Day 9 Part 2 - The Garden Tomb

With great reluctance I depart the national museum with my group.  Honestly, the visit there would have been worthy of the entire day.

It is difficult to convey all of the reasons I am feeling ambivalent about moving on to our next destination, the Garden Tomb.  Since our visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we have been told more than once that the chances of the Garden Tomb site being the place where Jesus spent three days (dead) following his crucifixion is pretty remote.  Most everything about the site is wrong from a logistical and historical standpoint.  The tomb is from the first century and has [had] a rolling stone covering for the tomb but most of the arguments favor the Church of the Holy Sepulchre site.  

We ride our buses through the narrow streets to the the Arab sector of Jerusalem.  This part of Jerusalem is home to mostly Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.  This area is pretty nice and pleasant if not busy.  Having seen pictures of this Garden Tomb all of my life, I had no idea that this area is somewhat like a park and is privately owned by a British Organization that oversees it's preservation and upkeep.  Many people who give the tours are from all over the world and are all volunteers and actually have to pay to do what they are doing.  They obviously love what they do.

Surrounding the park are the busy streets of Jerusalem where cars and traffic of all kinds whiz by.  Right next to the Tomb area where the skull-like cliff face of Gordon's Calvary is, is a fairly new bus depot.  

Apparently the organization that owns the Garden Tomb area did not own the area right next to it, where "Golgatha" or the skull-like cliff face is.  Too late they realized the land had been sold and a Palestinian bus company filled in and paved the land to provide parking for their 100 or so buses.  Having no sympathies for the Golgatha landmark, their parking lot abuts right up to the cliff face and now obscures what would have been the "mouth" of the skull.  A little lack of planning on the part of the Garden Tomb organization has lost a lot of their attraction.  I am sure it is pretty disappointing to them and many people.

We wander through the garden which is taken care of pretty well.  It is very warm today and I kind of walk from shade providing tree to shade providing tree.  I didn't think we would be outside so much today so I didn't sunscreen up as usual when we are going to be outside.  

There are many places in the garden where groups can sit together, worship and have communion.  We are not the only group visiting here today.  People of many nationalities are here.  One of the larger groups is from Nigeria.  The Nigerian government will pay for their citizens to visit Mecca once in their lifetime.  The Christian citizens of Nigeria petitioned their government to extend that privilege to them as well and the Nigerian government granted their wish! So that partly explains why there are so many African pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Nigerians are singing Christian hymns in their typical harmony and the sound is beautiful.  We stop to enjoy the impromptu chorus.  

Our group gathers in one of the seating areas and we also sing some hymns about Calvary.  Unfortunately this seating area offers almost no shade and I am feeling my skin turn red as I sit in the full brunt of the sun.  General Superintendent Dr. George Wood leads a devotional as we are all served communion.  

We are all given little wooden communion cups and a communion wafer as we observe the centuries old instruction from our Lord to, "do this in remembrance of me."  It feels very special to be participating in this communion with all of the other nationalities represented all around us. Perhaps a foretaste of heaven? 

Following our devotional and communion, we join an unending line to actually step inside the Garden Tomb.  I am ok with this, but more from a famous landmark sort of point of view.  Maybe I am weird, but if we are pretty convinced that this is not the tomb of Jesus, really, what is the point?  Just like the replica scroll of Isaiah, the gift shop has plenty of those so why take the time to look at a replica in the dark?  It was the same thing when we visited the traditional place of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river.  Most likely not the real deal.  I don't mind stopping, but why spend so much time at a place that really should not have that much significance?  Perhaps I am too pragmatic but in light of the fact that there are so many places that are authentic and undisputed that we don't have enough time for that ultimately I feel visits to these sites could be time better spent elsewhere, like the inside of the National Museum...

The line is long and we take our place and wait slowly creeping along.  It takes a lot of time as the tomb itself is not very big so only 3-5 people can occupy it at a time.  The drill goes like this.  The next people in line pause at the door to the tomb while someone takes their picture.  Usually right after that, someone comes out who was in the tomb and the new people go in. Every one will eventually take their turn at this so we all wait patiently as out pasty white skin takes on a pink hue.

