Oh, hello there. Here I am again, listening to my apartmentmates singing together with Cas on a guitar he rented for his last week, bringing you another post about last weekend (that's how far behind I am). This one just concerns last Saturday and the West Bank tour that all five of us took, and recounting the day involves two difficulties: one, I already wrote about this tour last year with Lyera, and I don't much feel like describing it again, and two, the photos are haphazardly attributed: Cas and I shared our camera (mostly him this time), and when it ran out of battery all three of us shared Lars's camera. On that promising note, let's dive in.
[N.B. This is also part of the same batch of photos that Caper helped me prune. Credit given where credit is due.]
The basic structure of the tour was to visit Bethlehem (for the Shepherd's Fields, the Church of the Nativity, and a traditional Arabic restaurant), a possible Jordan River baptism site, Jericho (for the ruins of the old city), Taybeh Brewery, and Ramallah (for shopping).
Here are some breakfast shots. First, Paul left a bag of pasta half-open (back in the dark ages when we kept pasta on an upper shelf), and I managed to spill a lot of pasta pulling it out, but it did result in this delightful impromptu decoration.
We (i.e. Ivony) made omelettes.
And to amuse you, here's a picture of our utilities table with a green stain. Where did it come from, you ask? Well, you can see a bit of the air freshener bottle at the top of this picture. That's not air freshener water in it, though. It's just water. The real stuff spilled recently and managed to melt the gum package onto the table. Cool.
Anyway, soon it was time to go -- after all, we had to be downtown at Abraham Hostel by eight, and since it was Shabbat it was either walk or take a taxi. I had told Paul about the hostel's book exchange, where you can take any book you like if you give them one in return, and he took a Clive Cussler book in exchange for a Gideon Bible. (Perhaps as punishment for the trade, the novel turned out to be in Dutch.)
We boarded the bus, a Mercedes-Benz. Did you know they make buses? I didn't.
This was our first stop in Bethlehem: the Palestine Handicraft Cooperative Society. As a Michiganite mocked, "Handicrafts? Who ever thinks of buying handicrafts? 'I think I'll go get myself a handicraft today.'"
Our tour guide, Don Tamer Halaseh, introduced himself. This is the same tour guide I had last year. He's quite likeable as a person, even if he's a very atypical tour guide: he doesn't say much and he says it without all the usual overexcitement and exaggeration. It suits some people and not others, I think. Here he is briefing us on the day's trip.
At one point he asked us how much it mattered to us to get inside the actual cave below the Church of the Nativity, since it can take two or three hours to make it through the crowds. More or less everyone assented. "It will not be easy inside," he prophesied.
As he reiterated multiple times throughout the trip, there are two of many sites: the Catholic and the Orthodox. This was the Catholic choice for the Shepherds' Fields, supposedly the place where the shepherds saw the angels appear to announce the virgin birth.
The inside is nice and small. The altar is dedicated to Canada or a Canadian, hence the maple leaf on it.
They had a number of these murals, all by the same artist and in the same theme. This was probably the best of them, and certainly the most appropriate for the location. Another one showed some cacti and prickly plants on a rather barren landscape, and when I commented about the atypical appearance, Paul replied quite truly that it was the first painting he'd seen that seems to depict the Holy Land as it actually looks.
The only complaint I have about it is the wingbabies at the top. They're just babies' heads with wings -- not the usual conception of cherubim.
Then it was off to some nearby excavations that suggested that shepherds had once lived here, which was the basis for the identification of this spot.
"Don" Tamer Halaseh (so our tour guide styled himself) explained to us, while pointing out a Jewish settlement, how they came and more or less forced some Christian Arabs off their land -- even though the area is under Palestinian control. Meanwhile, we also took in some of the ruins of makeshift houses.
Then we got back on the bus in order to go to the wall. This particular section of wall is famous for being covered in liberation graffiti.
For some reason we stopped for a long time at a shop dedicated to Banksy (he has contributed some fascinating graffiti around the city). While we waited and wondered if we should buy things, I mentioned to Don Tamer that I'd taken this tour with him last year. "Really?" he said. "You're not on my Facebook!" What to make of this, I thought? Is he Facebook friends with everyone who goes on his tours? How does he know who I am and that I'm not on it?! Anyway...
