The Trip

In the Spring of 2014, our friends, Karen and Mike Myers, invited us to join them on a trip to the Holy Land.  We chose a trip from National Geographic after researching a number of travel options.  The NatGeo trip offered, not only visits to the holy sites, but a significant focus on the current state of affairs in Israel and Palestine.  

We chose wisely because this travel experience was unlike any we had had before.  Not only did we see the holy sites and visit several cities in Israel, we had the opportunity to hear from 14 different individuals as well as our three guides:  Aziz Abu Sarah, a Jerusalem Palestinian; Yuval Ben Ami , an Israeli; and Husam Jubran, a West Bank Palestinian.  If we had only heard their stories, it would have been sufficient, but we heard the stories of a wide and diverse group of people over the course of our 11 day trip.

We have traveled to many parts of the world and consider ourselves seasoned travelers.  Yet nothing prepared us for the impact of this trip.  The many and diverse narratives; the need for our guides to leave our bus when we were entering parts of the country prohibited to one of them; the reality of a concrete wall separating Palestinian from Israeli--all of this and more brought home the reality of life in a Divided Land.

After departing Israel, we visited for Istanbul for four days and there we also visited holy sites and enjoyed a cooking class in the home of our Turkish guide, Gokcen Art.