After some time, our turn finally comes up.  We pause for our pictures at the entrance, wait a moment for someone who is inside to come out and then we enter the tomb.  It is very interesting.  It is spotless, obviously well cared for. There are old Christian symbols painted on the plastered smooth interior walls.  There is a raised bench like area where the body would be placed in a secondary room at the back of the tomb.  There are other people with us in this crowded space so taking pictures is a little awkward and we don't want to over stay our visit as there are many more people who are waiting their turn inside.  

Click on this link to see inside the tomb: http://youtu.be/I5s1KDcpmPQ

We emerge from the tomb into the dazzling sunlight and across the little courtyard to tour the garden a little more.  I can see how someone might like to spend their time volunteering at such a place as this.  So many Christian people to visit with from all over the world, the setting is beautiful, a little oasis in the midst of a hustling, busy city.  The mostly British sounding volunteers are very nice people and bid us all farewell as we prepare to board the buses once again.

We are heading to Jaffa Gate and a couple of hours to ourselves!  We are quite excited!  Little do we know we will have our own little adventure that will give us a sense of danger and vulnerability that we weren't counting on.

Day 9 Part 1 The Israel National Museum

We are waking up slower these days.  Not only is the toll of the uncountable number of stairs and miles of walking each day really adding up but our body clocks are catching up to the time change after waking us up in the early hours of the morning for most of this trip.  I look out the window of our hotel and think of the song "Bethlehem Morning" even though we are in Jerusalem. 

I ponder what to wear today.  I'm not really all that concerned about fashion (obviously) but with a limited wardrobe I have pretty much put together all the combinations of shirt/pants that I have brought with me by now.  Since we will be in Jerusalem all day, I will wear my running shoes, but what shirt with what pants?  Fortunately I have not dropped a big blob of bbq sauce on any of my shirts yet, mostly because they don't serve bbq sauce in Israel, so most of my shirts are still pretty clean.  I should probably wear a long-sleeved shirt. 

The little complicator is when you are in Jerusalem, so often places we go are "sensitive" and part of that sensitivity is the length of sleeves and pant legs for those areas where religious sensitivities are heightened.  So in Jerusalem pretty much you need to wear long sleeves and long pants.  It in such a hot place you have to wear your least cool clothing.  That pretty much holds true even in non-sensitive places as well but for sunburn potential not religiosity. It would be safer next time to just bring all long-sleeved shirts.  

I make my clothing selections from my limited options and head down for my standard breakfast. 

We gather for a devotional by Dr. Wood in one of the hotel's large rooms.  We get the game plan which includes the Israeli National Museum, the Garden Tomb, and a rare opportunity - a free couple of hours for lunch! After a prayer, we are bid to get on the bus.  The buses are always right on time and waiting for us.  The drivers are the unsung heroes of the trip.  

The bus drivers are always thinking ahead, appear right on time and where they need to be.  They are also pretty friendly.  I think ours must be from Australia.  He looks a bit like Crocodile Dundee with the hat he wears and he has that Australia way of talking.  I hope they get a good tip for the good job they do. 

We enter the downtown traffic and snake our way into town.  One of the sights that is becoming familiar to me is we often pass by the Valley of Hinnom.  It is a beautiful little park-like place where we see families playing and little children running around.  The history of this place is very dark.  The Valley of Hinnom was a place where the apostate Jews sacrificed their children to Molech and Jesus referred to as "Gehenna" or hell.  The contradiction from then until now couldn't be greater.  It looks like it should be part of a golf course.  I am a little more oriented now as the Valley of Hinnom begins near Jaffa Gate, my favorite part of the city.  

After a short bus ride, we pull into a spacious parking lot and leave our buses. We have arrived at the Israel National Museum.  This same area also is the place where "The House of the Book" displays the Scroll of Isaiah and many fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The House of the Book catches your eye right away as the shape of the building is built to resemble the kind of pottery jar the scrolls were found in, the roof is of white tile and fountains of water are continually spraying the roof.  

The water on the roof was the means by which the architects used to keep the building cool and temperature controlled before such environmental systems advanced to the level they are today.  