The wall is still as fascinating as it was last year, but its billboardlike properties have been somewhat hijacked; I saw "Vivo Puerto Rico libre" somewhere on it.
Hypothetically, people could climb parts of this wall in a concerted effort; what you see in this next picture is one of the watchtowers that line it.
The most powerful words on the wall, for me, are by far two verses from the Bible. One is "For he himself is our peace, who has torn down the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." The other is, in the colours of the Palestinian flag, "Until justice rolls like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream." These two always send chills down my spine.
After this we walked for a long time through Bethlehem. It was kind of interesting insofar as tours supplied with cushy buses usually don't require walking through the streets for half an hour, but it was neat to look at everything.
Don Tamer talked some soldiers into letting people take pictures with them.
This is a sign for the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center; another building with an ambitious-sounding name I saw is the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion. But Don Tamer said they were just for neighbourhood government.
Along the way, we found these guys making a traditional bread somewhat like crepe, and Don Tamer bought everyone one of these to try plain. They were so delicious (of course, I have an inordinate love for interesting varieties of bread). As it happens, I also had one for supper tonight in the Old City.
Along the way, walking through some of the streets, they had street signs in both Eastern Arabic numerals and Western Arabic numerals. "What?" you ask. "Don't we use Arabic numerals? Isn't that the whole basis of our numbering system?" And indeed, we do use their numbering system, but they use a different symbol for each digit. By comparing the western and eastern numerals in dozens of signs, I was able to memorize the second set. That was probably the most productive thing I did that day.
Finally we arrived at the plaza in front of the Church of the Nativity.
The tour here was turned over to another guide, who was slightly more spirited than Don Tamer. He explained that there are three doorways, as you can see in this picture, because the first one was massive and impressive, but when people were always taking their animals inside rather than leaving them outside, the crusaders made it smaller; this second arch may have prevented camels from entering, but not horses and donkeys so much, so finally they made it a door you practically have to bend down to enter through.
Inside, these huge pillars impressed me.
Part of the floor was open to reveal an original intricate mosaic:
There also used to be mosaic covering the entire upper wall, but as the temporary tour guide (TTG) explained, leaks in the roof had allowed water to enter and destroy almost all of it during crusader times. Here's some of what remains:
An elderly priest shouted at me to take off my hat, and then began the tedious experience of waiting in line to enter the cave, which meant standing in a crowd for forty-five minutes (which, you'll recall, is actually a pretty short time for this -- if not great compared to when I visited on a Wednesday afternoon and didn't wait whatsoever). I say "standing" because once Larissa and I tried to sit on a bench and another priest immediately came up and said, "Just standing!"
At least we were treated to some nice views of pillars and censers.
Paul had the right idea when he decided that, having already seen the cave and not finding it that worthwhile, he forwent waiting in line (at least at first -- eventually he decided he may as well join the throng). At one point the tour guide said that some kind of procession was going to stall all movement for fifteen minutes... We observed that this lightbulb was a little incongruous in its setting:
Finally we were inside, and as I had last year, in all the hustle and bustle of the room and the straining to touch the square foot where Jesus is supposed to have been born, I felt that none of it had anything to do with what Christ came to initiate.
I was more impressed by the beautiful and nearly intact mosaic on the other side of the cave.
After the church, we went to the promised traditional Arab restaurant. It was more or less like any other: hummus, falafel, pita, vegetables, and so on. They also had a kind of limonadah made with much mint, and it was extremely refreshing. Unfortunately, this picture is already partway through the meal...
After that we walked some more and became better acquainted with Bethlehem than ever before. This was the point at which the tour began, at least for Larissa and me, who were sticking together, to stop being bothersome and become enjoyable instead.
Notice how the second of the smaller lines of Arabic on this sign are extremely spaced out. I asked Cas to take a picture because I was intrigued, and Caper says this is because they really want to keep those words on the same line and keep that line the same length as the others.
