We officially started the much awaited road trip around 11:00AM. The air was filled with excitement with the prospect of getting away from the crowded cities and venturing out into the vast outdoors of the beautiful national parks!

A stop in St George was necessary for the seniors to empty their overfilled bladders which also gave us a chance to eat the prepared sandwiches by my wife. About ten miles to the entrance of Zion a sudden downpour started which made visibility a few hundred feet only. Fortunately, this didn’t last very long! But I welcomed the rain as the west is experiencing the worst drought ever in decades!

We reached the park nearing 4:00PM and we decided to just drive the scenic route including the impressively long tunnel. As usual, vacations are not complete without group photos and selfies!

We checked in to our hotel in La Verkin about 20 miles outside the park. Here we are in our room with everyone eagerly chatting catching up and updating each one with the current gossips.

We will be checking out before 6:00AM tomorrow so we can stand in line for the shuttle inside the park in the Visitors’ Center. The shuttle will take us to the different park highlights not accessible to private vehicles. I suggested to the group that we can do the easy Riverside Walk located in the Temple of Sinawava. This is a 1.5 hour/2.2 mile walk with only a few feet of elevation. However, some in our group are not exactly fit to do any kind of walking.

Until tomorrow again for my updates and more photos…..

ZION TRIVIA: Zion National Park is a southwest Utah nature preserve distinguished by Zion Canyon’s steep red cliffs. Zion Canyon Scenic Drive cuts through its main section, leading to forest trails along the Virgin River. The river flows to the Emerald Pools, which have waterfalls and a hanging garden. Also along the river, partly through deep chasms, is Zion Narrows wading hike. (from Google)

As I was writing this blog the world’s short-lived celebration regarding the return to “normal” after almost a year and a half of mask mandates and social distancing came to an end in many states (Nevada mandated that masks are required for vaccinated or non-vaccinated people effective July 30, 2021) due to the significant increase of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Fiery and emotional arguments from both sides, pro-mask and anti-mask, are ongoing but I leave that for others to resolves.

My wife, Trinidad and her cousins planned this road trip in June this year as the COVID restrictions eased off. We were all excited to be able to visit all the places that have been languishing in our bucket lists! Our group consists of ten people – eight of them coming from Southern California. They rented a 15-seater van and will pick us up in Las Vegas today, July 30th. From here, we will proceed to Zion National Park, our first stop. The other places in our itinerary are: Bryce Canyon National Park, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone National Park (and maybe Teton), Mount Rushmore, Denver, CO, Moab/Arches National Park, Sedona, AZ then finally back to Las Vegas where we will be dropped off and the rest of our group can enjoy all the amenities that Sin City has to offer.

I will try to post updates including photos tonight if I get a strong WIFI signal in our hotel.

LET’S ROCK AND ROLL!!!!

Note: This post is a day late due to woefully slow wifi….

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world and is considered holy to the three major religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their city. Again, I am not an expert to try and explain this complicated situation.

Today was a very exhausting day, both physically and mentally. An intense day of reflection awaited us as we started our day. Our bus took us to a high vantage point (Mount of Olives) overlooking the city giving us a fantastic view of many of the tours highlights, the most prominent was the shimmering golden dome of The Dome of the Rock. While there, a shopping frenzy occurred as we all found great bargains of hats, shawls, religious articles, etc.

Next we visited the oldest olive trees with their gnarled trunks dating back millennia!

After visiting the Church of Anne (Virgin Mary’s mother) we started our walking tour. Luckily, the weather was still pleasant. The walk gradually inclined and one relative had to request for a wheelchair so she could continue the tour.

We went past the Lion Gate to start Via Dolorosa (The Way of the Cross) following in Jesus’ footsteps as He borne the cross to Calvary for his crucifixion.

There were dozens of tour groups from all over the world and this the high season in Jerusalem. Geva’s (our guide) major concern was keeping our group intact so he had to ask assistance every now and then for one of us to help him monitor the group and make sure no one goes astray.

We visited a couple of other places like the underground cistern and tried to get into a chapel but was closed. There were souvenir shops, juice store and restaurants on both sides of the narrow streets as we made our way to all the stations.

We had a lunch break around noon. The restaurant that Geva selected was located in a nice patio area. We wanted to eat a la carte so Trini asked the waiter/owner for the menu who rudely told her, “just sit down!” without any further explanation that there were options and not a set menu (which we later learned). The man either could not speak English or that is how he talks to every customer. Regardless, Trini responded back, “I am not sitting down nor will I eat in your restaurant”! So off we went across the street looking for another restaurant. By the way, we found one and the waiters and owner treated us decently than the other dude.

