More From The West Bank: My Day In Jericho

View of Jericho (Israel, not Long Island)

It may seem silly, but I remember from my last visit to Israel in 1977 when I was 12 years old that I was disappointed we didn't go to Jericho, since I spent the first five years of my life in Jericho, Long Island.  This time, I wasn't going to miss a chance to see the original Jericho, which lies about 25 kilometers east of Jerusalem near the Dead Sea.

Given the complications of traveling in the West Bank (and the lack of any official or formalized guidance on how to get around, as well as the prohibition by most Israeli rental car companies against traveling to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas), it was a long trip from Tel Aviv to Jericho.  I first took a bus to Jerusalem's main bus station, then a taxi to the Arab bus station near the Damascus Gate, then - as there's no direct bus connection covering the short distance from Jerusalem to the city of Jericho - a bus to Ramallah, then a shared taxi from Ramallah to Jericho.

Jericho is a sleepy desert town and the diminutive city center does not have all that much to offer tourists.  But there are a host of interesting sights scattered throughout the Jericho area.  I hired a taxi for the day, which is significantly more affordable in the West Bank than it would be elsewhere in Israel.  My first stop was Hisham's Palace, the sprawling winter hunting retreat of Caliph Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik.  Built in the 8th century, archeologists have dubbed it the "Versailles of the Middle East."  Unfortunately for Mr. Hisham and his trusty group of hunters and revelers, the palace was destroyed by an earthquake shortly after its completion.  The highlights of the ruins are the ornate rock and plaster work and the exquisite "Tree of Life" mosaic on the floor of the entertaining room of the bathhouse.  Many artifacts from the palace are on permanent display in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. 

Overview of Hisham's Palace

Tree of Life mosaic

Ornate palace window

Remains from the stucco walls of the bathhouse entertainment room

More ornate handiwork at Hisham's Palace

Our next stop was Tel Es-Sultan (Ancient Jericho), where you can wander through the remains of one of the world's oldest civilizations, which first settled in Jericho some 10,000 years ago.  The site consists mostly of large mounds of dirt, but they're really old mounds of dirt and the site offers nice views of modern Jericho and the surrounding mountains.  It's amazing to think that this is one of the places where humans first domesticated animals and tilled the land.  It's also amazing to think that this is the place that inspired the name of my childhood home on Long Island.

10,000-year old mound of dirt, with modern Jericho in the background

Remains from the oldest civilization on earth

That's a very, very old mound of dirt!

Looking from the old, towards the new

For even better views of Jericho and the Jordan River Valley, there's a cable car that ascends over 1,300 feet up the slopes of the Mount of Temptation to the 12th century Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Qurantul.  The monastery clings to the rock face in spectacular fashion, at the site where Christians believe Jesus fasted for 40 days while tempted by the devil.  Inside the monastery, I met one particularly stern-faced monk, but I managed to get him to crack a small smile when I broke out the little Greek that I know to say "Thank you, it's very beautiful."   

View from the cable car on the way up

Inside the tight confines of the Monastery

View from the Monastery

View from the cable car on the way down (pretty much the same as the view on the way up)

The next stop on my yellow taxi adventure through the environs of Jericho was Nabi Musa, which marks the place where Bedouins and Palestinian Muslims believe that Moses was buried.  The Mamluks built a mosque here in the 13th century, which was later used by the Jordanians, and then the Israelis, as an army base, before being ceded to Palestinian Authority control in 1995.  The pastel white and green domes of the mosque make for a great picture against the earth-tones of the desert.  Next to the mosque is a crumbling, old Muslim cemetery, and there's also a large Muslim tomb nearby (though I forget who is buried there).

 

The cemetery is in the foreground

Muslim tomb with my friendly taxi driver Nasser

Muslim tomb amidst the desolate desert landscape

Desert scenery near Nabi Musa

Bye bye Nabi Musa!

Desert scenery on the way from Nabi Musa to St. George's Monastery

More desert scenery on the way from Nabi Musa to St. George's

Another highlight of my visit to Jericho was St. George's Monastery, built into the steep rock face of Wadi Qelt ("wadi" is Arabic for canyon) by Greek Orthodox monks in the 5th century.  The Greeks sure liked to build their monasteries in hard-to-get places, although as I was puffing and huffing along the steep paved path back up from the monastery to the road, I ran into a comfortably seated monk driving a motorized cart.  I guess life is easier in the 21st century than it was in the 5th.

Wadi Qelt

View from the top of Wadi Qelt

My final touring stop was the Church of St. Gerasimos, yet another picturesque Greek Orthodox monastery near Jericho, but this one was built on flat ground instead of being carved out of a vertical rock face. This church isn't in my guidebook, but I had another 40 minutes remaining on my negotiated tour time (five hours), and my friendly taxi driver suggested it.

Throughout the course of my five hours of touring, my taxi driver and I had many interesting discussions.  One was about women :  "I love my wife," he said, "just not all the time!"  Another was about technology: "Cellphones make life too complicated - sometimes I don't want people to be able to reach me, but someone is always calling."   And another was about politics:  "I want to get along with everybody.  I don't want to fight with anybody.  I don't know what the solution is, but our rulers have to figure it out.  We need peace - so that more people will come to Jericho and business will be better." 

When I was finished touring, we went back to the center of Jericho, where I lamented to my taxi driver at the long trip ahead to get back to Tel Aviv:  I had to go back to Ramallah, go through the Qalandiya checkpoint, catch a bus to the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, then make my way from the Damascus Gate to the Jerusalem central bus station, then catch a bus to Tel Aviv.  My taxi driver had a better idea.  He could just drop me along the highway outside of Jericho, where I could catch a bus directly to Jerusalem.  I hadn't thought of that.  Israelis aren't allowed inside Jericho, and Palestinians certainly can't board a bus to Jerusalem from the main highway outside of town.  But as a foreigner, I could do both.  I could spend the day sightseeing in a Palestinian Authority-controlled area, and then use the Israeli highway network in the West Bank to get back into Israel "proper."         

At the bus stop along Highway 1, I had no idea what bus number I was looking for or when the right bus would come.  But after only a few minutes of waiting, a bus pulled up and some young Jewish men got on.  I asked if the bus was going to Jerusalem, and they said yes, so I hopped on.  It turned out this was not a public bus, but a private bus with a group of young Israelis who were about to enter the army.  They were headed home after a few days of "R&R" on the Dead Sea.  It was a very friendly group, and I was immediately offered a seat, chocolate cake, and something to drink - all at no charge.  But the bus driver explained to me that we weren't going straight to Jerusalem; rather, the bus would first be stopping at Mitzpe Jericho, a nearby Jewish settlement, to read from the Torah.  So, I concluded my day in Jericho by praying in a synagogue in the West Bank.  The bus then went on its way, stopping in Jerusalem to drop people off and then continuing on all the way to Tel Aviv, where I got off only a few stops from our apartment in Ramat Gan.

I marveled at the vastly different worlds I had just encountered in such a short period of time.  And I thought of what I, and the greater "we," could do to try to bring these different worlds together.