Nicole schreibt...

By rights I should have been in Egypt this autumn, finally visiting those elusive pyramids. But when Cairo erupted in bloody riots in spring with elections being announced for October (potentially triggering fresh riots), I decided to settle for a slightly different place, which is not really all that known for peace and quiet either: The Holy City, Jerusalem. Having gotten so close two years ago when I was in Jordan, the wish to see Jerusalem had begun to itch and I reckon Israel doesn't get any more peaceful than it is now. And oddly enough, when I read about Canadian baby star Justin Bieber visiting Jerusalem, I decided that "if a guy like that can go without being afraid of getting blown up, why the heck shouldn't I?"

So here I was, on a convenient direct flight from Cologne to Tel Aviv on Germanwings, whose only setback was the late arrival time of 11.20pm. But in the end my fretting about arriving in Jerusalem in the middle of the night was pointless (as usual). I had only cabin luggage and passport control was quite fast, nothing like what I had been led to believe (despite a few dumb questions, but nothing half as dumb as the Americans' infamous "Are you planning a terrorist attack?" questions on their green visa waivers). The sherut minibus to Jerusalem was easy to find and it departed within ten minutes of my boarding, when it was full. It first dropped a few people off in various suburbs of Jerusalem and a total of four tourists at Damascus Gate, the entrance to the old city, where cars cannot go. I had fretted myself silly over the short walk through the deserted old city street to my hotel, but at least the "main street" was still well-lit and plenty of people were about. And when I stopped in front of a fork in the street, not knowing whether I had to choose the left or right alley (and apparently let a frustated howl out audibly), some nice young Arab guy turned around immediately, asked me where I needed to be and walked me to the hotel entrance. It was 1.30 by the time I was finally in bed, but I still couldn't really sleep and was up again at 6am, so I just got up early to enjoy breakfast on the gorgeous roof terrace of the hotel with its great view over the old city:

While there's only one way in for infidels, we may leave by any of the several gates and one exit gate brought me to the starting point of the Via Dolorosa, that supposedly marks Jesus' last walk to Golgotha (or Calvary) bearing the cross. Today it's widely acknowledged that he probably started on the other side of the old city where Pilate had his Roman office by the Jaffa Gate, but it was still a strange and interesting walk, making you realize that while much of what the New Testament writes about Jesus is probably not much more than a legend, the guy did live, did suffer and did die on a cross in this area.

I got lost in the sodding Old City once more but managed to pick the trail back up that finally leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with Jesus' tomb, supposedly built over the scene of the actual crucifixion. Having felt a bit out of place at the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock, it was kinda nice to finally fall in with the home team, where I feel like I belong (and know the requisite gestures and thoughts). And having visited so many temples, shrines and Godknowswhat all over the world, it -was- a nice feeling to finally see the tomb of my own personal saviour (entrance to the actual tomb is the photo on the right), but some of the fuss rather boggled me, like these people dabbing handkerchiefs and scarves on the "Stone of Unction" (photo in the middle) on which Jesus' body was (supposedly) washed after he was taken off the cross.

It was the first time ever I was away on my birthday, but it didn't matter to me - in a way it was even nice to receive all the well-wishes while abroad. And it seemed oddly fitting to combine my birthday with a trip to Bethlehem to visit the Nativity Church. The easiest way to get there is by Arab bus that goes directly to the city center of Bethlehem, which is now part of the semi-autonomous Palestinian territory. Even the bus ride was interesting, seeing the horrible concrete wall that Israel has been erecting to "protect" themselves and which the Palestinians call Apartheid Wall. Once in Bethlehem, everything was written in Arabic with not a single Hebrew letter in sight and the Palestinian flag everywhere, but I never for one second felt unsafe there. It was a short walk through first a grotty street, then a nice souk street to Manger Square, where the tiny "Door of Humility" leads into the Nativity Church. Just my luck a big clump of tour group was just squeezing themselves into the grotto (the supposed stable in which Jesus was born, although people know these days that it was probably a cave, not a stable at all), so I sat outside to wait and soon learned a new bit of religious naffness: Crossing your legs is forbidden there! Both me and some bloke who was also waiting, were admonished and told to uncross our legs again. Once the tour group had gone, I could descend into the grotto and see the 12-pointed star for myself that marks the spot where the crib was supposed to have stood. And despite everything it was a great moment, just as the tomb had been the previous day, after all these years of Christian christmases and carols about Bethlehem.

