Our travel in Israel took place in October; just past the peak of summer, so that we would be spared the highest of the temperatures (and it still got plenty hot). Israel, like the Cape Town area, gets its rain in winter, as so we were right at the very end of the dry season. And, like Cape Town, Israel is a water scarce region. But, driving north, the landscape changed. We were not in the desert of the area around Masada, Qumran and the Dead Sea; neither did our surroundings look like the dry, but habitable, Jerusalem. No; despite not having tasted rain in months, what we saw outside the windows of our bus were green trees and lush shrubbery. It was not a succulent jungle, to be sure, but here was life and abundance. We were in what the gospels refer to as the land of Galilee. Read more …