We are led to the area where there is a 3D scale model of Jerusalem.  I have seen pictures of this many times before.  It really helps one get oriented and have idea of how Jerusalem is laid out.  Our guide for the day is Dr. Wave Nunually.  In his characteristic and enthusiastic style, he shows us the different configurations of Jerusalem over the centuries.  The City of David, Hezekiah's Wall, and so forth.  All of it is pretty interesting and the scale and accuracy of this model is amazing, but I am anxious to get inside the museum as we are still on the outside.  All of the bus groups have gone inside some time ago and Dr. Nunually is still lecturing on the finer aspects of the City.  I appreciate this, but really want to go inside. 

Inside the museum will be all of the real artifacts that we have seen replicas of on our trip so far.  From Dan, Chorizim, Shiloh and many things we have not experienced yet all await inside.  Dr. Nunually doesn't seem to be getting the message and we stir restlessly as our precious time diminishes.  Finally Dr. Nunually confesses he has talked too long and that we should move along.

I thought he would never ask.  Instead of the museum we go into the House of the Book.  It is very dark inside especially after being in the bright sunlight outside.  It is so dark that even after a time I can barely see.  In the center of the room is the huge round feature around which the scroll of Isaiah is spread.
I am using a picture I found online as the pictures I took were all to dark to discern what the picture was about.
 

This scroll of Isaiah is the oldest complete example of the book of Isaiah.  We are told here that just recently the real scroll that has always been on display has been removed for preservation and this is an exact replica.  Really?  I don't much care to spend time looking at a replica, especially in the dark, I can do that in the gift shop in better light.  Since my reading of Hebrew characters is a little rusty and I can't look at the original, I have little interest.  For myself I consider this wasted time that I could be spending in the museum.

There are two levels in this building, the first level is all about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The lower level of the building houses the Aleppo Codex.  This document has a shadowy and clandestine history of being stolen and ransomed through the crusader era and being transferred back and forth.  It is a collection we might think of as the first "Hebrew Bible" with most of the Jewish writings bound together in book format.  

We are spending too long in this place and I walk outside into blinding sunlight.  After too long at the scale model of Jerusalem and too long in the Shrine of the Scroll, we finally enter the museum.  It is fascinating.  Why did we not start here and see if we had time left over for the other places?  I can tell we will NOT have enough time to see everything.  

I admit I probably sound a little whiney about all this, but I LOVE museums, especially ones that house old stuff.  To be so close to a museum that holds things of biblical importance is almost more than I can stand.  I have to race through to see it all.  Much like our time at Yad Vashem, I trail the group to take as many side tours through the museum as I can while being tethered by my little blue receiver.  There is wonderful stuff, actual Roman helmets and spears, statuary and the real items from many of the sites we have toured.  The antiquity of it all is fascinating.  I have never seen things this old before.  The Constitution of the United States?  Hardly old at all, a mere blip on the timeline in comparison to many ancient writings far, far predating our country. 

This is the stone from Tel-Dan that we visited early in our tour that mentions "the House of David" verifying that David was in fact an actual historical person, not a legend like King Arthur. We saw the replica at Tel-Dan but this is the real deal here.

There were so many things that we did not get to see much less photograph. If you go to Israel, reserve AN ENTIRE DAY to see the museum.  Anything less is not enough.  I am sure that this is why many people come back to Israel and hire their own guides and make up their own tour so you can spend all day at any place you wish.  I would have done so here.

You may ask what was one of the coolest things I saw in the museum?  I have an answer for you.  An actual human heel bone with a Roman spike through it!  For real. 

No one of course is making any claims that this was Jesus' heel bone but this does date from the Roman period and verifies the method of crucifixion.  This sort of thing is extremely rare to have survived.  Amazing.

As I knew it would happen, we are told we do not have any more time, we must cut our visit to the museum short and hurry on to our next destination.  I am very close to throwing a two-year-old style tantrum melt down and make them drag me kicking and screaming out the doors of the museum, but I keep my emotions in check.  I am the last one out of the museum and on the bus.

Our next destination?  The garden tomb...  

Day 8 Part 6 The Wilderness Balcony

The buses head out to the main highway and the diesels strain as they head up the grade.  Since we are at the lowest point on the planet, every direction we could head would be "up".  This is why in the Bible you will always read about people traveling "up" to Jerusalem.  It doesn't matter if you are heading south or north, you always head "up" to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the high ground.  In Alaska, we always head "down" south to the continental US and "up" to Alaska when we return.  They don't think like we do in the Middle East about latitude, they think in terms of altitude.  So we are heading up to Jerusalem but by a slightly different route.  

