travel lightly and carry a big stick: Isreali Christmas

Monday, December 25, 2006

Isreali Christmas

Egypt didn't really seem like the place for christmas, so where did? Well how about Bethlehem? sounded good to us, so on the 23rd we crossed into Isreal and headed north for Jerusalem. Crossing into Isreal was no mean feat, but required an extensive search of baggage etc to ensure that we weren't undesirables, luckily we weren't found out. One poor american student in the line in front of us was carrying a copy of the Qu'ran and consequently had to undergo a severe psycological exam. Seemingly the logic of Isreali security is you are what you read, as bags are unpacked and all books have to be looked at. As predictably i'm carrying ten books at any one time, this led to quite a review of my current literary influences. Hopefully they found my choices to be in good taste (although most of the good taste comes from liz's side of the equation which I'll admit here before she points it out to me upon reading this entry....)

Anyway, we arrived in Jerusalem. After a couple of grueling days of travel. Getting out of the white desert had involved hitching a lift in a tomato truck, which took us across the most desolate stretch of sand before we linked up with a bus to cairo. The following day after a visit to the mammoth government building in central cairo for visa extention (which turned out not to work in the end, but thats another story) we got an overnight bus across sinai to the Isreali border, crossed about 6 am and from there a bus to Eilat and another 5 hours on to Jerusalem.

We stood outside the Damascus gate of the old city's Muslim quarter, which is the site of a busy market and had our first sight of the walled city. Entering through the medieval gateway, the old city is amazingly preserved. Most of the buildings date from the Ottoman area, such as our hotel, a mere 500 years old, some are much older. Our hotel's entrance was just a door off of the narrow alley which is the busiest Souq in old city, and we had to push our way through the packed shoppers to find it, no doubt taking out a few unwary people with our backpacks. I think I can safely say that we were immediately enchanted by the old city. Yes there are alot of tourist shops, fleecing pilgrims is a business that has been going on here since the time of Soloman, but in this place more than anyother history, faith, and myth collide. I guess its a bit of a theme park for grown ups, but there arn't many places where you turn a corner and hey, there's another station of the cross!

We walked around the city for 4 days, taking in all the major sites and learning a little on the way, Liz did sterling work recalling all those Sunday school lessons from years ago. The main point of this escapade of course was Bethlehem at Christmas, and we got there by signing up with a trip with Jerusalem's Anglican Cathedral. We set off from Jerusalem at 7pm on Christmas eve, and crossed through the front line into Palestinian territory to arrive at Bethlehem at about 8.

The church of the Nativity is a huge rambling stone structure, the oldest parts about 1500 years old and it looks more like a fortress than a church. The square outside was packed with people, but security was high and it looked as though only people associated with a church were being let in. Once we got inside, we were taken to a smallish back chapel which the Greek Orthodox church had kindly lent to the Anglicans for the day (the Greeks in their wisdom knew the 'real' christmas wasn't for another couple of weeks but were kind enough not to point this out). So inside this chapel we had a couple of bishops (anglican and orthodox) a couple of ambassadors (UK and South African) and Mahmud Abbass the Palestinian president, us and about 75 other people most of whome were taking thousands of pictures of the president whilst asking each other 'who is he??'. All that was left at this point was the singing, and the question, would 'little town of bethlehem' be sung to the British tune or to the sacreligious American 'tune' (more like a wail for those in the know). I was confident that the would Anglicans righteously confound those Episcapalean splitters with our soaring melody, however with the dangerous concentration of Yanks in the congregation and no musical accompniment to keep them from straying from the true path, things were still in the balance. In Carols, as on Earth and weak is the will of man, I was left shaking my head, not because Liz won the bet, no no, but because those about me had fallen so low, shame. shame.

Leaving Isreal we head over the border to Jordan, intending just a quick visit to see Petra. On our first day however we discovered that Petra was 'snowed in' and yes before you ask, it is a desert. Anyway, taking this in our stride we jumped on a bus to Wadi Rum instead, the place where T E Lawrence based himself for the campaign against the Turks in WWI. Wadi rum consists of flat desert divided up by truely massive stone megaliths, some of them going straight up vertically 1000 meters. Take a look at the photo below and try and spot the tiny cars in the bottom right hand corner. You can only see a small portion of the cliff that they are next to. Because the desert it so featureless it is often difficult, even when you are there, to judge distances and sizes given that there are no frames of reference like trees etc. We stayed with a Beduin family in their tent for a couple of nights, and it was cold! but really enjoyable. After a couple of days though we left and tried to reach Petra.

We got a lift down to the main road and sat there waiting for a bus which never came. By an incredible stroke of luck we were picked up by a German family who were driving their huge 4x4 truck converted into camper, and two Chevy off roaders to Petra. This was particularly lucky as the road was still closed and the motorway had a ten mile tailback of parked trucks which we simply sailed past by driving just off the side of the road. Once we past the trucks we negotiated our way through the road block which had closed the road and were on our way to Petra. The road was snowed up in places, and a couple of times had to dig the truck out of drifts and then use it to pull the Chevies out, but eventually we made it. So thats it, after Petra, which was incredible, but I can't really put into words, even if I wasnt' too tired, we went south again, back in to Egypt and now we're at Dahab.

See below some pictures from Egypt, Isreal and Jordan.