On our way down toward the Dead Sea we veered off onto the old Jericho road. You can’t get into Jericho anymore without an Arab guide, but you can go halfway on the old road which we did. This is the road mentioned in the Good Samaritan story and you can see why Jesus chose that for the setting – it’s a winding old trail with about a million different places where a robber could hide. We saw a lot of Bedouin tents and shacks along the way, loads of sheep and goats scrabbling along the hillsides.

At one point we pulled off the road for a view and were set on by about five Bedouins with necklaces and keffiyahs hanging from their arms. We made a few purchases in and around looking at the beautiful view. It was amazing – total desert all around, then this swath of green where a spring popped up and went through an aqueduct down toward the monastery we were going to visit. There were a few palm trees and lots of green, but only within a few feet of the water source.

Finally we arrived at the path leading to the St. George Monastery. Their were some Bedouins hanging around with donkeys where we got out and my brother thoughtfully decided to hire one for his pregnant wife to ride back up. That set off a chain reaction until we had all three donkeys following us down the very steep hillside. It was all paved…sort of…but super steep and really switchbacky. When we arrived at the bottom we could see this unbelievable monastery hanging off the side of the mountain. We climbed a bunch of stairs, entered, and were met by a Greek Orthodox father or priest or whatever they’re called. He was wearing all black and had a long black beard and long hair topped with a black stocking cap. Meanwhile we were sweating to death and the girls had had to put on jackets because our t-shirts weren’t covering up our arms.

He showed us around the chapel a little and when my dad asked him to explain how they felt about icons he launched into probably close to a 20-minute sermon. It was really interesting – he talked about how the icons are like windows to the person. Like we would look at a picture of a loved one and wouldn’t be attached to the picture, but to the person and the memories and feelings about that person. That’s a real short summary, but that’s what I got out of it.

He also talked about pain and suffering and earning your reward. He talked about how winning things easily, or being given things without earning them didn’t give you the same feeling of pride in working hard to earn it…and that there wasn’t true joy and happiness without pain. I kind of got the feeling he was a little bit works oriented, but other than that his words really made me think about how this life is just preparation, how we are to be working out our salvation and learning to walk with God in this depraved world. Basically how this life is the birth pains and frustration that make heaven even greater.

Anyway, got on a little tangent there, sorry! We of course had to use the facilities and they had about the best view ever because the squatty potties had windows cut out of the rock looking out on the hillside. I had one brief moment of wondering whether the Bedouins spent the day with binoculars…

One of the coolest things was walking up another couple flights of stairs and finding the traditional site of the cave of Elijah, where he fled after defeating the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. That was wicked cool. It was a cave of about 30 feet and at the back was an old dude with a flashlight doing some restoration work on a mosaic. There were cracks in the ceiling and you could see the black smoke from hundreds of years of candles burning.

The way back up was eased considerably for the rest of the gals when they road the donkeys. I walked with the guys but don’t get the wrong impression, it was only because there weren’t enough donkeys to go around…it was quite a trek! ;) I think I got some good video of the riders – it was pretty funny looking.

We drove down toward the Dead Sea and went back to the place we’d swam before because someone in the group had left something special, then went back to Qumran and had lunch at the cafeteria there. Our guide told us he’d been at the Valley of Tears that I think I wrote about earlier – up on the Golan Heights where Syria almost broke through with their bazillion tanks. He’d been observing Yom Kippur when they saw a jeep drive by which was a big sign of something wrong as no one is supposed to drive – the soldiers came right into the synagogue and gave the code word to call up the reserves. He was a tank commander and lost more than half of his brigade I think he called it. It was sort of sickening to be sitting there listening to him talk about it – so much more real than reading about it in a book. Especially because he told us the story of his brother’s best friend dying right after driving his tank.

Finishing up the day we headed back into Jerusalem and went to the big Jewish food market. THAT was an experience. Thousands of people swarming through a couple streets with vendors yelling all the time. This particular place has been the sight of several suicide bombings and we saw a lot of military presence there – besides which our guide told us there were even more plain-clothed policemen than the ones we saw. We bought a few miscellaneous things like hyssop and some sort of spices you put in rice.

We also bought some really yummy cinnamon roll kind of things – not cinnamon rolly at all, but that’s what they tasted like. Unfortunately we had to give them back to the guide because we got stopped by the kosher police outside the hotel when we tried to bring them in. Ok, not really the police…but they had some guy standing outside who wouldn’t let you bring in anything that would desecrate the Passover cleansing they’d done. Apparently a few other of our group had trouble with this throughout the day…

To finish the night we walked down to the Old City to watch the Orthodox Jews welcome Shabbat like a bride as they do – lots of dancing and singing and the Yeshiva boys come dancing down the street to the Wailing Wall. I remember it from last time which is probably good because this time it was nothing special – the schoolboys were already out for Passover so they didn’t come down and we sort of missed the singing because it wasn’t as boisterous as usual.

Tomorrow we have to have our bags out front at 7:45 and we pull out for Jordan at 9. It’ll take us a couple hours to get to the Allenby Bridge and then a couple more hours to get us to Amman. I think we’re having dinner with some friends from Boise, then we start our touring in the morning. From this point on it’s all new to me so I’m excited about it, though not so much for the sleep-in days to be over!