20180608 Tel Maresha: Got up at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00. Quite a bit different atmosphere than all the other stays. Was seated by hostess. Nice buffet, but you could order stuff like eggs benedict, French toast, etc. Interesting contrast.

Yael was not feeling well, so her father, Menachem, who is also a guide, picked us up at 8:00. He first dove us to Ashdod and explained its history and port. Including Ashdod, the drive to Tel Maresha was two hours. This is an archeological site where the invite tourists to do real digging for shards, rings, coins, charcoal, etc. all left over from periods dating back to the Maccabee period and before. And this was the site where the Maccabee revolt started.

We went down into a man-made cave. The leader/guide explained that when the people of this area were told they had to convert to Judaism, leave, or die, most just left. Before doing that, they trashed all the belongings they didn’t carry with them. Thus the shards and other finds.

We were instructed how to loosen the soil on the floor of the cave, look through it, and put the loosened soil into buckets, anything we found into another bucket. Some really big shards were found by others in the group. Menachem and Marian dug together. After lots of buckets were filled, we hauled them out to the surface. Then buckets were dumped onto sifting boxes, shaken to get the dirt through, and then inspected for anything that might be other than just rocks or dirt.

Menachem led a group of us into an open cave where we got the history of the peoples living there, saw an olive press, and learned about olive oil and about water.

Speaking of water, what is defined as desert here is any area that gets less than 8 inches of water on average per year. That minimum is needed to grow things.

When we were all done and the supervisor of the site told us the most exciting things that had been found, we headed in the direction of Tel Aviv, stopped at an Aroma for lunch and iced coffee, and got back to near the hotel, walked the rest of the way. There were hundreds of thousands here for the Gay Pride Parade on the beach, so many streets were closed.

Rested the balance of the day, got into a taxi (which were hard to find) for a ride to Social Club for 7:15 dinner and Max Brenner next door for fabulous chocolate desserts. Back to the hotel about 11:00.

Tomorrow is Shabbat, a free day, and the last day the Spellers are here since they leave about midnight.

Some various observations:

• They put nets over grape vines, bananas, and some other crops since there to too much sun.
• Dealing with or speaking about Gaza, the A, B, and C zones is complicated. Much more so than I had thought before being here.
• There is such a huge amount of high-rise buildings (apartments) being constructed for all those who are coming here.
• Drivers and driving is like bumper cars. Crazy.
• Aroma makes the best iced coffee, hands down.