Our final destination of the day will the "Dead Sea Balcony".  This is a high vantage point that gives a panoramic view of the Judean Wilderness.  The Judean Wilderness is a seemingly unending series of hills and valleys, rugged in terrain and virtually devoid of any vegetation.  The barrenness is so striking.  

The buses deposit us in a rather forlorn a featureless wide spot on the side of the road.  There is a very rocky path up to a little amphitheater at which we gather for a little lecture.  Off to the side and down a little ways are some of the bedouin we have seen in little camps along the way.  I notice they are moving about excitedly and dashing into their tents.  I know what this means.  We will be hawked for their merchandise soon.  I do not like to deal with hawkers.  

The trail continues past the little amphitheater and we walk some more.  

I don't know if I have ever seen more rocky ground.  There is not a smooth spot anywhere.  The rock is mostly a white limestone with many other varieties of rock mixed in.  We gain a little elevation and round a bend which exposes a magnificent view!  

A little above us the hill tops out and I head up to see even more.  There is a larger rock at the top which like every other rock in Israel lacks a nice place to sit on but I sit anyway and take in the view.  I am connected to the lecture by my little blue receiver.

From this spot we can see clear to Jerusalem and over to Jericho.  There is a deep gorge in front of us which we are told is the "Jericho Road" which runs 85 miles from Jerusalem to Jericho and is the setting for Jesus' story of the good Samaritan.  

One can easily see how easy it would be for thieves to thrive in this area because of the rugged terrain and the narrowness of the valley.  The Jericho Road is also the inspiration of a Southern Gospel song:  "On the Jericho Road, there's room for just two, no more and no less, just Jesus and you...."  

As we sit and listen, the thought comes to me that our tour of Israel is nearing its end.  

The trip has been so much more than we anticipated and I am reluctant for it to end.  Once on this train of thought I begin to think of the tasks that await me when I arrive home.  I quickly put all of that out of my mind and decide to live in the moment.  

The day is moving toward evening.  The air is warm and there is a gentle breeze.  I pick up a piece of limestone that I will take home with me as a reminder of this place and of this day.  

I look back along the path we took to get here.  The hawkers are waiting for us and must sense that we are preparing to leave.  They have have respectfully kept their distance but now they creep closer to the group.  I am higher on top of the hill than most of our group and I can see that I can take a short cut across the top of the hill in a straight line to our buses instead of taking the path back to the amphitheater where more bedouins await to display their wares.  

We walk at a brisk pace as some of the children run toward us and beg us for money with grimy hands and runny noses.  I know if we stop we will be mobbed by children.  We have been warned NOT to interact with the children as many troubles await those who would.  We keep up our brisk pace and the children try other targets.  We eventually make it back to the security of the bus and avoid the very aggressive hawkers that confront many in our group.  I don't feel bad toward these people, they probably want to make a living too, I just don't want any of their things and they don't take "no" for an answer so I just prefer to avoid them when I can.  

The buses fill after a time and as the shadows grow long from the setting sun, we again take the high road for Jerusalem.  We near the city, the unmistakable infamous "wall" appears.  

Soon we will have dinner and head to a comfortable bed.  It has been a long day, lots of stairs, walking and heat. Tomorrow will be less travel time but a really full day.  We will begin with the Israeli National Museum.  I can't wait.

Day 8 Part 5 Floating in the Dead Sea.

We once again are on the road heading north.  From what I can see there isn't a lot of Dead Sea left to drive by and I wonder if we will get our chance to take a dip.  I don't see any of the little resorts that have been all along the way.  Just when it looks like we will take the road that heads away from the Dead Sea, there is one more turn off to the east and we take it.  The four buses of our tour snake their way down to what turns out to be a very large parking lot with lots of cars.  There are old looking buildings near the parking lot that have a sort of military feel to them, they also appear to be abandoned or at least not in current use.  This spot seems to have some kind of history.

We debus and head to the resort with our little bundles of towels and trunks and wearing our water shoes.  We pass through some gates and discover this is a very popular place!  Lots of people, a restaurant and lots and lots of picnic tables that all have their own little grill.  Smoke is thick and the smell of savory roasting meat is amazing!  I am instantly starving as the unremarkable lunch I just had is a distant memory.  

