where every other square inch is famous.
Today's itinerary:
Masada
En Gedi
Lunch at beach side
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives
Palm Sunday road
The Garden of Gethsemane
The Jerusalem Hilton
From the base of the cliff you take a tram up to the stop near the top, and from there you walk up some very steep stone steps to the actual fortress. Masada is a very impressive structure--once again I found myself reassessing my estimation of the capabilities of the ancient world. ("Oh, I know, let's build a modern fortress on the top of that mountain over there.") Herod's palaces, the cisterns, the various structures: phenomenal.
If you don't know the story of Masada, it goes like this: Herod built fortresses all over the country. Not for the defense of Judea, but for the defense of himself: he was more than a little worried about his subjects. As it turned out, he didn't have any need for Masada, but he kept it around: you never know.
When the Jews revolted in 70AD, a group of Jews managed to trick their way into Masada--those holding the fortress evidently not known for their craftiness--and about 1000 Jewish rebels crowded in. The Romans, who were trying their damnedest to crush those pesky rebels, showed up and surrounded the fortress on all four sides, down on the valley floor. They built a wall connecting a number of encampments, to ensure that no one got in or out of Masada, and they expected to starve the rebels out pretty darn quickly.
The view from Masada
(Pretty darn impressive view, huh? It's like that pretty much from every side. The Romans didn't exactly sneak up on the fortress. Nobody could sneak up on this fortress. Herod picked a primo spot for this place. That square in the middle of the picture is the remains of a Roman encampment and must have been huge.)
What the Romans didn't know is that Herod had designed Masada so that a population of 1000 could live in Masada for years: there were huge grain storage bins, and cisterns (an important feature of any building in Israel) that could hold years worth of water. The Romans realized that they would be there for years. So if the Jews weren't coming to them, they were going to the Jews.
The Romans proceeded to fill in one of the chasms separating Masada from a nearby piece of land in order to build a bridge for a battering ram. Now, when I say they filled in a chasm, I am not kidding: two-thirds of the Romans' fill is still there. They were going to make this ramp and then they were going to take their battering rams up that ramp and end this siege.
The Romans make a ramp: artist's representation (not to scale)
The Jews realized what was going to happen if the Romans got to them: the ones who weren't killed outright would be sold into slavery. The revolt was over; it was just a choice of which bad outcome they wanted. So the Jews decided the thing to do would be to kill themselves and take away that final victory from the Romans. The only reason the Romans found out what happened was that a few women hid themselves away in a cave and lived to tell the story.
You may have seen the miniseries about Masada back in the Eighties: Peter Strauss as the leader of the Jews, Peter O'Toole as the leader of the Romans. The miniseries was filmed on the next ridge over, since they couldn't use the real Masada, and the film crew left a battering ram and a catapult as curiosities.
Despite the cold day, as I walked around Masada I could feel the sun shining right down on me. It's easy to imagine how blisteringly hot the summers must be there. You would think you were being baked alive. I appreciated finding a little shade where I could find it. I can only imagine how the team working on reconstructing Masada must feel about it.
The group at Masada
(Whoa. How pigeon-toed am I? How embarrassing. I must keep more aware of that.)
From Masada we drove to Ein Gedi, an oasis on the Dead Sea and a nature preserve. Oases are pretty cool, especially when you're in the middle of an absolute wasteland like the Dead Sea: rock, sand, rock, sand, rock, tree. "Look, dear, a tree. Head the camel thattaway." Evidently there are gazelles and a family of tigers that live there (though probably not too closely together), but we didn't see either.
We took what turned out to be a very long walk involving a lot of stairsteps to the far end of the oasis. We had to stop several times to let Steve and Carole (who was especially not happy with the number of steps) catch up. In fact, Carole did not even go down the final flight of steps to get to the waterfall, because she didn't want to go up them again.
The waterfall dropped into a pool, and the rock on both sides was covered in lush foliage. The overhanging plants on the left were dripping with water, if you looked closely enough.
Micky said we missed the full effect: in the summer you are so hot and so tired you simply wade right in. It wasn't hard to imagine what it would be like in the heat: that was a hell of a hike.
(Have I mentioned how glad I am we came in the winter? It's cooler and there are way fewer tourists.)