After lunch, we continued on to visit Jesus’ tomb at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. The place was cavernous and the dimness inside with hints of fragrant incense wafting in the air added some mysticism to the solemnity of the place. We stood in line for more than two hours shuffling with the rest of the teeming humanity at a glacial pace. We alternated sitting along the narrow concrete benches along the wall of the tomb to rest our aching backs.

It was interesting to see that while you and hundreds of other pilgrims wait their turns for hours to touch Jesus’ tomb a few “lazy and inconsiderate” tourists cut in line. Patchie (who coordinated this trip) tactfully told a couple who made their way slowly beside me that we have our own group and that they could not “insert” themselves in. They were decent enough to back off and maybe tried to find a group that would take them as “asylum seekers” (just kidding).

At the mouth of the crypt’s entrance stood a couple of Christian Orthodox priests who “encouraged” you to move along to keep the long queue moving.

After the Holy Sepulchre everyone needed a break so off we went in search of a coffee shop that could accommodate all 40 of us. Geva is the epitome of a diplomat/politician who can sweet talk everyone. We got into this small joints but was not enough for all of us so many sat in the benches under the trees in the square.

Next we walked to the Western Wall where we were able to witness an induction (?) of new military conscripts. Rows and rows of young male and female conscripts stood at attention while the speaker gave them a motivating speech (that’s how it sounded to me anyway).

After the umpteenth roll call and body counting of the day, the male and female parted ways to go to the Wailing Wall.

SHALOM Nazareth! After a very organized check-out (literally hundreds of tourists in the same hotel) we headed south in the country’s Route 90. It was a surreal feeling actually setting foot and ejoying the vistas and meeting the citizens of a country that we’ve only seen through the media. It was interesting to hear from our tour guide about the birth of Israel and its current complicated geopolitical situation.

We drove to Jericho, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is located near the West Bank and the Jordan River. The city was taken by Israel during the Six Day War of 1967 (for history buffs, Netflix has a great movie about this war called Angel). Jericho is under the Fatah faction of the Palestinian National Authority. I don’t want to confuse you so I suggest you go in the internet and research about this complicated political situation that I mentioned above.

After crossing a guarded entry to the city, we did another obligatory stop in a souvenir shop whether you liked it or not (I’m beginning to think the tour guide and driver gets a commission from the sales of the stores). Overlooking the souvenir shop is Mount of Temptation where according to the bible Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan. More obligatory photo ops (not intending to offend my friends and relatives but I think their photo sessions are too much! detracting them from learning and reflecting how important this trip is – historically).

By the way, we learned that the Filipino popular singer, Rico Puno passed away (hopefully not a fake news). My brother-in-law took out his iPhone and played one of Puno’s songs – Buhat. We bade Rico farewell and Geva, the guide asked us if we wanted to hear any Israeli song. I started singing Hava Nagila and a few others joined me! Geva was surprised that we knew that song (it was very popular world wide in the 60’s).

We stopped at the Qasr el Yahud baptismal site where according to tradition, Jesus was baptized by St. John the Baptist. After the brief visit, all 15 minutes, we headed for lunch. I, and I’m sure others in the bus too, get irritated sometimes with the tour guide because he would give us a very limited time when visiting some of the most important sites but he would let us linger for an hour or so in the souvenir shops (commission?).

Lunch was much better than the previous days and the only complaint was the waiters were too slowwwww in refilling our salad trays (it was not done in our table) and our water pitchers. There were about a couple of hundred tourists served by only a handful of waiters!

The bus continued on to Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus and King David. We attended mass (again) at the Church of the Nativity then headed to a very long queue that would be comparable to the interminable lines in theme parks. After standing in line for a good 90 minutes we finally reached the most holy spot where Christ was born. It took no more than five seconds to kneel and touch the spot as the Orthodox priest kept barking orders (in a low tone and nicer of course) like drill sergeants to keep the line moving otherwise it’ll take forever. Those with physical disabilities had difficulty getting up and had to be assisted.

By now, it was getting cold and the breeze picking up. Fortunately, our group was one of the last pilgrims to leave the place, hence, we avoided another pushing and shoving through the tiny door of the church. We walked back to our bus while being hounded by souvenir vendors yelling their prices and gradually lowering them as you ignore their sales pitches. One of them yelled, “No good Filipinos, I give good price, you no buy”! Sure buddy, your ware is half the price around the corner. A couple of our relatives bought leather travel bags 150 percent more than another relative! Haggle, haggle, and walk away!