The place looks to be full of Arab and or Palestinian people.  The men are all dark skinned, bare chested, in Speedos while most of the women are dressed head to toe in headscarves and long dresses.  I wonder if they see the irony. It is my brilliant deduction that most of these people must be Muslim.  

It is a little confusing to find out where to change clothes and where to put your stuff. There are crowds of people of many nationalities coming and going, almost crazy with all the traffic.  As usual, the demarcation between men's and women's changing areas is not clear and men wander into the women's area on a regular basis.  Whoever runs this place should read "User Friendly Churches" by George Barna so they could improve their signage and visitors can at least know where the men's and women's areas are.  No helpful person is there to ask where to change clothes so I observe for a moment and follow a man into an open air locker area.  Again, the architects do not use angles and corners to provide ample room for modesty from the continuous stream of humanity only feet away from where I am planning on baring my pasty whiteness in just a moment.  

I do the deed as fast and effeiciently as I can and don my trunks and t-shirt quickly.  Now I wait for Indiana Jolie while holding my towel and rolled up clothes.  She emerges soon enough and we head to the water.  She had a similar experience with getting changed with men heading into the women's locker area on a regular basis.  We figure we will never see any of these people ever again so, C'est la vie!  Ha ha!  We snake our way through the outdoor eating area of the restaurant (again, no signage pointing the way).  We find the stairs (lots of stairs) that switchback down the steep bank to the "beach".  Because of the steep terrain of this spot, the water is not very far away. You can easily tell the water level is far below where it once was, but because of the steepness, it remains close.  

We are a little nervous as we approach the water.  A friend offers to hold our stuff while we go for a float.  People are literally rolling in the mud which is very black and slick and sticky.  

We hear this is supposed to do amazing and wonderful things for your skin.  Women with headscarves and long dresses also frolic in the mud and water.  It looks really awkward to be so clothed and wet and muddy.  

With some excitement I head to the water first while Indiana Jolie talks with our friends.  I wade in surprised by how cold the water feels.  The air temperature is 86 degrees at this spot.  I don't know if the water is actually "cold" or if it is just the difference between the air and water temperature.  I was expecting that the water of the Dead Sea would be warm.  The water near the shore is black with the mud.  The bottom is very uneven, muddy and sticky.  It would be easy to lose your water shoes.  Once the water is up to my waist the bottom is smooth and walking is easier.  They tell us that once you are waist deep to just sit down like you would in a chair and the water will float you.  It worked exactly that way.  

It was weird floating effortlessly, kind of what I imagine floating in space would be like.  Since I am a bigger person I am surprised that the water floats me as easily as a smaller person.  Out in the deeper water the water is crystal clear and the bottom can be seen easily about 10 feet below us.  

Indian Jolie joins me and we float around for some time together and visit with our friends.  I have my waterproof digital camera with me and I take pictures as we float in the Dead Sea.  It is refreshing and fun.

We are very near the north shore of the Dead Sea and the receding waterline is obvious against the exposed lake bed.  I look below me and think if the Dead Sea loses another 10 feet of water again this year that where I am floating will be shoreline in a year.  Hard to imagine.  

I wonder if anyone could drown in the Dead Sea.  It is probably a rare occurrence.  If a person towed a water bottle and a floating picnic basket you could probably swim clear across the lake without a lot of effort.  Kind of like paddling a canoe without a canoe.  

Well, our time is up and we need to get changed.  As we near the shore Indiana Jolie wants to try the mud.  

I help her smear it on any exposed skin and we kind of wade around waiting for its magical powers to have their effect.  We rinse it off and sure enough she is smooth and silky!  We wonder if we could carry a blob of mud with us in our stuff.  Probably not a good idea.

We climb up the switchbacking stairs up to the top level to now find a shower to rinse the brine and mud off of ourselves.  The men's shower is right off the main path where all of humanity is streaming by in an unending line.  All that exists as a modesty screen between the inside of the men's shower and the unending stream of humanity is a ridiculously small sheet which slides back and forth on a curtain rod in the entrance.  Even fully deployed, it does not fully cover the entrance.  Every person who enters slides it to one side and walks in leaving the entrance uncovered for all of the streaming humanity to see inside.  For this reason I think, the only open showers are the ones closest to the entrance.  I enter, close the curtain behind me which is instantly swished aside by the next person.  The room is not well lit and despite the bright sunlight outside, the further you venture into the shower room the darker it gets.  

