Editor’s note: Rick McKay, Joe Masonick, and Jack Karolewski, have been annual travel companions for more than 50 years to a variety of sites with many goals. This week’s adventure is the sixth in the series.
The fifth part is available at thevoice.us/watershed-loving
By Rick McKay
Previously, I explained how Joe, Jack, and I got to know one another and described our first shared adventure. I examined our respective upbringings, searching for commonalities that might have predicted a lasting friendship. There were some, of course, but I concluded there must be other important factors responsible for our relationship being as vibrant today as it was 50 years ago.
Exploring the realm of religion and spirituality together was certainly one of them. Between 1970 and 1975, we read about, asked questions, and explored all things spiritual, and shared these discoveries and insights with one another. It was an internal quest and adventure. However, in Summer 1975, we embarked on our first major exploration of the greater physical world, as well. This first international travel experience, an eight-week odyssey through Europe, sparked an interest that would lead to 38 national and overseas adventures over the next 44 years!
These adventures included climbing Mt. Whitney in California in 1988, the highest peak in the contiguous 48 states, camping at 12,000 feet before climbing to the summit the following day, rafting down the Colorado River for seven days through the Grand Canyon in 1989, exploring Eastern Europe by car in 1990 the Summer after the Berlin Wall fell, and upon retiring from careers in education in 2005, doing an 180-mile walking pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. This last adventure was especially significant because it marked a major change in all of our lives and the long days of walking and thinking gave us ample time to contemplate what would lie ahead for each of us.
But the most significant trip we shared together over those many years was an overland trek from Istanbul, Turkey to India in 1977, just two years after our Grand European adventure. It was organized and conducted by a company called Capricorn Tours in London. Our experiences on this trip, more than any other, bound us together in an unparalleled way.
In the Fall 1976, a year after our European tour, I started searching spectacular adventures for the following Summer. None of us was married at the time and we were educators with ample free time from early June well into August. I came across a jaw-dropping opportunity, an overland trip that would follow in the steps of Alexander the Great from the shores of Greece, through Turkey and the Middle East to the faraway lands of India and Nepal. I called Jack to get his reaction, which was enthusiastic, to say the least. Joe was all in as well. So I arranged the trip. The actual itinerary originated in London in early May, well before the end of our respective school years, so we joined the group in Istanbul in early June, after a brief visit to Athens.
The trip was scheduled for about 10 weeks, give or take. Neither the driver, nor our guide had any experience with any of the Middle Eastern, nor the Asian countries we would visit. It would be an adventure, indeed!
Our group consisted of approximately 40 individuals, almost all in their 20s or 30s. The bulk were Australians who had worked in England and were taking the scenic route home, followed by a handful of Brits, a few Kiwis, a Rhodesian couple, a Canadian, and four Americans. The fourth American, besides us, was a 65 year-old man named Clarence Bland, a retired worker for the U.S. Mint who planned on meeting up with his in Japan at trip’s end.
During the first several weeks of the trip, we camped in designated sites until we arrived in Damascus, Syria where, to our surprise, our hotel had no information about our pre-arranged room reservations. We ended up unrolling sleeping bags in the lobby!
The morning after our arrival, our coach dropped off our group in the downtown area to explore on our own. Joe’s watch had lost a pin and he sought a watch shop to repair it. The proprietor, Nadim Nakrour, said he could have it fixed by late afternoon. We chatted for a short while and he added, if we were interested, he would give us a guided tour of Damascus after he closed the shop. We eagerly accepted the invitation and returned about 5 p.m..
Nadim, a zealous Christian, showed us all the Biblical sites, including the window where Paul was supposed to have escaped from the city. Then he took us home to meet his family, where we enjoyed refreshments prepared by his wife and daughters. It was a lovely time and created a more than favorable impression upon us of true Syrian hospitality. The next day we descended into Amman, Jordan.
From Amman we were somehow allowed admittance into Israel through the Allenby Bridge, although upon reentering Jordan we would not be allowed to bring anything that would be evidence of our visit to the Jewish state. Journal entries, souvenirs, and such had to be mailed home prior to departure.
A group of seven of us hired a driver who gave us a whirlwind tour of the Holy Land: The Sea of Galilee, Jacob’s well, the nativity scene in Bethlehem, the Garden of Gesthemane, the tombs of David, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Leah, the site of the Last Supper, the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock, to mention but a few.
It was less than four years after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, by some called the Yom Kippur War. Arab forces, hoping to gain an advantage, attacked while many Israeli soldiers were home to celebrate the holy day. Despite it, Israeli forces prevailed, successfully fending off the invasion. But tensions still ran high between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Returning to Jordan, we visited the rose city of Petra, an access by a narrow, winding, gorge between steep rock walls rising from 50 to 100 feet on each side and opening suddenly onto the magnificent Treasury, the gem of Petra! We spent the night, unrolling our bags beside and ancient sacrificial site, where carved rivulets carried the blood of victims from this rocky outcrop to some mysterious destination below in times long since forgotten.
From Petra we drove north and camped along the shores of the Dead Sea. It is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, and famous for being so buoyant that one can jump into it and be lifted aloft and float with no effort to do so. In the late afternoon, four of us decided to try it. At first it was great fun, but when we discovered we were drifting westward toward the Israeli side, we decided it was time to return. However, in turning and making an effort to swim back, we inevitably splashed water into our eyes. The extremely high salt content blinded us. It was nearly impossible to open one’s eyes, but we couldn’t give up and struggled on till we at last reached the safety of shore. We had drifted south as well as west, and as we trekked back north to the campsite, the water evaporated from our skin to leave each of us encased in a coat of salt which crackled and flaked off as we flexed our limbs, tramping over the sand.
Continued at thevoice.us/iran-two-surprises