Day 7

The day dawned hot and bright over the Dead Sea, the lowest point in the world at 400m below sea level. We made the short drive to Masada, the fortress built by Herod the Great (with a little help from Roman ingenuity!) and made famous through the occupation by Jewish rebels in about 74 A.D. and the subsequent siege by the Romans, which took about 3 years. From there we drove to Ein Gedi, the caves where David hid from King Saul in 1 Samuel. It’s a beautiful place with a natural spring and the natural habitat of the Ibex as well as some interesting rodents. We then headed to Qumran, where in 1947 the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered by accident and which provided what are now the earliest manuscripts of much of the Old Testament. The air-conditioned comfort of our bus was welcome as the mercury climbed into the high 30s and we drove to Jericho, the oldest continually occupied city in the world. We saw a sycamore tree (remember Zacchaeus in Luke 19?) and part of the ruins that are now being restored. We were now inside the West Bank, territory that ‘belongs’ to the Palestian people, but which is inside Israel. The problems with this complicated arrangement was evident at Bethany, where from a very poor Palestinian neighbourhood (where they get water provided once a month) you can look across to new affluent Jewish settlements with constant running water and electricity and expensive houses. We crossed out of the West Bank past the separation wall and got our first glimpse of the Old City of Jerusalem, where we’ll spend the next few days.