Excursions

Israel’s biblical hit parade: Dead Sea to Sea of Galilee

The Dead Sea, as seen from Masada in Israel.

We have a little extra time, and tour guide Yaniv Bar knows exactly how he wants to spend it. Our vehicle follows a paved, curvy road to a stark hilltop where the view feels both plain and profound.

This is it? This is it! Through the morning haze, I am introduced to the largest freshwater lake in Israel.

“What we see from here holds two-thirds of the events in the New Testament,” Yaniv begins.

Below us is the pear-shaped Sea of Galilee, fed by the Jordan River, ordinary in appearance and overwhelming in reputation. Think about walking on water, or feeding 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread.

In and near this lake’s 64 square miles is the land of miracles, a part of the bedrock that explains and upholds the tenets and tales of Christianity. It’s treated as hallowed ground, even among skeptics and disbelievers.

Signs of faith and hope fill the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem.

I expected the global mix of languages, skin tones and attire. I was stirred by the universal expressions of hope and faith: scarf-covered heads, humble bows, hushed to fervent prayers.

Resurrection can mean a rejuvenation of spirit as well as the revival of life, and that process is ongoing among the countless people of faith who find their way to Jerusalem, Israel’s most sacred city.

What I didn’t expect was the thick assortment of vendors who sold wood-carved camels and tightly woven carpets, just-baked pita bread and crosses of silver and pewter as I followed the 14-station, 650-yard Via Dolorosa (“Way of Grief”).

I resist the temptation to buy a tidy four-pack of holy water, soil, olive oil and incense. I gave in to a thick and sweet slosh of warm almond milk with dried fruit and cinnamon.

Six-toed cats rule at Hemingway's house, Key West, Florida, USA.

Dozens of cats have six toes. Roosters show up for Happy Hour. Most graying men look like Hemingway.

Anything goes, or so it seems. All sizes of bras hang from a tavern ceiling. Gay-friendly tea dances draw lively crowds. Midwesterners smoke Cuban cigars, since they can’t fly ’em home legally.

As sunset nears, guys swallow swords and breath fire, or juggle while maneuvering a unicycle or tightrope. One shimmies out of a straightjacket, covered with locked links of steel that seem as thick as snow chains, as his audience grimaces.

The antics and celebration happen day after day, as though sundown will never take place again.

This is Key West, long embraced by pirates and poets, the flamboyant and the reclusive, tense politicians and lippy parrots. It is where “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was written, and where characters for “To Have and Have Not” were found.

Bellavista restaurants, nightlife in Santiago, Chile.

Exquisitely fine wines, meticulously preserved architecture, an abundance of fresh seafood and easy access to natural wonders make Santiago a logical and pleasant base for getting acquainted with western South America.

Whenever the destination is Chile, U.S. travelers most likely land in this capital city for at least an overnight. Santiago, home to the nation’s busiest airport, provides the strongest (and sometimes only) link to attractions that are as unique and mysterious as Easter Island’s huge stone monoliths.

The long (2,700 miles) and skinny (100-mile, average) country of Chile bursts with grandeur and extremes, from the wind-whipped glaciers of Patagonia to the Mars-like terrain of the Atacama Desert – the driest place on Earth.

A heron blends into the marsh grasses.

Farm families didn’t take vacations when I was a kid in the 1960s. We took Sunday drives, leisurely ventures into the countryside to assess whether corn was high enough, alfalfa thick enough or fields dry enough to plow. What we learned about nature’s rhythms depended upon the season.

Having a single destination wasn’t the point, unless the bite of falling temps and brisk winds were drawing us to Horicon Marsh, our annual autumn pilgrimage. The big attraction was Canada geese – not the mournful honking of a v-shaped formation, but one corn-cropped field of roosting birds after another, enough to turn ground color from frostbitten ash to near-solid black.

Our chunky Chevy would skirt the perimeter of the 32,000 acres, following a 36-mile loop in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties that is known today as Horicon Marsh Parkway. Decades passed before I appreciated the area’s ecological wealth during another season.