When we got on the bus, it was time to drive all the way to the Jordan River. Don Tamer said he wasn't going to be speaking much on this drive (as if he ever did), so we could rest, but first we were all going to have ice cream. Delighted but perplexed as to how we could all eat ice cream on the bus without making a huge mess, I waited to see what would happen. What happened was popsicles. Oh well. At least Cas got two as gratitude for his having held the bag for Don Tamer earlier.
The drive was filled with great scenes of the Judean Desert.
The road can get extremely tight and bend on a hairpin over this awesome valley.
Finally the Dead Sea hove into view.
There are multiple possible places where Jesus could have been baptized, of which two are actually recognized: the Catholic Jordan River baptism site, and the Yardenit (i.e. Jordan...) baptism site. The latter is the one I visited last year, and on reflection, I remember seeing a plaque saying that Glenn Beck had been baptized there in the last few years and it never occurred to me until now to wonder whether this was some kind of rebaptism or just a symbolic baptism or (somehow) his first baptism, or what?
In any case, here's the approach to the other site:
You can see the mountains of Jordan in the background.
Searches for recycling bins in Israel have always been fruitless, but we were lucky enough to find a decrepit one at this most unlikely and remote of places.
At the gift shop, Cas and Paul bought t-shirts with awesome designs, Larissa bought some Dead Sea mud cream for psoriasis for one of her relatives, and I saw something I would by no means ever buy:
Not just a crown of thorns. The crown of thorns.
The baptism site itself was beautiful. For some reason (cough cough, The Picture Bible) I always imagined the baptism as happening at a kind of deserty place, even though rivers clearly have lots of vegetation around them. It's nice to have my mental picture of a biblical event revised for once rather than having a place fail to match it.
We dipped our feet in.
All the while, a contingent of people were getting baptized, apparently taking no notice of the tourists coming and going around them. I don't think I could ever do that.
Then came the drive to Jericho: more mountains.
The city itself is oddly Mediterranean-looking.
To my surprise, we didn't visit Hisham's Palace as we had last year, but instead went to the site of the ruins of what is supposed to be the oldest city in the world, the one that predates even the city as it existed when Joshua came and encountered the huge walls.
Here's a cool picture of how dates just grow in these convenient bunches on the trees. I was thinking that if you can just get up the trunks, these must be some of the easiest fruit to pick. Also notice the cable cars suspended like so many bunches of dates from the lines in the background.
The heatwaves made it quite difficult to see the landscape properly. At this low point beside the Dead Sea, the temperature is very high.
Here we actually got yet another tour guide, by far the best of all in terms of his spiritedness and informedness. He told us how many Israelis come to Jericho during the winter, since whereas the rest of Israel experiences winters that can actually be uncomfortably cold (last year they actually had a lot of "sheleg", as the teacher put it, i.e. snow, that made everyone panic and everything shut down), Jericho remains temperate. During the rest of the year, there's very little activity. The TTG said that a tenth (I believe) of the population is employed in tourism.
One thing I noticed both as we walked around and as we drove throughout the day was that the West Bank has a lot of stray dogs. In Israel proper it's cats, but here it's dogs. (As a journalism student whom I met in the elevator later commented, "It's like it's some kind of metaphor or something.")
The tour guide explained the spot Helena mother of Constantine identified as the supposed site of the Mount of Temptation, recounting the story of Jesus's temptations with surprising accuracy and detail (his only mistake, as far as I could tell, was that he said the Devil wanted Jesus to throw himself down from the selfsame mountain rather than from the temple).
He then explained various aspects of the old Canaanite city in its many layers. Apparently the oldest dates back to 10,000 B.C. Here's a now-subterranean tower.
When I saw this house, I tried to picture a woman of ancient Jericho puttering about inside it, picking up and manipulating various primitive objects.
And at the bottom you could see some remnants of the large walls, and the structures that had been built into them (the walls had multiple stages as well).
Our last stop in Jericho was the spring of Elisha's Drinking Water, which the boys were all brave enough to fill their water bottles with.
