I published a FB post about an upcoming bike tour in the Jordan valley, and very quickly got confirmation from 16 riders, 80% of which, I never met before. That is what I call a good start... So we met at 8AM on a sunny December Saturday and headed east on road 5. At 9 we arrived at our first viewpoint, overlooking the Jordan valley:
Short stop, and we continued riding down to the valley to the Pazael springs. Did you know that Pazael was King Herod's older brother...?
We then headed north on road 90 and climbed up the highest mountain in the Jordan valley - Sartaba, which has one of the most amazing views in Israel. We had coffee and lifted the drone to take some really cool pics. Sartaba is one of 6 Hasmonean fortresses built along the eastern border of ancient Israel, which surprisingly is also Israel's eastern border today...
Now how cool is that?
We continued riding north through the terrain to the Jiftlik, an old Ottoman police/customs station for a photo-op of young Beduim kids who were surprised to hear the engines of 16 beasts on Saturday morning...
We continued riding north to Gilgal, an ancient Jewish religious site and were the Israelites who fled Egypt celebrated their first Passover some 3,350 years ago... the skies were good to us and the clouds provided a perfect background.
Then we changed direction and started heading south through road 90 to Kasr El Yahud, AKA Jesus baptism site. I love this place... so calm and relaxed...
We then continued south along the Jordan border to visit an ancient Laura, which is a nice word that describes a network of ancient caves, built in the rock by hermits who lived in this area in the 4th century AD. What a view off the window!
We then went for lunch at a nearby meat restaurant and finished the day on top of the Kipros fortress, overlooking the oldest city in the world - Jericho.
What an amazing view coming down from Kipros on sunset...
In total we rode some 300km, from 8AM to 3:30PM. By 4:30PM I hit the shower in my home near TLV.
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When people ask me what I do for living, I sometimes feel uncomfortable telling them the truth :-)
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