Yesterday our bus driver Ali and guide Jim took us up to the the highest part of this country, near Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria, up to the Golan Heights.
This is a stunningly beautiful and sparsely populated land of foothills and plateaus and tall snow-capped peaks, of fertile orchards and vineyards and vibrant wildflowers, of nature reserves with historic sites and waterfalls, of ranches with white cattle and rock-strewn fields for grazing.
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| Waterfall at Banais |
And yes, of land mines and tanks and bunkers, and military presence. We saw for ourselves evidence of 1967, 1973, and more recent conflict, how empty villages are, except for the Druze areas, and how the United Nations has set up a disengagement zone. In fact, we drove around the designating boulders in the road and right through it. People go about their daily lives yet I can't really imagine what it must be like to know that enemy missiles could reach my home. Or that my children need armed guards for a school field trip.
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| Boulders designating entrance into disengagement zone - you can't not see them! |
With an ever more fervent hope for peace in the world, we wound our way back down from the heights to the Sea of Galilee.
This is a stunningly beautiful and sparsely populated land of foothills and plateaus and tall snow-capped peaks, of fertile orchards and vineyards and vibrant wildflowers, of nature reserves with historic sites and waterfalls, of ranches with white cattle and rock-strewn fields for grazing.