We were exhausted and hungry after a long day. Some wallets thinner than others but we were all in good spirits. We reached our hotel past 7:00 pm and we went directly to the dining hall as the tour guide did the checking-in for us. Our room is tiny with nary a spot to put your toiletries. But you get what you paid for…

Today we traveled to the Sea of Galilee stopping en route to visit the Mount of Beatitudes where according to the bible Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount.

Next, we visited Capernaum home of the apostles Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew. We saw the ancient synagogue and the house of St. Peter who was then the head of Tabagha.

We went to the shore of the Sea of Galilee and those brave enough to go down the rocky and treacherous shores were rewarded by filling their empty water bottles with “pure” water from the Sea of Galilee.

Then we headed to Tabagha to visit the church commemorating the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread!

The group went to Magdala where Mary Magdalene was from. Magdala has ongoing excavations.

After visiting Magdala, we took a one minute bus ride to a very busy restaurant where we had a choice of fried or filleted tilapia, chicken, and lamb kebab with unlimited salad bar. I chose the fried tilapia and pushed it down a bottle of the local beer (tasted flat as it had only 3.5% alcohol). The food was better than yesterday’s fare but many of our group members complained of the prices! Oh well…

After the heavy lunch, we drove about 15 minutes to the River Jordan as there were people interested on getting re-baptised (after learning that it was not cheap most backed out and only one went through with the baptism).

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

We stayed in the River Jordan watching people getting baptized. After about an hour (with shopping of course) we headed back to our hotel. On the way our tour guide, Geva asked us if we wanted to stop by a diamond center explaining that Israel has one of the finest diamonds in the world. Guess what? loud affirmative responses from the ladies. So off we went.

While the rest were watching a video about diamonds, I and a couple of other guys were invited to the store manager’s office for some “refreshments”. We were offered a finger or two of Chivas Regal whiskey which we didn’t hesitate to accept.

The ladies were shown different sizes and quality of the rocks but when they saw how much they cost their enthusiasm rapidly evaporated! Super-expensive indeed. To make a short story shorter we left the store without any purchases. I can visualize the manager’s face as he looked at his almost empty bottle of Chivas….

The City of Nazareth as seen from our hotel room terrace

Yesterday was a very interesting trip with a couple of “bumps” along the way, figuratively, of course. First, the hotel forgot to turn back the clock so the automatic wake up call roused us from our much needed sleep at 5:00 am instead of the usual 6:00 am! Then there was the issue as to where to eat a decent lunch since everyone was disappointed at the previous day’s set menu (mostly salad and the chicken was super-dry) and the restaurant’s rude staff. Geva, our tour guide promised us an a la carte menu and would consist of meats like shish kebab (not sure of the spelling) and beef. However, when we arrived at the restaurant their menu was similar from the day before except for the shawarma. To make a long story short, every one ordered the expensive lunch and ate while Trini and I and Luz and my brother-in-law sat in the restaurant’s patio since we refused to eat. It was not the price but the choices of food that the restaurant offered was the reason we did not eat.

There was also the issue of rotating seats as some of our fellow tourists wanted to seat up front. Geva let us decide among ourselves but with a large group of 40 a unanimous decision was impossible. Those with the louder voice was heard – first come, first serve!

We went to hear a Catholic mass in a nearby chapel in Arabic and we were welcomed warmly by the congregation. After the mass, the bus drove us to BET SHE’AN, one of the world’s best preserved Roman cities. Ongoing excavations at this UNESCO World Heritage site have revealed time-worn colonnaded streets, bathhouses, theaters, etc. (This was very similar to the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey). It was so awesome to visualize the thriving modern city during that time! I wanted to walk around and explore the area more and climb the steep stairs up a hill with more ruins but the temperature was going north – and the majority of our group refused to move an inch (bragging aside, there must be only a handful in the group including myself that is physically fit to do the strenuous walks).

The Church of the Anunciation

The Church of the Anunciation

After the disappointing lunch break, we went to CANA where all the couples in our group renewed their wedding vows (including us) at the Sanctuary of Our Lord’s First Miracle.

According to the bible, CANA of Galilee was where Jesus turned water into in a wedding feast He attended, His first miracle.

