Ein Gedi to Jerusalem

Tour day 4 - 31st March

We had a much clearer view of the Dead Sea this morning, the dust having either blown away or settled overnight. One of our travel companions headed for the beach around 6am to float for a bit, while the rest of us slept. Once breakfast was done, and we were packed, checked out, and loaded into the bus, we set off yet again for another full day of experiencing Israel. The weather was clear and mild, at the Dead Sea anyway.

First stop was the Ein Gedi nature reserve, just down the road. On the eastern edge of the Judean Desert, and the shore of the Dead Sea, it’s both the lowest place on earth (approximately 430m below sea level), and a place of sheer cliffs. The Wadi David and Wadi Arugot run through the reserve, and there are four “sweet water” springs that generate approximately 3 million cubic metres of water each year. It’s a real contrast to see “David’s waterfall” against the backdrop of rugged desert terrain.

The reserve has a variety of animals, most of which were conspicuous by their absence today, but we were lucky enough to see several Ibex grazing quite near, as well as some further up the steep cliffs, and one little Rock Hyrax scrambling up a tree before anyone could take a photo.

Next stop was Qumran National Park. Located on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran had a Jewish population as far back as the 8th century BCE, but it became known for a break-away sect called the Essenes, who lived and studied in this place for 200 years, until the Romans conquered it in 68 CE and dispersed the sect. Then in 1947, Bedouin shepherds found seven ancient scrolls in a local cave. The story goes that they were tending their flocks on the hillside, and lost a baby goat. They went looking for it and came across a cave. Inside they could see something that looked like a plate, so they threw a rock in and it sounded like a plate too. They went inside and found broken clay pots with parchments inside. They took them to a friend in Bethlehem who was a shoemaker, thinking he would buy them to make shoes. The friend saw “scribbles” on the parchments, so took them to a neighbour who was a dealer of antiquities. This friend knew they were not just scribbles, and we now know these parchments as the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden in jars by the Essenes before the Roman invasion, and preserved by the area’s arid climate for nearly 2000 years.

One of the caves (not the first) in which 530 parchments were discovered.

While the scrolls are now safely preserved elsewhere, including some at the Israel Museum, evidence of the Essene’s communal life is all over this site, including their ritual baths, pottery workshop (where they made the jars) and Scriptorium, or writing room, where the Essenes scribes probably wrote most of the scrolls.

Time to move on again, and with our last views of the Dead Sea on one side, and the sheer rocky cliffs on the other, we eventually turned away from the sea and began our “ascent to Jerusalem”, reading Psalm 122 as we went. But first, to Bethlehem for lunch. We approached Jerusalem from the south-east, and then took a detour, descending and then ascending a winding road to the checkpoint for Bethlehem, which is in Palestinian controlled territory. Bethlehem means “house of bread” in Hebrew, or “house of meat” in Arabic. Actually, it was both, as lunch was sharwarma - meat (and salad) in pita bread. By the time we came out of the restaurant, there was a noticeable drop in temperature and the sky was looking ominous. Rain had always been on the cards for today.

Following lunch, we were taken to the Bethlehem Souvenir mega-store (whatever it was actually called, that’s what it was), where we were overwhelmed with religious icons - olive wood carvings, large and small (some of which were quite nice, but at $35,000 USD for a large nativity scene we decided probably not), gold and silver crosses and crucifixes, and other touristy paraphernalia. The Arabic staff talked the talk, but were clearly confused about Christianity and Catholicism. However, they did offer free cups of tea which, by now, were very welcome as the sudden drop in temperature was evident!

Exiting the shop, we were introduced to an Arabic guide who would be taking us to the Church of the Nativity, the oldest major church in the Holy Land.

The building of the church was commissioned in 327 CE by Constantine the Great, on the site that was traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The site has since expanded and now contains three churches, one Greek Orthodox, one Armenian Apostolic, and one Roman Catholic.

The site of the “holy grotto”, the cave beneath the church where Jesus is thought to have been born, is maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church. The church was packed, and the queue to enter the grotto was apparently 2 - 3 hours long. I walked over to a woman in the queue and asked her how long she’d been waiting. She told me she’d been there about half an hour, and was probably an hour or so from getting into the grotto, so I suspect our guide wasn’t far wrong in his estimation of our potential wait time. He asked us if we wanted to wait to enter the grotto that way, or go into the next church and down into another cave-like area beneath the church from which we could see into the grotto through a “peephole”. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but nobody wanted to queue for even 2 hours, so our group voted unanimously for the peephole and that’s what we did. Evangelicals!!!!! And it truly was a peephole, but it was possible to see the people traipsing through the grotto and a few orthodox priests in their black getup doing their thing. Okay, but at least we can say we’ve been here, right.............???

Our Arab guide obviously had his spiel prepared, and launched into a whole lot of rhetoric, a bizarre mix of Biblical references and religious mythology, all delivered in broken English and adding just enough historical fact to fool the naive traveller. He then hustled us into a room where he urged us to start singing Christmas carols, so it was a verse of “Silent Night” and a verse of “Oh Holy Night”. A little surreal, but to be fair, it did sound lovely in the little cave-like amphitheatre under the church.

Eventually we were out and the rain had stopped, the sun appeared, and we got back on the bus and started heading towards our hotel, at last. But not before the next bizarre thing, according to Yakov “a surprise” on the way. Well, when you travel with majority American citizens, it seems that an Israeli idea of a “surprise” consists of a visit to the American Embassy in Jerusalem for a photo opportunity. Oh yes it does. We and the 2 Canadians sat on the bus wondering what on earth............

And the last stop for the day was a viewing area with sweeping views over Jerusalem. Thankfully the rain stayed away, and we piled off the bus. cameras in hand, and spent a few minutes capturing the view, the iconic gold Dome of the Rock taking centre stage in the lovely vista looking towards the Old City of Jerusalem. Something to look forward to for tomorrow, and hopefully the weather will be kind, but it will be coats and scarves I think.