To the North!

So yesterday's tour of Haifa was so-so. Omri took this as a personal challenge to make today better. We picked up a full-fledged tour guide from the Ariav: Tour Guide Omri (TGO). TGO had a big day for us, full of action and adventure.

The Grotto

First stop, the grotto. A grotto is a natural formation where waves have cut into the cliff-side and created a natural splashy cave thing. Basically the same environment where One-Eyed Willy hid his pirate ship in Goonies. The grotto was on the border of Lebanon, so Omri stepped up the awesome with a large amount of military knowledge about the area - all hush-hush, I'm affraid. Sorry. We grabbed a local beer at a pub with a fine view. We also learned about the giant railroad that the British built during WWII. The line was built to run from Israel to Europe and tunneled all over the damn place. During the war with Lebanon - I think the Independence one - the british blew up a bridge so that it couldn't be used against Israel. Now the railroad is just this awesome walkway. In one of the tunnels they built a little movie theater that you could watch an educational feature about the place. Sorry Mark and Kristin, you would have loved this place.

Acko (probably spelled wrong)

A city built around an old Napoleon fort. This place was awesome and I would have loved to walk around for a long time because it wasn't a tour site, per se, so you could do whatever you wanted. There were kids jumping off the old wall into the sea and climbing over everything. I would have given Jordan's right leg to grow up in such a playground. Our goal was also to eat The World's Best Hummus at a local place (this is according to everyone I've spoken to in Israel). Unfortunately, we got to the door right after it closed. No exceptions. None. Except for TGO. Badass. I once again embraced being too full to function and ate and ate and ate. Almost as good as Pita Pita. ;)

The North

TGO busted out all sorts of knowledge about the area as we took a long mountainous drive through the north. Where the villages were. Where the borders were. Where battles were fought. Where missles landed. TGO also brought us to several scenic spots that were probably the best Make-Out Points in the world.

Druz Villages

TGO bought a 2 disc CD set of an Israeli musician for us to listen to as we traveled, thus giving us a soundtrack for our trip. He also explained some of the lyrics to me: "You see, now he's saying his heart has cracked." "This is where his girlfriend dies" "Here he was just dumped and he hates his life." A really uplifting album. He also had us make an emergency stop to try Knafa. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's made of. I don't want to know. It's FANTASTIC. We had to get more when we finished. We flattered the owner so much with our raving about this marvel of food technology that he gave us free coffee to help us enjoy. It was the Lemonana of food.

Our day ended with a drive back to Haifa and TGO giving us an account of the land's rich history, heritage, and struggles. Well done, Omri.