I had booked a tour to Masada with an Arab-owned outfit in the Old City - which was the smart choice because unlike Israeli tour operators, they are also allowed into the Palestinian areas and could add a detour to Jericho into the day. Something I hadn't much thought about when I booked with these people (it just isn't the kind of thing you normally need to consider after all). But first things first:
After being picked up at Damascus Gate around 7.30 (as the last one), the minibus first headed to Qumran (by way of a potty break once we reached the Dead Sea), a place now famous for the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls that were found in the 1940's and date from the first century - pre-dating other written versions of the Old Testament by around a thousand years (and there's a colorful conspiracy theory going around that some scrolls that actually discovered "new" parts were made to conveniently disappear). Anyway, said scrolls were written by a fundamentalist sect called The Essenes who lived in a tiny convent by the Dead Sea and hid their scrolls in some caves in the mountains when danger (in form of the Romans) threatened their existance... and were found only some 1900 years later. So don't pick your hiding spots too well or at least leave a treasure map behind. Not much is left of the Essene settlement, but it's good enough to lure tourists and part them from their Shekels to have a look around.

From there we moved on to the Main Event, the mountain fortress of Masada that holds a special place among Jewish legends. Fact is: King Herod picked the flat table mountain by the Dead Sea as a spot for a fortress-palace to hide in, in case things got too troublesome in Jerusalem, but never used it. Later it was occupied by another fundamentalist sect, the Zealots, during the Judean rebellion against the Romans. After besieging Masada fruitlessly for some time, the Romans finally built a huge ramp up one side of the mountain from where they could use a battering ram to get in. Now comes the legend part: Supposedly all the Zealots committed suicide to avoid falling into Roman hands, drawing ten lucky guys by lot who were to kill everyone else, before one of them killed the other nine and finally did himself in. Since this incident was reported by only one historian, based on the stories of two female survivors, it's dubious whether this really happened, but it makes for a dang good story and has had tourists flocking to Masada since excavations dug out the old fortress walls and bits of Herod's palace (and ten ancient name tags, which might have been the ten guys picked to kill everyone else... or not). Sensible people take the cable car up the mountain, idiots take the Snake Path that winds uphill slowly on foot like in ye olden days. So no guessing what I did. Having huffed and puffed my way to the top after a hike of around 50 minutes with very little shadow, I couldn't gather too much interest in the few walls that were left standing here and there. Still, it was a great place to visit with fantastic views to the Dead Sea on one side and the desert on every other side and it's really a place to visit for the legend anyway, not for what few ruins are left.

From Masada we continued to the Dead Sea for a swim. I had been wary since it really hadn't been all that much fun in Jordan, however, over there it had been a concrete platform by the hotel from which to access the sea (and which I had to leave rather quickly after getting water in the eye), now we were on a proper beach with the famous healthy Dead Sea mud, so you could float around in the shallow water, cover yourself head to toe with mud and enjoy feeling like a happy little pig for an hour or two. Definitely a fun thing to do and much cheaper than the hoity-toity spa mud packages you get around the world!

Finally I returned into the old city one last time to stroll around and have lunch on the terrace of a little pizzeria by the Austrian Hospice, which was a tremendously perfect spot for people watching . Then it was finally time to curl up in my new home by the pool side and do nothing for the rest of the day and all of Saturday, before I had to return to the airport on Saturday evening.
Checking in at Ben Gurion Airport was experiencing a new dimension in obnoxious security fuss, but I suppose I can't blame them.
On the whole, however, I never once felt insecure for a single second, neither in Israel nor in the Palestinian Territories. I was met with friendliness and hospitality everywhere and witnessing the religious crazy of Jerualem for myself was definitely a fascinating enrichening experience. And no, I'm not ending this report with a big appeal for peace, because, frankly, I don't see it happen there any time soon, but Jerusalem got by for over 3000 years now, I'm sure it will continue to do so.