we left off upon the second arrival in Jerusalem. the following morning was wednesday, and our priority was palestine. i wanted to walk there; according to lonely planet, you can get there in just about two hours, and the hike is supposed to be quite pretty. but corina was punking out, she said that she had too much work to do so she had to get back to cairo, so we opted, for the sake of expedience, to take a bus. we got to the border, which was quite simple, really. we just walked up a path surrounded by chain link fence and barbed wire to a building; we walked through a turnstile and showed our passports to the lady behind the bullet proof glass and then arrived into what we affectionately called the maze. we wandered around this ridiculous compilation of hallways for a while until, totally turned around, a guard pointed to the correct exit door which, in fact, led to another outside walkway, this one surrounded by, you guessed it, chain link and barbed wire. then we walked across a parking lot toward a giant concrete wall, at least twenty feet tall and spaced with guard towers. this wall is a little despicable, but it was also one of the most interesting things about palestine because of all of the graffiti; there were words of protest and liberation, but also a plethora of messages of peace and tolerance. a huge number of the pictures that i have on facebook are of palestine and the wall (courtesy of my friend vicky), and lauren has lots more, so ill get those up sometime next week or whenever i get them.
anyway, on the other side of the wall we found a taxi and started doing touristy stuff. in hindsight, i sort of wish that we had walked around the city just to examine real life, but then we wouldnt have seen the sights we saw, so whatever. give and take. the driver took us first to the herodium, which is the remains of herod's castle. im told that there were lots of herods, and i think that this is the one from Jesus's age but im really not sure. it was atop a giant hill, which we climbed, and basically consisted of four towers connected by walls. everything was worn down to the ground, but there was still a lot to see because underneath the castle, in addition to a huge basement, there was a series of tunnels which we (minus chelsea) entered and explored. we actually climbed all the way down this giant hill inside of these windy tunnels, which was pretty excellent.
then we drove to the shepherd's field, which, as the name implies, is the field where the shepherds were "keeping watch over their flocks by night." the field wasnt much to see; you can probably imagine it. picture grass. yep, thats it. but there was a nice little chapel, and another set of tunnels that we got to explore. they were pitch black and we, lacking flashlights, relied on lauren's camera for occasional bursts of illumination. much to my dismay, the ridiculously dry dust attached vigorously to my black suede jacket. poor wardrobe choice, i must admit.
next on the list was the church of the nativity, a rather gargantuan structure originally constructed by the mother of constantine and subsequently augmented by, well, everyone. the catholic section is the most ostentatious, filled with gold and sparkly glass incense burners and silver chains and the like, but the orthodox are close behind. no one wants to be outshone in their display of affection for this hunk of rock. we went downstairs and saw the actual manger; this is one of the few holy places that we have any semblance of confidence about. it actually is, with, in my opinion, an acceptable degree of confidence, the location of the birth of Jesus. the "tour guide" herded us into the manger for a picture; not blatantly touristy at all. but hey, we are white, we have excuses. we also saw a really cool statue of st george (i think its saint george, anyway) slaying a dragon. and then we left.
we went to lunch in a cave. seriously. it was a restaurant, but the ceiling was raw rock held up by brick arches. the food was lebanese with an israeli twist, meaning that it was amazing (but all food associated with lebanon is amazing, no?), and during the meal we talked to our cab driver about politics and religion. well, the others talked about politics and i talked about religion. then he drove us back and, after taking more pictures of the wall, we wound our way back through the fences and barbed wire back into israel. it was only after getting on the bus to Jerusalem that i remembered that the cabbie had promised to take us to the milk chapel as well, but, since this site gives remembrance to mary's nursing of Jesus, i dont think we missed out too much.
back at the hostel, luke and chelsea went to sleep, but lauren really wanted to see the holocaust museum, and it was corina's last night in israel and she didnt want to spend it sleeping, so off we went. the driver we found to take us to the museum in new Jerusalem was kind enough to inform us (rather than taking advantage of our misinformation) that the museum would be closed by the time we arrived (it was almost 5 at this point), so, after thanking him for his general decency, we wandered the old city in search of other things to see. i read somewhere that the tower of david was cool, but, upon arrival, we discovered this to be closed as well... so we wandered some more. after a while we stumbled upon a tour group, so we followed them to the tomb of king david, which wasnt so special. it wasnt really even a tomb, just a gigantic stone coffin, a sepulcher, i suppose, draped with a very ornate cloth. then we climbed on some rooftops to watch the sun set, and then lauren set out to achieve her second goal for Jerusalem (the first being the holocaust museum); the grave of oscar schindler. following the trend of the evening, the cemetery was closed when we got there, but the wall was really easy to climb, so we sort of broke in. we didnt really break anything, though; the hill went almost to the top of the wall, and from there it was a short drop onto a (empty) guard's cabin, and he had left a ladder against the side of the building, so come on, they were pretty much inviting us inside. we found the grave and lauren left a rock on top of it, as tradition demands, and then back to the hostel.
