After a week in Istanbul, I was sick of the cold weather and decided to head south to Antalya, located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. There are some really cool ancient ruins down there as well and some world class golf courses in nearby Belek that make it a major European golf destination. Not many people think of Turkey as a golf destination, but this area is an up and coming spot for a golf getaway for lots of Europeans. Unfortunately I failed to look at the weather prior to booking my trip and it was not a good week to play golf. It rained nearly every day I was there, and rained hard. I did get one day of golf in at Colin Montgomerie’s course down there, The Montgomerie Maxx Royal. The course was in good shape and I played with a couple German guys who were on a weeklong golf trip and had been braving the elements every day. Don’t get me wrong, I love golf, but given the fact that these greens fees and club rental costs were stretching my budget already, I didn’t need to pay to be miserable in the rain.
There were gaps in the rain that allowed me to get out and explore Antalya, which is a beautiful little city situated on the southern coast. I saw Hadron’s gate, wandered through old town, and checked out the Karaalioglu park overlooking the Mediterranean sea. I also spent some time at the Old Harbor and checked out some more ancient mosques. I also learned some interesting things about the overlaps between Islam and Christianity. For example, did you know that Mary is the most mentioned woman in the Quran and there is a whole chapter dedicated to her? She’s actually mentioned more in the Quran than she is in the Bible. Additionally, Jesus is one of the most important prophets in Islam. He’s not regarded as the second coming of God, but he is held in very high regard. I’m not the most religious guy, but I was raised Catholic and found it pretty fascinating how interwoven the early histories of these religions are, it played very nicely into my next stop, Israel.
I also booked a tour to check our Termessos, which is known as Turkeys Machu Picchu, but the tour got rained out as well, because it required hiking up a pretty steep mountain that apparently isn’t very safe when it’s wet. Womp womp. Looking back on it, after I realized the weather was going to be bad I should have went up to Cappadocia for a few days to check out the enormous ancient cave dwellings. I mean, it obviously doesn’t rain in caves so that would have been an ideal rainy day activity lol. But, that just gives me a reason to go back to Turkey someday.
After 5 days of crap weather, I got out of Antalya and found a very reasonable flight to Tel Aviv. This served as a nice little 2 day layover on to my ultimate destination of Abu Dhabi, where I was meeting my friend Munaf for our trip to the World Cup.
Tel Aviv was absolutely incredible. First off, it was great to get back into warm weather. Turkey in November was pretty chilly and pushed the limits of my wardrobe, which was intended for a yearlong trip spent in the summer. The beaches were gorgeous and there is a long beach along the main drag that strangely reminded me of Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro. There were a bunch of people even playing this crazy Brazilian version of volleyball where you can’t use your hands, only your feet/head/chest to hit the ball. I have never seen that game played outside of Brazil, so I was pretty shocked to see multiple games happening on the beach in Tel Aviv. They were actually pretty good at it too! I personally find playing volleyball with my hands to be more than enough of a challenge.
Israeli people are also some of the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen in your life. Everyone serves a mandatory enlistment in the army (including the women), so most people are extremely fit. They are also just badasses in general. My cab driver from the airport was a former boxer in the Israeli army and was a very entertaining character. He was telling me about how all Israel has is beachfront property and they have had to fight for every single grain of sand they have, as they are surrounded by countries who hate them and don’t even recognize their country. The cabbie was telling me about how advanced their security systems are because of all the conflict and how crime is extremely rare because it’s nearly impossible not to get caught. He said there are millions of cameras everywhere watching everything you do and on average it takes Israeli police about 7 minutes to apprehend a suspect. Also, I found it interesting that when you get to Israel they don’t stamp your passport, they put a sticker on the cover that you can easily remove when you leave so that you don’t get barred from entering other countries in the Middle East who don’t recognize Israel as a country.
My first night in Tel Aviv was the opening game of the World Cup and I found a great little sports bar to watch it. I met some expats from the states at the bar and coincidentally sat down next to this guy from Atlanta who was in Israel for a couple weeks on business. They were really cool and gave me some great recommendations to things to do in my short time in Tel Aviv. I also found a last minute apartment that was in an excellent location, right in the heart of Tel Aviv. I have stayed in some pretty small rooms on this trip, but I think this one takes the cake. The bed was snugged up against 3 of the walls and within one step from the bed you could be in the bathroom or the “kitchen.” The entire bathroom was about the size of a cruise ship shower, with a toilet in it. Taking showers was not fun in Tel Aviv 😂.
I spent the next whole day checking out Old Jaffa, which was pretty biblical, literally LOL. The old Jaffa port is the oldest continuously running port on earth and there are lots of buildings still standing from the time of Jesus. The first thing you see walking into Old Jaffa is St Peter’s Monastary, which was built on the ruins of a 13th century crusader castle. Right near the Monastary is the HaPisgah Gardens, which is a nice little green space to walk around with some cool sculptures and an ancient Egyptian gate from the times of the Pharaoh Ramses II (from like 1300 BC). I also checked out the Great Mosque and the site of the house of Simon the Tanner. The significance of this house is that this is where St Peter supposedly stayed when he visited Jaffa and while sleeping here he was visited by Jesus in a dream who told him to convert the Roman Pagans to a new religion, which inspired him to split away from Judaism and form the Christian religion. The history here was absolutely fascinating along, especially given the confluence of Judaism, Islam and Christianity that all have roots based in this small country. You can see why all three religions have staked claims to this area and why there has been so much conflict here historically.
I also spent some time wandering the streets of Jaffa, checking out some markets and street food. The food in Israel is pretty incredible. Their hummus is on another level from any hummus I’ve ever had in my life. They also have a street food sandwich called a sabich, which is a pita stuffed with fried eggplant, hard boiled eggs, tahini, and a bunch of vegetables. I’m typically not the guy who goes for a veggie sandwich, but damn was this one good.
I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time in Israel, but it was time to go as I needed to get to the World Cup. My plan was to go back after the World Cup to check out Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Unfortunately that didn’t happen as I ended up spending more money than planned between the World Cup, Dubai, and Jordan. Israel was very cool, but also very expensive. I’ll be coming back though someday when I have an income again 😃. Now it was time to head to Abu Dhabi to meet up with my buddy Munaf for a few days before making our way to Doha.