I spotted some peacocks wandering around at random and Lars captured them:
And then it was back on the bus for the long ride to Taybeh Brewery and Ramallah. We passed again through the Judean Desert, which Paul couldn't help comparing (somewhat unfavourably) to the majesty of Wadi Rum in Jordan.
Don Tamer told us about how the Bedouin no longer live in tents and move around, not since the wall was built and their nomadry was constrained, but now live in these little shacks of corrugated metal.
At one point, the bus broke down and we all got out to look at the countryside. I really loved it. Paul and I discovered a rocky outcrop with a nice dark cave in which one could conceivably spend a hot day while tending one's flocks. It all faced (across a large valley) a kibbutz or something.
I call this picture "Cas Among the Hills":
We decided that if we ever made a movie dramatizing the Bible, then this is the landscape across which we would have Abraham roam with his flocks and caravans from Ur.
I also, on a sudden impulse to absorb the land through my bare feet, took off my sandals and walked with great reverence.
Our next stop was Taybeh Brewery. They're a small microbrewery in Palestine operated by Palestinians, and have apparently received great reviews. I really liked their beer last time (I'm nursing one now) and had decided to get some more this time. Maria Khoury, the Greek-American wife of the owner, gave us a little tour of the machinery.
She also explained that the water in the village of Taybeh is, like many other places in Palestine, controlled by the Israeli government and is shut off for at least part of every week. Sometimes they don't turn it back on for a long time; the current streak, she said, was seven days without water. They collect what they can on the roof, but that kind of shortage threatens not only their brewing but also their drinking and washing and cooking.
After being given samples, Paul and I split the cost of a case of the stuff. A hundred and sixty shekels for twenty-four bottles -- not bad.
As we walked out, I had to use the washroom, and when I came out I heard Maria saying to another employee, "Sorry ... I didn't mean to tell them about the washroom. They were just standing there, I didn't know what to do ..." and I realized what a precious thing it was to be able to flush a toilet and wash one's hands in these conditions. I told Maria I'd been here last year and still had a poster of Taybeh's Oktoberfest on my fridge back in Canada, and she was happy. "Spread the word to a friend!" she said. "That's our only advertising!"
Our final stop was Ramallah for shopping. Ramallah, as I've written last year, is quite a modern city, and it's where many rich Palestinian Arabs like to live, said Don Tamer. As we drove there, he handed around his passport for us to look at and explained that to go anywhere outside the country, he has to first cross into Jordan and its capital, Amman. To enter Israel requires a special permit.
Once in Ramallah, we visited the tomb of Yasser Arafat, an odd little building that seems to be under constant guard. We were told we had to avoid smiling or laughing, so I focussed on the most depressing aspects of the land conflict in Palestine.
In stark contrast to that, we were then given some time to shop. we had only half an hour to explore, so we just walked down the main street.
Here I am blending in...
The street feels like a little cutout of a North American downtown, set in the unlikeliest of places. We (at this point Cas, Larissa, and I) ended up in a little restaurant where we ordered spiced a large box of delicious fries ("chips") to tide us over until supper.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't take my kid down this dark parking lot entrance no matter how many mutually exclusive franchises were hinted at in the fun-loving sign:
Cas saw an interesting sign describing an institution whose function we're curious to discover:
And I decided I could happily live in this inn for a maximum of perhaps two years:
And finally the tour was over and it was back to the bus, a very welcome sight at the end of such a long day.
We all discussed the tour as we drove back. Paul and Ivony had, to my surprise, loved it, and everyone had more or less enjoyed it. I guess it was because I had seen so much of it before that I felt a little unenthusiastic, but on the whole it was definitely worth going on. Even so, it strengthened my confidence in the idea that I don't like guided, "get-on-the-bus-now-get-off-for-twenty-minutes-now-get-on-again" tours nearly so much as self-directed exploration. That is to say, we saw a lot of interesting things and had a lot of interesting experiences, but give me that Friday over that Saturday any day.
When we got back a brief charging of the camera allowed me to take the sunset descending on the birds and the landscape. Ah, the constant haze -- the constant, beautiful haze -- of Jerusalem. And the next morning, I had a Facebook friend request from Don Tamer. I accepted.
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