up to the top of the cliff and back to the parking lot before they closed, at 4:00. The 5 pictures accompanying this entry are ones that I took along this hike. In the first picture, you can see a view of the cliffs (looking northeast) as we approached them (where the sun is lighting the foreground and the cliffs but not the background). The second picture is a view with the sheer cliff that we went to the top of on the right. This is looking almost directly north, I think. The 3rd photo is a view ACROSS the gap (to the northwest). The fourth is a view of the Israeli Arab village at the foot of the cliff. Finally, the last picture is a view of the cliffs from BELOW, near the Kineret (looking southwest), which I took as we were driving home.

So, it was a lovely tiyul, the scenery was beautiful, and even the weather cooperated!

A visit to Gamla

Yesterday, I had some free time in the middle of the day, so we decided to take another trip to the Golan. We went to the Gamla Nature Reserve, which we had tried to go to once before, but it had been too late in the day, and it had been closed.

This national park is important for several reasons. First, there is the natural beauty. Three streams flow together in this area, and each has cut a canyon. The most impressive is Nakhal Gamla, a view of which you can see in the first photo. Several species of birds of prey and scavengers make their nests in the steep walls here. Perhaps the most important is an endangered species of vultures. Two thirds of the remaining individuals in the entire country live in this canyon! Up at the head of this canyon (probably near the clump of trees you can see) is the tallest waterfalls in Israel (which we didn't go over to see this time).

Also, although this is December and hardly the beginning of Spring yet, there were several flowers already blooming. The third picture is a close-up of a lovely blossom on a tree (probably a שקדיה "shkediah" almond tree).

In addition to its natural wonders, this park is also of great historical and archeological importance. In the second picture, you can see a bit of the ancient city of Gamla, which flourished from Hellenistic times until 67 C.E., when the Romans destroyed it. This city is known both from the Talmud and Josephus, who lived there at one time and who wrote about the battles. After its destruction by the Romans, it was never rebuilt, and its location was not known in modern times until it was discovered again in 1968! Its name, גמלא Gamla (which is probably Aramaic), by the way, comes from the Hebrew (and probably also Aramaic) word גמל gamal, which means "camel" (and from which we no doubt get our English word for this animal!), and this is due to the fact that the hill on which it sat looks somethings like the humps on a camel. If you look closely in this picture, you can see some of the ruins of a building in the city, some of the wall built to keep the Romans out, and, in the upper right, the northern end of the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee"), where the Jordan River flows into it.

A trip to the Golan

Today, one of my classes was canceled at the last minute. This is a "late cancellation", so I will still get paid. Anyway, this gave us some free time in the middle of the day, and it was a beautiful sunny day (after being rainy all day yesterday!). So, we decided to take a drive.

After crossing the Jordan River, we continued up into the Golan nearly all the way to Syria. Then we turned south on the main road that runs along the eastern side of the Golan. After a while, we came near a round mountain that we can see straight east from our house.

For some reason, the pictures are in the reverse order from what I intended. In the last picture, you can see a view of the mountain from our house (taken using the maximum zoom on my camera). In the next-to-last picture, you can see the mountain from up close.

Although there is a military on the top of the mountain, one can actually drive almost all the way to the top before getting to the entrance gate. In fact, before that, we drove around a crater, which is not so surprising since these peaks on the Golan are all volcanic. In the 3rd picture, you can see a view across the crater. On the other side is the gap through which we came on the road. Far in the distance, you can see Har Meron, the highest point in pre-1967 Israel, which is west of Tsfat.

I took the 2nd picture from the west side of the round mountain looking west towards Tsfat. It's actually rather hard to identify Tsfat, because Har Meron is taller and is directly behind Tsfat in this view.

After returning to the main road, we continued south. Eventually, we took a road to the west and down to the Kinneret (the so-called "Sea of Galilee"). On the way, we stopped at a little rest area where we stretched our legs a little and I took some more pictures. The first picture is one that I took from here. Tsfat is in the upper middle of this picture, Har Meron is on the left, and you can see a little bit of the Kinneret in the lower left. Isn't this a pretty view?

Relocating "Spot"

This is Spot, a male cat in our neighborhood who was mean to the other cats. He used to challenge a yellow male, whom we named "Ts'hovi", even though Ts'hovi didn't seem to want to fight at all. He also chased a beautiful and sweet female, whom we named "Blackie". In fact, all the other cats seemed nervous when Spot was around. Spot was friendly to people, but I kept chasing him away because of the way he treated the other cats. Both Blackie and Ts'hovi sometimes missed the morning feedings because they were afraid of Spot.

We called our vet, Roi, who is also the city vet. He said he would lend us a trap so that we could relocate Spot. On Thursday, I picked the trap up, and on Friday morning, David managed to catch Spot in it.

He remained in the trap (actually a cage) on our porch until I finished teaching for the day. Then we loaded him and the cage into the back seat of our car, drove down the hill, passed through Rosh Pinna, continued on across the Jordan River, drove up the other side of the narrow river valley, turned right on a road towards the south, and then turned left on a narrow side road. A little ways down this road, we stopped, took the cage out of the car, and let Spot out to run away across the empty field. He seemed glad to be out of the cage and away from us. I don't know what has happened or will happen to him, but he has at least a chance of making a new life for himself, and he will definitely not be returning to bother the other cats.

We felt a little sad for him, because, in many ways, he is a nice cat, at least to people. But we knew that he needed to be removed from this area.

Tour of Banias, a.k.a. Caesarea Philippi

Last Wednesday, I had some time in the middle of the day without classes, so we decided to do a little tiyul to Banias. This city was established in about 3 B.C.E. and was known then as "Caesarea Philippi". Those of you who have read the Christian Bible may recognize this name.

The city was set right by a vertical stone cliff with a shallow but tall cave near one end, and several temples were built at various time right next to the cliff. The patron saint of the city was Pan, the goat god, so there are temples to both him and his consort, Echo. Pan was also the god of sudden fear, from whose name we get the word "panic".

It's a perfect place for a city because there are plentiful springs of water there. We followed a trail alongside the main stream, called "The Banias", that flows from there. The trail led us under a Roman arched bridge, past a no-longer-used flour mill, and on to the palace of Herod Agrippa II. The palace was quite elaborate, including various passageways under its main level. We walked through one of these which passes right under the modern highway 99 (the highway leading from Kiryat Shmona to Har Khermon (Mount Hermon) and the northern Golan), which runs right through the ruins of the palace!

I have included 3 pictures from Banias. The first shows the Roman arched bridge. The second shows the highway through the palace (with a car on it). The third shows a view of the area next to the cliff, where the temples were located. In it, you can see a capitol of a Roman column and the opening of the cave.