A bunch of assorted salty nuts!

…floating in the Dead Sea.

 

Do you know these people?

Masada

Masada was dramatic in every way, beginning with an excellent audio-visual presentation of its history.  Then we took the cable car to the top and explored the site here almost 1000 Jews held out against a siege by the Romans in AD73-74.     Day after day the 960 inhabitants watched the Romans building a huge ramp up to the fortress.  Finally the Romans breached the walls with a battering ram.  The Jews decided to die with honour in a mass suicide pact rather than surrender to the Romans. But most poignant for me was being in the actual room where the people drew lots to decide how the killing would take place.  Once the Romans went into Masada they found only a couple of women and 5 children alive – they had hidden in the cisterns.

A day in the desert

We’ve broken the dry spell in Israel!  We’ve just heard that region where we were caught in a storm a few days ago received the highest rainfall in 60 years! 

For a day we were uncertain whether we could get to Masada because waterfalls, and subsequently streams, had begun to flow in the desert and it was cut off.  However after a couple of rain-free days the way was clear and we shook out the shorts and lily-white end-of-winter legs, packed the sunscreen and swimmers and set off for the Dead Sea, Qumran and Masada. The light grey area on the rocky cliff in this picture is where water periodically flows when the rains come.

Qumran was hot, even at 9am, and it seemed inconceivable that anyone could have lived here.  Yet it was home to the Essenes in the 1st century BC.  Midst the ruins of their buildings are many ritual baths and I’m sure the Essenes must have looked forward to their twice-daily dip as much for cooling as for ritual cleansing.

Bethlehem beyond the wall

Getting to the place where Jesus was born wasn’t nearly as easy for us as it was for the shepherds so long ago. 

First there was the small matter of the “smart fence”, which is in fact a solid concrete wall about 10 metres high, built by the Israelis to keep out citizens of the Palestinian territories.  Neither our driver nor our guide were allowed to go through the wall and so the only way for us to visit Bethlehem was to be driven to the wall and sent off, on a wing and a prayer, to walk through the checkpoint. 

Our Palestinian guide, Walid, met us on the other side with a new driver and bus and took us to have lunch here. Walid was a jolly fellow, fond of a joke, and quite knowledgeable too.  He told us at the start that Bethlehem was his home town and he knew everyone – which was to come in very handy when, after visiting the Shepherds’ Field and a local handcraft shop, we came at last to Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity.

The crowds here were extraordinary and the queue inside to go down beneath the church, to the chapel where (it is believed) the stable was, snaked up and down the church and was so long that if we had politely joined the end we would never have reached the top by closing time.

But Walid had a cunning plan.  He parked us all in a corner of St Catherine’s Church next door and disappeared, reappearing in a few minutes to explain conspiratorially that the guards were his cousins, and would turn a blind eye to small groups actually entering through the exit.  He then proceeded to take us off in groups of 6.  Once my group of 6 was inside the Church of the Nativity, we huddled together opposite the steps coming up from the birthplace chapel while Walid stood across from us behind a pillar right at the top of the steps.  In two’s he beckoned us over, then when there was a break in the crowds emerging from the grotto, at his whispered signal “Go!” we had to make a run for the stairs and go down against the tide.  When my turn came, I heard shouts behind me but in true ‘resistance movement’ style I kept my head down and ran, not looking back!

This was how that little stable where Jesus was born, on a cold wintry night in a humble outpost of the Roman Empire, looked today.  Pretty awful, isn’t it?  And this is what they’ve come to see - - the manger where Jesus was laid (not even looking remotely manger-like, to my mind) and the actual spot where he was born.

The City of David

This is the very oldest part of Jerusalem, the city that David built after storming the Jebusites’ hilltop town through a tunnel.  We watched an excellent 3D presentation before actually walking this tunnel, and part of Hezekiah’s tunnel beneath the city.  B2 doesn’t like close confines and we cheered loudly when he emerged at the end!

A day to catch our breath

Yesterday was a free day, and we were ready for it.  We all needed time just to wander, to stop and take things in, to shop, to write home, to do our laundry, have our hair done and be pampered.

Nine of us set out for the Temple Mount first thing and experienced the rigorous security in place there.  Our bags were x-rayed, and we had to walk through a security screen before being allowed to proceed. 

This was our reward - The Temple Mount is only open from 7.30 to 10 in the morning, and when we were told to leave we plunged into the narrow streets of the Arab Quarter and made our way to the archaeological excavation beneath the convent of the Sisters of Zion where there is a very interesting section of 1st century pavement showing the lines of a game etched into the stones.  This is a game the Roman soldiers would have played, determining the fate of a prisoner.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the narrow, noisy streets of the Old City, in groups of one, two or three, and encountering others from the tour group surprisingly often.   Note the name of the bagel shop where we bought our lunch – Bonkers Bagels. – And at the end of the day we all adjourned to the King David Hotel for afternoon tea.  In this photo Ralph, A2, M3, R2 and B2 are pretending they are part of the 1930s when the King David was the upmost in chic.  Think Raffles, think The Peninsula in Hong Kong.