Swimming through history: From the Jordan River to the Dead Sea

By Norman P. Aquino, Editor

IT FELT like I was inside an oven when I waded into the Jordan River — the same river where John the Baptist once immersed Jesus. The water at Qasr al-Yahud — one of two tourist sites in the western section of the river where Jesus was supposed to have been baptized — wasn’t postcard-blue; it was brown, murky, and less inviting than symbolic. Still, I dove in. Not because of faith or ritual, but just to be able to say I had done it.

A TOURIST takes a dip in the Jordan River — NORMAN P. AQUINO

Less than a minute of swimming in the water, I suddenly hear our tour guide shout: “Not there, come back here!” I swam back to the edge, and my companions teased me about trying to breach the border with the Hashemite King-dom of Jordan. “Were they seriously concerned that Jordanian guards would shoot me?” I thought.

“This place was full of tourists before the war,” Or Rochlin, our tour guide from Tel Aviv, tells us. “I hope the war will end soon so people can go back to their lives.” Normally, the site teems with tour buses and pilgrims in white robes, their baptisms captured on smartphones and cameras. But this time, the only group in the souvenir shop was ours, made up of more than a dozen journalists from the Philippines.

The shelves at the souvenir shop sagged with trinkets no one was buying: olive-wood crosses, bottled “Jordan River water,” ref magnets stamped with “Jerusalem” and an image of the Last Supper. The war in Gaza and tensions with Iran and Yemen have scared off foreign tourists. Silence hung over the riverside, broken only by our laughter as we compared the heat index to Manila.

DEAD SEA — NORMAN P. AQUINO

From the river, our bus took us south to the lowest point on earth: the Dead Sea. The salt content of the lake is so high it makes swimming impossible; the body simply bobs like a cork. I leaned back, sat in the water, and floated without effort. The sensation is both comical and surreal. But beauty has its limits. Accidentally rubbing my eyes with wet hands left them stinging for minutes. The Dead Sea is no spa pool; it is nature in its harshest form.

Our resort, however, was another story. The pool, packed to the brim with Israeli families, was buzzing with chatter and children squealing. There were no foreign tourists apart from us, but Israelis seemed nonchalant, unde-terred by conflict or heat. They swam, picnicked, and danced to the resort’s booming music. Later, I bought the famous mudpack from the sea, more out of curiosity than faith in its mineral powers.

YAD VASHEM MUSEUM — NORMAN P. AQUINO

The mood was different two days earlier at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Susan Caine, a senior guide at the museum, led us through exhibits of photographs, artifacts, and survivor testimonies. It was history stripped bare, impossible to ignore. The air was thick with grief, but also with resilience — the kind that insists on being remembered. Walking back into the sunlight, I felt the city differently. Jerusalem wasn’t just stones and shrines; it was memory, loss, and survival carved into its very walls.

One of our most striking stops was Capernaum, the small Galilean town where, according to the Bible, Jesus lived and preached after his baptism. We walked through the remains of an ancient synagogue where he once taught and performed miracles, according to the Books of Mark and Luke.

Henry Maaravi, our tour guide, pointed at a carved basalt chair among the ruins known as the Moses Seat, where teachers or scribes would read from the Hebrew Scriptures to the congregation. Standing before it, I imagined the scene of Jesus unrolling the scroll of Isaiah — as he once did in Nazareth — and declaring words that would spark both hope and controversy.

Nearby stood the ruins of a modest stone house traditionally identified as belonging to Peter’s mother-in-law — the same home where Jesus healed a paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof.

Normally, such stories draw crowds. Yet we stood nearly alone. Our guide spoke softly, pointing out worn steps and crumbling walls without needing to raise his voice. Even the restaurant stop afterward carried an air of irony. The specialty was “St. Peter’s fish.” Expecting something exotic, I ordered it — only to discover it was tilapia. Even holy places, it seems, are not immune to marketing tricks. I traded my plate for kebab instead.

Yet for all the solemnity of sacred sites, what struck me was the resilience — and nonchalance — of many young Israelis. Despite the drumbeat of war, they gathered on the beaches on a Sabbath to swim, sunbathe, play volleyball, and dance to music on portable speakers as if conflict were far away. On one beachfront, a KFC and the Herbert Samuel boutique hotel stood as reminders that life goes on, even under the shadow of rockets.

THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM
No trip to Israel is complete without a visit to Jerusalem, the heart of three major faiths and the epicenter of centuries of devotion — and dispute. We entered the Old City through its stone gates, and it felt like walking through a labyrinth of time. Cobbled alleys twisted past spice markets, candle-lit chapels, and stone arches that have seen countless empires rise and fall.

A view from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (below), the venerated burial place of Jesus. — NORMAN P. AQUINO

Sigal Dolan, our guide, led us to the Cenacle, the site long associated with the Last Supper. The room is bare now, but its vaulted ceilings carry centuries of whispered prayers and arguments among scholars. From there, we moved to Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and the nearby tomb venerated as his burial place. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which houses both sites, is an architectural patchwork of chapels maintained by rival Christian sects — each fiercely guarding its portion of stone.

Further along, we passed the Tomb of David, revered by Jews and Christendom alike, before stopping for a view of the Temple Mount. Here, tensions sharpened. The raised plaza holds the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites. For Jews, it is also the location of the First and Second Temples. Our guide explained how this shared reverence fuels the tension that lingers to this day.

Our last stop in Jerusalem was the Western Wall, the only surviving remnant of the Second Temple. On one side, men pressed their foreheads against the stone; on the other, women prayed, their hands tracing ancient grooves. Many slipped folded notes on which are written petitions into the cracks.

As a journalist, I simply observed, and as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the act of praying at such a site is not part of my worship. Still, the atmosphere was undeniable: a mixture of fervor, grief, and hope condensed into one stone wall.

THE WESTERN WALL, otherwise known as the Wailing Wall. — NORMAN P. AQUINO

Everywhere we went, reminders of conflict lingered. There were armed reservists and soldiers, and the photos of the 50 remaining hostages in Gaza plastered everywhere, and news bulletins punctuated our days. Yet ordinary life went on: teenagers laughing on the sand, couples and families dining late into the night, traffic jams in Tel Aviv. Israel is a land where history is always alive, whether in a synagogue ruin or in the morning headlines.

Israel, at this moment, is a land of absences: absent tourists, absent pilgrims, absent peace. Yet it is also a land of presences: of heat, of history, of people stubbornly clinging to normal life.

For me, the journey wasn’t about prayer but perspective. And in a country where every stone carries a story, that was more than enough.