Jericho

So I had long planned to make it to Jericho on my own to see the many sites there. It's probably the calmest, most easy-going town in the West Bank, and has quite a bit of history packed into a small space.

Running about kilometers due west of Jericho is Wadi Qelt, one of the loveliest places for desert hiking. Midway between the western extent of the wadi at the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yericho and the eastern extent at Jericho itself is the monastery of St. George of Koziba. More on that later. But my original plan was to wake up nice and early, take a bus to Mitzpe Yericho, and walk through the wadi into Jericho with a stop in the monastery.

Unfortunately, several problems came together to eliminate this possibility. First and foremost, the day was Tuesday, which was the beginning of Passover week; therefore no Egged buses were running. Second, I woke up a little later than I'd hoped, so I couldn't meet up with a group that were planning on taking one of the Arab buses that passes by the settlement, nor did I have time to figure that one out on my own. Third, even if I had gone with them, the Monastery of St. George of Koziba is open all day, whereas the monastery in Jericho itself, the Monastery of the Qurantal ('the Forty'), is only open until noon, and I wanted to make sure I got there. So I went to Jericho first by overpriced taxi.

Happily, the taxi dropped me off right by the cable car station. The cable car goes from within the Jericho city limits until it gets halfway up the Mount of Temptation (venerated as the site of the temptation of Jesus our Lord in the wilderness), where there is a good restaurant and a cliff-side walkway leading to the monastery.

The Monastery of the Qurantal itself is an absolute wonder. It basically a two-story lengthy hallway, with one side carved out of cliff and the other suspended over the edge (like all good daring Eastern Orthodox monks, laughing in the face of worldly concerns, the brothers have their cells on the hanging side). Upon entry, I made my way into the ancient cave church. The monastery is relatively new, but there was an older monasty on the site centered on this natural cave in the rock. Don't ask me the significance, though, because nobody around spoke English.

From there the hallway continues into the main church with a beautiful set of icons. Of the four active monasteries in the Judean desert-Mar Saba, St. George of Koziba, St. Gerasimus, and the Qurantal- all of which I've now visited, I think the last one has the nicest church (though probably just because it's new).

There's also a wonderful set of pieces in the larger outer chamber of the cave church:Above this main sanctuary is a smaller chapel- the extent of the publicly accessible part of the monastery- which holds the stone that Satan tempted our Lord to transform in to bread... apparently. Oh well, I still venerated it as a commemorative relic, and that's good enough for me.

After lunch on the mountain I returned to Jericho via the cable car. My next stop was St. George of Koziba in Wadi Qelt (pictured right), but since I wasn't exactly sure how to get there from the eastern approach, I decided to hire a taxi.

Unfortunately, whereas I had requested that a taxi take me to the entrance of Wadi Qelt so that I could hike in and out, as well as see the ruins of Herod's fortress (called Cypros) on the southern exit of the wadi and his palaces on either side (they were once connected by a bridge), the driver thought I meant that I wanted to be taken all the way in. Granted, there is a semi-paved road running along the pinnacle southern side of the wadi, but I just wanted to say that I'd hiked Wadi Qelt while getting all the time I wanted in the monastery.

Instead, I was driven directly to the site, where I was told that I had about ten minutes, so I should walk up to the panorama place overlooking the monastery and take a picture. Dismayed, I explained that I didn't come for the picture (you can find about a thousand on the internet), but that I actually wanted to go down and into the monastery. Yet because he had another client on the schedule, he couldn't give me any more than thirty minutes to get down into the wadi, see the monastery, and worst of all, get back up.

Oh well. I got to the monastery (where I was told I had to put on a jacket because my short-sleeved t-shirt was unacceptable) and found it much as I'd imagined: glorious. Among other things was a prominently displayed corpse, presumably of St. George of Koziba:
They also had a very nice iconostasis, of far greater antiquity than that at Qurantal, and while the church as a whole isn't quite as good, I think the icons themselves are much nicer:
Anyway, I got literally mugged by a Bedouin guide who sold me a donkey ride back up the slope who agreed to one price at the bottom but changed his price at the top in the presence of a gang of fellow tribesmen. So that was deeply unfortunate, and was just one more financial disaster in a day of financial disasters. Again, oh well.

In any case, I was driven back to the cable car station by the taxi driver, since right across the street is Tel as-Sultan. Tel as-Sultan contains the remains of one of the earliest human settlements, rivaling Çatal Höyük in Turkey (which, unfortunately, I won't be getting to next week). There really isn't much to see if you're not an archaeologist with a specialty in the development of pre-literate building, but I figured it was worth going to.

At this point I decided that I couldn't afford to keep trotting around Jericho completely out of order with a taxi driver who wanted to milk me for all I was worth. So I missed Cypros Fortress, Herod's Winter Palace, and Tel es-Samrat, the site of Herod's Jericho hippodrome- namely, all the Herodian structures in a city that is well known for them. Come to think of it, I didn't get to Nebi Musa (a nearby Muslim tomb for Moses) or Jericho's greatest wonder, Hisham's palace, either.

Worse still, the taxi driver decided to drop me off at Almog Junction with the promise of an arriving bus. As I mentioned, it Tuesday was Passover, which meant there would be no Egged buses running. I mentioned this to him and asked him whether he meant an Israeli or an Arab bus, but he simply assured me a bus would come. I then asked what the number of the Arab bus was- at which point he drove off. I should have just walked to the bus station in Jericho and gone through with a transfer in Ramallah, because no bus ever came. After about forty minutes I flagged down a taxi, which meant yet another bit of financial ruin.

The lesson to be learn here is this: do Jericho in two days. On one day, take an early Egged bus to Mitzpe Yericho and hike through Wadi Qelt. See the Monastery of St. George of Koziba, and continue east to see Cypros Fortress, Herod's Winter Palaces, and and Tel as-Samrat. Then take the bus to Ramallah, and transfer from there onto the number 18 Arab bus to Jerusalem. On the other day, take the number 18 Arab bus to Ramallah and transfer to Jericho. See the Monastery of the Qurantal first thing, then Tel as-Sultan, and then hire a cab to Hisham's Palace and to Nebi Musa. In the end, those two days will cost you far less than my one day cost me, and you'll get to see a whole lot more.