we had finally connected with our israeli friends; remember muniir and sulafa from my first two weeks in cairo? they live in Jerusalem, and that night we met up with sulafa and smoked and talked and had tea. quite pleasant. and then back to that vegan restaurant, the village green, where we met muniir. not much to tell there, except that their cheesecake isnt as good as mine. then lauren and i, not having napped, went back to go to sleep. corina left for cairo, and the other two stayed out and eventually crashed at muniir's apartment.
we had signed up for a tour the next morning, thursday, so we met at some ridiculous hour and got in a van, complete with a tour guide, who took us first to qumran. at one time this was a monastery of sorts for ascetic kabbalists, but it is more famous for being the site of the caves wherein the dead sea scrolls were discovered. we couldnt go to the caves, unfortunately, due to time, so we just looked at the ruined jewish complex and moved on. the next stop was masada, a ruined fortress. the place is famous because the jews made their last stand against the romans there; the jews who began the great revolt in 70 which led directly to rome's destruction of the second temple fled the tenth legion and ended up atop this mountain. they entrenched themselves, and the romans, unable to scale the mountain (as lauren and i did) were forced into a three year seige. the only path up the mountain was known as the snake path; this is what lauren and i climbed, and it was challenging, even without armor and weapons, so i guess i understand why the jews chose the site for their last stand. unfortunately, rome employed some clever engineers, and the legion built a gigantic earth ramp on the far side of the mountain. using this, the legionaires (and tourists not adventurous enough for the snake path) achieved the summit. but the story holds a twist, because when the romans arrived at the top, they found only dead bodies. rather than surrendering into slavery, the jews had drawn lots. the ten "winners" were given the task of slaughtering their comrades, almost 1000 men, and then killing themselves.
the fortress itself was interesting, but ruins are ruins. much more worthwhile was the view; we could see huge expanses of desert, rock formations, random oases, and even the dead sea in the distance.
speaking of the dead sea, that was our next stop. the entire van unanimously voted for the free beach, which i found pretty reasonable, but the guide said that he had never been there before. apparently every other tourist group he had ever taken opted to pay to swim... im not sure why. the water was quite lovely, although it was super cold and i was shivering by the time i got out. floating was lots of fun, though. you can stand, or at least place your body vertically, and bob about chest level without treading water at all. you can lie on your back and put your hands and feet in the air and still stay above the water. the only catch is, if any water gets in your mouth, you will instantly cringe and maybe cry. its unbelievably salty, to the point of pain. speaking of pain **this story is for mature audiences only** luke pierced his penis thrice, plus both of his nipples, in tel aviv, only two days prior. they tell you not to get into the dead sea with any open cuts or scratches, and those stories arent exaggerated- he screamed a lot.
the salt caked on to the rocks, which was cool but also really pointy and painful. my feet were rather cut up by the time i got out. and there were a couple of people knocking salt off of the rocks and bagging it, i suppose for sale, but who knows, maybe dead sea residue makes good table salt. supposedly the mud is amazing and exfoliating, but we couldnt find any- the beach was all rock. we did, however, see a woman in a "burqini," which is a clever pun on berka and bikini. this is the incredibly modest, religiously appropriate swimwear for muslim women. it is basically a wetsuit with a skirt; google it.
the next stop was jericho. by this time we were all really exhausted and hungry, but apparently there is only one restaurant in jericho, and it isnt vegetarian friendly. so the four of us, plus one weird old guy who followed us around for a while, just climbed to the top of said restaurant and looked down on the remains of the oldest remaining city in the world. the ruins were pretty interesting for a couple of minutes, but no one wanted to explore, having been "ruined-out" for some days now. the tour group pretty quickly got back into the van, and we headed back to old Jerusalem. we drove up the mount of olives, which i had already done, but it was still nice since i got to see my favorite scene once more. last but not least, we went to dinner with sulafa and muniir again, this time to an ethiopian restaurant. the food was quite good, but the bread was quite gross. they brought out a tray draped in grey cloth, and on top of the cloth were several plates filled with corn and sauce. and then muniir broke off a piece of the cloth (grey, mind you; picture an elephant), dipped it in some sauce, and ate it. apparently it was bread. im not picky, though, and when in rome...
that was our last night. i wont detail too much our return since this tale is already quite long, but it does involve missing a bus. luke and chelsea stayed at muniir's again, but lauren and i stayed at the hostel with plans to meet them at the bus station for the 9 am bus. that didnt happen. but the next bus to eilat wasnt until two pm, which would put us there way too late to get back to cairo before shabbat (jewish sabbath, no technology allowed), so we went back to tel aviv and caught a bus from there. turns out, we still arrived too late to get back to cairo, so we stayed in an amazing little hostel. it wasnt really a building so much as a courtyard, but within the walls were three or four tiny little cabins. they were seriously like something a mall would put outside during Christmas for decoration, complete with reindeer on the roof. the next morning we got back to cairo.
and that is my israel story.
ill do the rest of egypt, plus romania, some other time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment