Back Home Again, He Remembers Mostly Customs

Dinner at the Hotel Galei Kinneret on the Sea of Galilee was idyllic. We dined on a terrace overlooking the dark shining sea. Eucalyptus trees along the shore threw a pattern of dark leaves against a full moon. The air was balmy.

A small combo played Israeli songs, which a young woman sang passionately. When they played the universally known communal dance Hava Nagilah, many of our party went out on the floor and danced, joining arms, dancing in a circle, kicking their legs up this way and that.

Like the others, our last day in Israel included so many storied biblical sites that I am hard-pressed to separate one from another. I do remember that we visited Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, working, it is thought, in his father’s carpentry shop, and playing in the streets like any other child. We also entered the Church of the Annunciation, above the grotto in which the angel Gabriel is said to have appeared before the Virgin Mary and told her she would bear the son of God. We also drove past Mary’s well, without stopping. This is said to be one of the most authentic sites in the Holy Land, a spring to which Mary and her son went many times for water. Alas, it was dry.

We drove along the mountainous rim of Haifa, Israel’s modern seaport on the Mediterranean, then had lunch on the open terrace of a restaurant in the ruins of a stately palace that had been built, I think, by the Crusaders, though possibly it was Herod. At Caesarea we walked in a Roman amphitheater, only recently restored.

We were to leave Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv late that afternoon for Cairo. The security check was as thorough as it had been in Cairo. We had to show our passports at half a dozen checkpoints before we were allowed to board. It was arduous, but I’m sure none of us minded.

We spent that night at the Hotel Meridien, in Cairo, and got up the next day at 5 o’clock to start our long voyage home.

It was a day to remember. Not only did we have to lug our bags through a security check once more, this time through the monumental chaos of Cairo Airport, but we flew home in three stages.

We flew first to Paris. The fields of France, a pastoral patchwork of many greens, were easy on the eye after the arid stretches of the Middle East. The plane sat on the ground an hour in Paris, refueling, before flying on to New York.

In New York we had to hustle our bags through customs. Fortunately my wife and I had nothing to declare except about $240 worth of costume jewelry and T-shirts, and the customs agent did not search our bags. It was a breeze, and welcome. We were home again.

There was a long, tedious layover before we boarded our American Airlines flight for Los Angeles. Then a tedious fight home. We did not land until 10:30 p.m. Considering the time difference between Los Angeles and Cairo, I figured we had been on the go for 27 1/2 hours. We still had two hours to go before we would be in bed.

I am not a good traveler, and that final day almost did me in. The jet lag was devastating. I was a zombie for more than a week. I still may be. If I got half my facts right in this account of our trip I will consider myself lucky.

I am afraid my account of the tours may seem disgruntled and cynical. Actually, I am glad I went, though the trip was brutally strenuous at times. Ancient Egypt is, of course, magnificent. It cannot be described, and I have not tried to describe it. To grasp the Pyramids, and Abu Simbel, and Luxor, one must stand before them. They are beyond the power of words and statistics.

The other night I met a friend at the Mark Taper. He said, “You blew it in your story about the Great Pyramid.”

I asked him what he meant. It would not have surprised me that I had blown it. He said, “You said it had 2.5 million stones in it, and that each stone weighed about 2.5 tons. That’s impossible.”

But it isn’t impossible. To quibble, Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the number as 2.3 million; but both my guide books agree on 2.5 million. And all agree that each block weighs 2.5 tons. That’s the thing about the Pyramids. They are beyond our conceptions.

As for Israel, it is also beyond description, as I have demonstrated.

Go if you can. But don’t forget to drink the local beer, if you want to come back alive.