In the morning we finished seeing the sights of Nazareth before heading out on the Jesus Trail. We saw a great one hour multi media presentation at the International Mary Center but the main attraction is the Basilica of the Annunciation. This is the largest church in the entire Middle East and commemorates when the angel announced to Mary she would have a baby.
Inside and behind a gate is a cave with steps on the back right side. This is believed to be Mary's house where the angel appeared.
There were different mosaic images of Mary from around the world, but not from the U.S. Of course I had to take a picture of the one from the Dominican Republic.
Part of the church complex includes a series of caves, the "neighborhood" sort of speak, where Mary lived.
Even Joseph got in on the action and had a church all his own, though it was much smaller, tucked out of the way of main traffic, and visited much less. Poor Joseph!
The Basilica is the official starting point of the Jesus Trail, a 40 mile hike from Nazareth to Capernaum taken from the scripture in Matthew 4:13, "He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali." It is marked in a variety of ways: orange dots in the city and white and orange stripes in the countryside.
So we strapped on our backpacks and prepared ourselves for a three day hike through the territory Jesus walked to make his home on the Sea of Galilee.
What we weren't prepared for was the first 406 steps of the trip: all stairs uphill. It felt more like 4,006 steps! We were tired before we had even begun.
Then we got to the countryside which was beautiful. Now this is what we thought it would be. Grass, trees, flowers, a dirt trail. We were on our way!
We left at 11:30, got out of the city by 12:30, but much to our horror and disbelief at 1:30 we realized we were at the same junction we had been at 12:30. We had made a wrong turn off the trail, didn't know it, and made one big circle. Ugh! It cost us about 45 minutes of precious time. As we walked the path a second time we realized the fateful junction where we had made the wrong turn.
We walked and walked, hardly stopping for a break and took only about 15 to eat some granola and an orange that we called lunch. Now we were way behind our anticipated schedule. Which is no big deal except that it gets dark at at 6:00 and we don't want to be walking while it is dark. We keep walking trying to pick up the pace but also careful not to lose the trail, which we did several more times that day. We finally made it to Cana at 5:00 and took advantage of seeing the church that commemorates Jesus turning the water into wine...
as well as the water pump that is part of the church symbolizing this first miracle of Jesus.
We now had to make a tough decision. It was 10 more kilometers to our accommodations for the night. That could take 3-4 hours and it would be getting dark in one hour. Regrettably, with sore aching feet and feeling frustrated that the trail wasn't marked better, we had to find a ride to the goat farm in Ilaniya where we had reservations. Homemade soup, salad, and potatoes were waiting for us and needless-to-say we slept very good that night.
We had walked the official 13.5 km of the Jesus Trail plus another 2.5 km in unexpected detours. We had walked 5 1/2 hours almost nonstop with a backpack. It had been a frustrating day. A day of unexpected and unanticipated events. We started later than we wanted to. The day was full of wrong turns, detours, and looking for the markers. And it even took us over an hour to find a ride from Cana because it was Saturday night and no taxis were running. I guess some days are like that. Life doesn't work out quite the way you had planned. There are wrong turns and decisions despite your best efforts. And you just have to be flexible and "roll with the punches" and keep making the best decisions you can. But recognizing your limitations, physically and emotionally, is also important as well as keeping safety in mind. Although not what we anticipated, we had finished the first of three days on the Jesus Trail...and felt God's presence along the way.
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