We had lunch at the cafeteria by the public access to the Dead Sea. Afterward, Darin, Scott, and I walked down to the beach, where Scott got pictures of
- the Muslim women in the water, behind the fence that had an Access Forbidden sign on it (and there was an easily accessible stretch just a bit further on)
- the sign of Rules and Regulations, which clearly hadn't been translated by a native English speaker--one rule said, "If you drink Dead Sea water, get help immediately"; the next rule said, "Drink frequently."
From seaside it was pretty much on to Jerusalem. We got off the freeway and Micky drove us through a heavily Arabic sector, with very narrow, twisting streets. I found myself wondering, This is the way into Jerusalem? I kind of thought the capital city would have easier access in.
Then we followed one curve around and we stopped in front of the single most impressive view of the Old City of Jerusalem, from across the Kidron Valley on the Mount of Olives. And I realized why Micky had taken that tiny, winding road.
A view of Jerusalem's Old City
He picked the perfect time to arrive, too. The afternoon sun cast a reddish glow on the walls and on the Dome of the Rock Mosque on the Temple Mount (that big gold dome on the left). And right after we got out to take our look the 4pm call to prayer started: muezzins all over the city began chanting. It sounded incredibly unearthly, this sound welling up in all directions.
Nearby a rabbi got on a camel and his wife and daughter on another, for pictures.
Micky pointed to the large picture windows of the building behind us--the restaurant of that hotel, with the best view of the city. It had been a very good hotel--on land owned by King Hussein--but the Intifada had started nearby and business had dried up. Perhaps it will pick up with the Millenium.
One of the things you can't see so well in this picture is that the Kidron Valley, on both sides, is covered in graves, mostly Christian and Jewish, although with one strategically placed Moslem cemetery. One of the tenets of the Christian and Jewish religions is that at the Resurrection, the Messiah will come from the Mount of Olives and go to Jerusalem through the Golden Gate, a gate into the city facing the Mount of Olives. It became very important to be buried facing Jerusalem, so you're facing the city on that day. Which is why there are so few (and so phenomenally expensive) graves left.
So the Christians and Jews believe the Messiah (whom the Christians think they know the name of and the Jews say no one does) will show up, preceded by a Jewish priest--same deal: Christians say it's John the Baptist, the Jews remain noncommittal. The Moslems came to believe that this Messiah was not a good deal for them; only for Jews and Christians. So, knowing that Jewish priests cannot walk through a cemetery, they put the Moslem cemetery right in front of the Golden Gate. And, just to be sure, they bricked up the Golden Gate.
(What the Moslems didn't consider is: on the day of Resurrection, all the dead are going to rise, so there aren't going to be any cemeteries--and, as Micky says, parking will get that much worse. Plus, if the Messiah can make the dead rise, you think a bricked-up door is going to be a problem?)
Micky pointed out the two Churches of the Ascension--one Catholic, one Orthodox--purporting to be the spot where Jesus ascended to heaven.
Then he drove us down the Palm Sunday road (the road Jesus reportedly took into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday) to the Garden of Gethsemane, which has a grove of olive trees--they (whoever "they" are) have proved the trees are at least 1700 years old; the trees might be 2000 years old or older, so these might be the trees, you know? The entire area is called Gethsemane, but reportedly this was the area where Jesus was arrested. The trees were fascinating because of their bloated, gnarly appearance--one of them had even burst open, the large pieces of bark lying in a giant heap, with a fresh new olive tree emerging from the wreckage.
Micky drove us around the old city and by the valley known as Gehena, which was the city dump in olden times. Because it smelled so bad and was always smoking, it was the worst place to be and eventually became a synonym for hell.
We checked into the Jerusalem Hilton, which is a new and wonderful hotel: luxurious touches at every turn. Of course, we started off with a problem: once again Darin and I got twin beds--I began to suspect it's because we have different last names (and no, the remedy is not for me to change my name). So they assigned us to a room on a different floor from the others. Fine.
Then Darin went to go look at the rooms Steve & Carole and Mitch & Scott got--and he was not happy when he got back: their rooms were much bigger. He called the front desk to ask if we would get some form of refund or compensation for the difference in rooms. At first they said there was no difference in the size of the room, which Darin would not stand for. Finally they moved us to another room, which was, in fact, much bigger than the one we'd had.
I was so tired, and I was so cranky we'd had to move rooms. When we finally got into this room, I got undressed and got into bed. Darin followed pretty soon afterward--next thing we knew, the phone rang at about 8pm. His Mom (or someone--clearly, I didn't pick up the phone, eh?) wanted to know about dinner. We said we'd rather sleep. And we woke up around 7 Monday morning.
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com