May 14th, Jericho, Masada

I left early in the morning because I had a lot of driving to do today if I was to make it to Jericho, Qumran, En Geddi, and Masada all in one day. I left a little before seven and it was not long before I got lost. In fact I lost almost 2 hours trying to get back on track. Yet one more thing I do not like about renting a car. So basically my trip got altered as a result. En Geddi was out, and Qumran turned out to be short because all of the caves were closed anyway. So basically my day consisted of Jericho, driving, and Masada.

Getting into the West bank was not hard at all. They stopped me, asked me where I was going and where I was from. The 19 year old kid gave me a stern look as he threw his assault rifle over his shoulder, "American, are you Jewish American?" "No" I replied "I am a Christian." A smile appeared on his face and the kid motioned me on through. This example of Israeli Arab animosity reminded me of an experience from Yesterday that I forgot to mention. When I was looking for a place to crash I saw a hitchhiking Jewish boy. Everyone in Israel hitchhikes and I did not feel threatened at tall by him so I picked him up. (I had already given rides to two hasidic boys the day before) This kid spoke excellent English and was just heading home from military prep school. He entered the Israeli army in two months and I asked him what his job would be in the military. He responded "to catch Arab hostages." This was not nearly as surprising as when we passed by the national prison and he said that it was "full of the worst people in all of Israel, the worst of the Arabs." I left it alone, but it sure made me think.

When I got into Jericho the driving conditions immediately changed. They were driving like Egyptians. I was amazed how even the driving habits would change so quickly when I crossed an artificial border into another community. The ruins at Jericho were well....very small and very old. About 10,000 years old. It took me an hour to find the place and I was done in 20 Minutes.

During the drive I came to the realization that I had been going about my Israel trip all wrong. The car had given me an artificial sense of anxiety. I had to see all that I could as fast as I could to take advantage of the car while I had it. As a result I was not really absorbing my time here. I was rushing. I had forgotten Ryan Millers advice that he gave me back in DC. "Know right here and now that you will never be able to do everything you want to do. If you travel, make sure you travel right. Take your time and do fewer things but do them well." With this lesson relearned I planed to cut any other thing I had from my itinerary and spend the rest of my day on Masada and then turn in the car a day early.

Masada was simply incredible. I remember when Mom, dad, and Sarah had gone on their trip to Israel mom had given Rachel a series of envelopes with activities and plans for the kids to do each day. One day, Rachel told us that there were tickets inside and I thought that they were for a movie. When she opened the envelope and said that they were to an exhibit at BYU on Masada I was more than a little disappointed. How incredibly boring! When I got to the exhibit however, I was captivated. I read all that I could and soaked in the atmosphere of the exhibit. Since that moment I had always wanted to go ad see Masada for myself.

I decided that the cable-car was for wimps so I hiked up the snake trail at the base of the fortress. My cookie and coconut bar brunch soon let me know that it may not have been a good idea. After feeling more than a little sick, and enduring the heat of an unforgiving sun, I made it to the top. Incredible view on top of Masada and an even more incredible story. I rented the audio guide and wandered ontop of the fortress for over 2 1/2 hours. By the time I was done all other tour groups had left and the only people left on top of the fort was a large community of Jews celebrating a young girls Bastmitva. As a blond American in shorts and a ball cap I had trouble disappearing into the crowd. It was wonderful to watch them cheer and dance for this little girl though. I saw one cute Jewish girl but I decided that she would probably freak out if I even tried to speak to her.

I made the long drive back to Tel Aviv through the Judean desert. I dropped off my car and caught a bus at the airport bound for Jerusalem.