West Bank

We started out the morning by heading down (literally) to Jericho. On the way we got stopped at a check point. This wasn't at all surprising, since we were crossing into the West Bank. We had a tour guide with us, named George who used to work at the Center (which is how Aunt and Uncle know him). He is a Palestinian Christian (he's actually Greek orthodox). At the check point the guards asked for all of our passports. By virtue of being Palestinian, George is forbidden to have citizenship in Israel, even though he was born there. As a result, he cannot have a passport. When he travels to any foreign country he has to take his "documents," which include a government ID, which seems good enough. Then they asked if we were family. At that moment it dawned on me that they all have the same last name, since Uncle is my father's brother. It certainly made things easier to just say "yes," and not have to worry about explaining our relationship. George said to them that he was our guide, and the guard asked him his religion. Apparently, you can't go into the West Bank if you are a Jew. George told him that, no, he is a Christian -- and the guard should be able to tell by looking at the picture. The guard laughed and sent us through. It was really quite interesting to see these young men and women who were serving their country were just as worried about violence as we were, and were quite relieved when the people in the car were not terrorists.

In Jericho we drove around a little bit, then stopped at the Sycamore tree where Zacchaeus watched Christ come down the street and leapt down inviting Christ to stay with him (Luke 19:1-6). Before we got out of the car to take our lovely pictures George explained that if anyone asked us to buy anything we were to say their stuff was nice, but no and keep on walking. Apparently many of the peddlers are also pick-pocketers. No worries. I figured as much anyway. Here's a picture of George, Aunt, and me in front of the Sycamore tree in question.

After hanging out with the Sycamore tree we drove past the Mount of Temptation. This is the mountain, if you look in the middle of the picture you can see a monastery.

As we drove past The Mount of Temptation heading somewhere George explained that we may not be able to get through, "we'll see if the road is closed or not, hopefully, it is not." Uncle was driving when suddenly George announced, "Stop, sir! You have to go back! You can't go here." We all looked around as Uncle threw the car in reverse and backed-up as quickly as possible. Someone asked George what was going on, he said, "Do you see those tires in the road? Those tires mean you can't go there." That was the whole blockade — two tires on one half of the road. As we turned around to leave a soldier came out from behind a wall, looked at us, and waved back to George. How can that possibly be a road block? I'm not sure, but it clearly was. George lead us back to a hotel where he had many friends. We stopped in and walked around for a bit before heading out. That "road block" is one of the pictures I really regret not getting. It was so interesting to see, and quite serious.

From there we had to go back through the original check point, even though there was a shorter way. However, as a safety precaution we left the West Bank as quickly as possible. On the way through the check point the guard that had let us through was on the other side and just waved us on.