After the renewal of vows came the souvenir shopping and wine-tasting (the wine was so sweet, not my kind of wine)! We saw Geva holding a chilled bottle of Corona beer and we asked him where he got it. He said there were three more bottles left in the souvenir store where we had the wine-tasting. Luz and Bob quickly grabbed them and sipped it slowly savoring them. The Antonios (Trini’s cousins) also wanted some beer. They were directed to a juice store and we all stood along the narrow street enjoying the cold cerveza while our “newly wed” spouses sat around drinking delicious fresh pomegranate juice. The boys decided to buy a case to take back to our hotel and we grugdingly paid $3 per bottle!

Despite a few disappointments of the day, we ended up laughing and chatting with other tourists from different parts of the world! Ahhhh, what a big difference a cool alcoholic drink can do to your attitude….

Wifi is not up to par in the two hotels we stayed in in Tel Aviv and Nazareth. It takes forever to upload photos and twice I lost all data in my blog as a result of not having the patience to wait before it was saved.

I will be brief as much as possible in my travelogue and will send as much photos as the wifi would allow me.

We started our Holy Land Tour arriving in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 26, 2018. Our group consists of 40 other people, about half of whom Trini and I are related and know. The rest came from the East Coast and are meeting them for the first time.

Our group after an interminable wait in the immigration line

Our tour welcoming guy

The second day of our tour took most of the day: visiting Jaffa, Caesarea, Megiddo, Haifa and finally Nazareth where we will be staying for 3 nights.

It has been six months since Trini and I returned from our 48-day adventure covering three continents.

A week from now, Trini and I and about a dozen other relatives and friends are going on another journey to visit The Holy Land; Petra, Jordan to see one of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World; Egypt to finally experience a once in a lifetime visit to the iconic Great Pyramids of Giza and Sphinx; and a side trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to see the world-famous ultra-modern structures in the United Arab Emirates.

As always, I will keep you posted of our itinerary and hopefully bring the world to you via this blog vicariously.

Yesterday our river cruise ended although Viking is still paying for our two-night post-cruise stay at the Hilton Budapest City. It was a mixed feeling – sad that our adventure is winding down but glad that we will be finally flying home after 48 days away from home.

We took the included panoramic tour of Budapest after disembarking from the ship and before we checked in at our hotel.

Trini and I were in a European land tour in 2006 and one of the cities we visited was Budapest. We were amazed at how clean and crowded the city is now compared in 2006. I mentioned this to our pretty tour guide and she told me that tourism in Budapest had boomed and attracted millions of tourists from all over the world during the last ten years and continues to grow!

The weather was brisk and rain showers on and off but this did not detract the beauty of this former communist city.

Riverside beauty, a vibrant cultural scene and astounding 19th century architecture and romance blend together in Budapest to form one of Europe’s most rewarding cities. It straddles the banks of the Danube River, with traditional hilly Buda on one side and modern Pest on the other.

We immersed ourselves with the unique charm of Budapest while driving and strolling on both sides of the Danube. We stopped by the Heroes’ Square where we gawked at the iconic monuments commemorating the Magyar state where tourists were doing selfies to save this moment.

After driving around for a while it became apparent to me that the wide boulevards and the buildings’ striking façades resembled that of Paris, hence, this should be designated as Little Paris of East Europe.

The last leg of our city tour was a stop in the city center in Pest side where there was a huge Easter Fair where mouth-watering food were cooked right in front of you – pig’s knuckles, extra-large foie gras, super-long sausages made from various meats, pink large filleted salmons, different breads and pastries! It was difficult to decide where and what to eat.

After the tour, our buses took us to our hotel to check in – what a mob! There were about 190 of us that disembarked from Viking Lif and the same number who will be embarking on the same ship going the opposite itinerary that we just took.

After taking a long nap, Trini and I decided to walk back to the Easter Fair as I spotted a KFC there! It was past 7:00 pm and there were a lot of strollers like us. I took photos of St. Stephen’s Church – the largest in Budapest and the train station. On our way back we saw groups of young people sitting in park benches drinking beer (surprisingly, they were not boisterous). Very few stores where open since it was Good Friday which is considered a holiday here. Hungary is predominantly Roman Catholic.

Budapest must be in every traveler’s “bucket list” of places to visit. Two cities in one – you can’t beat that! We found Budapest to be much cheaper than Prague or Luxembourg. Even though the Hungarians do not speak very good English they are very warm and extremely helpful!