Hello again. We made our first trip to the West Bank on friday. We really wanted to visit Bethlehem so eight of us made our way down to the security wall. Below is the gate heading into the West Bank which has fairly little (visible) security, but coming back into Jerusalem it is a different story, and does feel much like a prison -- a large building with many guards and electronic gates etc...

The other side of the wall...

We were picked up on the other side of the wall by two very nice taxi drivers (Jer knew someone who knew someone etc...) and they gave us a great deal to stay with us for the whole day. We first headed to the traditional "shepherds field". This is the chapel commemorating the site -- since there is no longer an actual field there.

We then headed to Marsaba, a monastry in the middle of the Judean Desert. It was beautiful and very interesting -- but unfortunately, the women were not allowed in so we hung out on the side of a cliff with a bunch of arab boys and some donkeys. Jer filled me in a bit on what they saw, the most interesting (I think) being the 1500 year old body of the founder of the monastry who was not preserved in any way, but because it is so hot and dry there, he looked pretty good -- he still had his skin on and everything. His limbs are actually somewhat flexible as they sometimes dress him in updated robes. No pictures allowed though so here are some from the outside...

In the picture above you can see some of the living quarters built into the side of the cliff.

Jer took a picture of a really old postcard so we could post it here - then you get a better sense of the whole thing...

We then headed to the Herodion National Park. Here is some history for those of you who care. This is the excavated site of one of Herod the Great's most ambitious building projects and was used as his summer palace, fortress, monument, burial ground, and district capital (yes I have the pamphlet in front of me). It is also the only site built by him that bears his name. It was built betweent 23 and 20 B.C.E. The site was used by various different groups after Herod's death -- Herod's son, then the Romans, then Jewish rebels took it over, then the Zealots who added a synagogue and some ritual baths and they were then defeated by some more Romans. The site was abandoned for many years until it was again occupied by Jewish rebels fighting in the Bar Kochba revolt. It was again abandoned after that and taken over by a group of Byzantines who built four churches on the site. Now, it's only inhabitants are local Bedouin.

The excavated synagogue below (I know it's hard to see anything in these pictures - it's really quite exciting in real life)

Below, a ritual bath

We also got to explore a "suprise assault system" from the Bar Kochba period which includes water cisterns, escape tunnels, and hidden apertures for sneak attacks. It was amazing how they carved this all inside the mountain.

The tunnels eventually led us to the bottom of the mountain where there is a large pool (the big square)surrounded by huge pillars, that was used for swimming and boating, a large garden area, a 350 meter path which is believed to have been built for Herod's funeral procession (described by Josephus), and also some living quarters. In the far back left of this picture is Jerusalem. I was glad we took this picture at the beginning of the day as soon the area was over run with young boys playing soccer in the ruins -- life goes on.

Here is another picture of a postcard that Jer took so you can get a good sense of what the Herodion looks like -- a volcano sort of. The palace fortress is inside the hole at the top, and the pool and garden would be on the bottom right of the picture - but this postcard is so old (as are most here) that it has not been excavated yet in this picture.

We then went for some tea and coffee at the building site of our taxi man's (I can't spell his name, but it sounded like Solomon) new house. It is customary here that you always share tea or coffee with shop owners, taxi drivers, etc... He showed us his land, passed down from his grandfather, and filled with olive trees, which he can now not access because of the wall/fences, and new Jewish settlements.

After this, we went to the Church of the Nativity. The door to the Church is very small so that any intruders could not ride their horses right into the church -- on a less practical note, it is also called a humility door so that you have to bow down to get in.

I guess that is really it for today. There is a lot more to be said about the Church of the Nativity but I don't really remember it all and my time is up at this computer so I will leave it to Jer to post more if he wants. Ok bye for now, hope everyone is doing well. Happy travels to Mom and Dad tomorrow.