As I walked to the center of Ram'allah this morning, I noticed that the butcher was very busy--this is the last Friday of Ramadan, and Sunday marks the end of Ramadan. People will celebrate Eid with a feast.
When I got to the bus depot, I noted that there were none of the bigger buses that normally run all over the West Bank--just the little yellow minivans ("service taxis," or sherut) that aren't allowed across the border. After some asking around, I found out the Qalandia checkpoint was closed. The Israelis weren't allowing any vehicles through, and only had one gate open. Typically on Fridays the Qalandia checkpoint is mobbed--even moreso during Ramadan--as Palestinians go to the Haram ash-Sharif to pray on the Muslim sabbath. But today, apparently because it's the last Friday of Ramadan, the Israelis felt like being more difficult than usual.
I knew the checkpoint would be busy--that was part of the point for me going today: I was going to take pictures of the checkpoint and all the human cattle being funneled through the ritual humiliation. But I didn't see any point in going to the checkpoint and not being able to cross into Jerusalem and do all the things that I wanted/needed to do.
I'm going to have to re-think my plans for Sunday, as I was originally thinking of starting the journey to the airport at about 5 pm, an hour and a half before sundown and the end of Ramadan (and the beginning of Eid). It might be a long trip.
But fear not, I have pictures!
Last weekend four of us from the guest house took a road-trip through Israel, going to the Dead Sea, the Negev Desert, and then ending up in Tel Aviv. We put about 800 (~500 miles) kilometers on the rental car over three days, and had we gone for a fourth day, we would've gone up to the Galilee and ended up covering about 90% of Israel. It's not a big country.
We started out at Masada, climbing up the "snake path" up the eastern side of the hill before dawn. It's a pretty brutal climb: ~400 meters up, and quite steep. It was rough, too, because for a number of reasons I won't go into here, I only got about 2 hours of sleep the night before, in the driver's seat of our car. So I didn't take a lot of pictures during the climb, and the ones I took didn't turn out all that great. But to be honest, the whole "watch the sunrise over the Dead Sea from the top of Masada" is overrated.
So instead, feast your eyes on this gorgeous Ram'allah sunset, as seen from the top of the guest house:
Like the Herodion, Masada was built by Herod the Great. Also like the Herodion, I was underwhelmed by Masada, and I didn't take a whole lot of pictures. Here's a local bird. Interesting, in that it's been banded (twice)--look at its feet.
Here's another bird at Masada, right after sunrise.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP!!!
After hiking up Masada, we needed to cool off a bit. The Dead Sea region sits below sea level, and that makes it a lot hotter than Ram'allah, and it's more humid, too. North of Masada, there's a nature reserve centered on some springs, called Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi has waterfalls and swimming pools, and sounded like just the place to relax and recuperate from a rough night and tough pre-dawn hike/climb. We got there pretty early, and shortly after entering the park, saw some ibex on a cliff.
There were also a bunch of these rodents hanging out all over the place--mainly in the cool shadows and near where some of the irrigation hoses were leaking water onto the ground. They're about 2-3 times the size of a guinea pig, and were rather unafraid of us--as long as we didn't get too close.
We got to a waterfall-fed pool, and for some reason I didn't get a good picture of the pool. It was gorgeous, though. Cool & refreshing, and for a good hour or so, we had it all to ourselves. Well, us and the dragonflies (who, I'm guessing, were responsible for the complete lack of mosquitoes around the water).
Sadly, we had to leave Ein Gedi earlier than I would've liked, because several buses pulled up and vomited out a couple hundred tourists; our idyllic little oasis became mobbed, and the rest of the park turned into a massive human traffic-jam--and the jam included several Israelis who were carrying rifles. Not in uniform or anything, and not military-issue weapons (they were bolt-action carbines).
So we went south, into the Negev, and ended up at Makhtesh Ramon--the huge crater from a meteorite impact tens of millions of years ago. Again, this was relatively underwhelming, as it's billed as a cross between the moon and the Grand Canyon. Wadi Rum is less than a hundred miles east of here, and it's a much more spectacular site. We stayed the night in a Bedouin camp in the crater, and that was nice enough--especially with all the stars that were visible. I took this shot the next morning, from the eastern rim of the crater.
Two of us went on to Tel Aviv/Jaffa from here, and I took some photos of Jaffa and the Mediterranean, but I haven't had time to Photoshop them, yet. Rather than Jaffa pictures, then, I'll close this post with a shot from Ram'allah the other day. You can make your own joke.
Hey Joseph! Hope your flight/travel home is a good one. And good luck getting adjusted to the time change - that always hits me hard. I know Michael is looking forward to seeing you!
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