I face a dilemma, go deeper into the shower room for more "privacy" with tight, crowded quarters with many naked strangers or take my chances with the flimsy curtain near the entrance?   I opt to take my chances.  I carefully close the curtain.  I am about to remove my trunks when the curtain swishes open for all of humanity to see.  This is repeated a few times.  I am wondering if I will ever get a shower.  It finally occurs to me to disrobe in the privacy of the shower itself where I control the curtain.  Duh.  The fresh water feels great and I wash the briny residue and mud off of myself.  

After I turn off the water, I discover I have sabotaged myself.  My towel hangs across the way from the shower and the flimsy curtain once again hangs wide open to the world.  I stealthily stay just out of sight until I can reach the curtain which hangs on the far side of the opening.  I am grateful for my long reach and I secure the opening (I use the word "secure" loosely).  I quickly grab my towel and bury my face in it and begin to dry my hair.  I momentarily forget about the curtain.  With sudden thought I turn and see that some thoughtful person who was coming or going has left the entrance wide open and my pasty whiteness is bumming out all nations and tribes and tongues and genders and age groups as they stream endlessly past the entrance just two feet away.  I jump into the shower wondering how many got a free show.  I dress in the shower stall muttering to myself about the dismal state of intelligence and courtesy in the world.  Fully clothed I leave the shower room and push the flimsy curtain all the way to the far side as everyone obviously prefers it this way.

I wander a bit waiting for Indiana Jolie to appear.  The picnic area is full of families, little children wander about, beautiful with their dark skin, black hair and white teeth.  I feel a bit conspicuous and out of place, but smile and nod at everyone around me.  The smoke is thick and the aroma of whatever meat they are roasting is tantalizing.  No one invites me to dinner.  There are no rocks here so I don't even think of taking pictures. 

I catch up with friends and we visit while our wives arrive.  I share my experience in the shower room with everyone who then laugh at my expense.  C'est la vie!  Ha ha!  We head over to the buses to start our journey back to Jerusalem after one more stop.  Something about a balcony....  

Day 8 Part 4 Qumran

The daily feeling of not getting to spend enough time at some fantastic site again hits me hard.  Thinking through all the places where we have been I wonder what I would eliminate in order to spend more time at any of the other sites.  I can only think of one or two I would have given up in order to stay longer somewhere else.  The rub must be the excitement of the present feels greater than the discovery of where you haven't been yet.  One bird in the hand versus two in the bush scenario I guess.

We board the buses and begin retracing our route back up the shore of the Dead Sea.  Masada will be the furthest south we will go in Israel.  As we head north occasionally we pass what were once "shore side" Dead Sea resorts.  Where once the waters of the Dead Sea lapped within yards of their lawn chairs and umbrellas the water line is now up to a mile away.  Their guests now take golf carts down to the water line in order to float in the brine.  I can imagine it takes its toll on their business, they didn't look too busy. That's what happens when the Dead Sea loses 10 feet of depth per year for the past 14 years I guess.  Not only is this area hot and dry and also experiencing less than usual rainfall, but the waters of the Jordan River are so diverted for agriculture and drinking water for the rest of Israel that it simply cannot replenish the evaporating waters of the Dead Sea.  

The whine of the diesel engine indicates that we are slowing down in what looks to be the middle of nowhere.  We turn off the road and rumble down a gravel road that seems fairly unimproved to an equally unimproved parking area.  I wonder what is up.  We debus and feel the heat of this place.  We are at a part of the Dead Sea where the road hugs the mountain range closer and the shore of the sea is further away.  Here we are surrounded by what looks like thorny, dry desert scrub.

Without a lot of explanation, we all begin a hike down a dirt path through the brush.  I reach for my new bottle of warm water and take an long drink.  I really feel like pouring it over my head but it is probably more valuable as a thirst quencher.  We walk for a fair amount and finally reach a pond of water that at its deepest point looks to be a little over a foot deep.  

It seems like there should be no water here at all.  We gather under the little shade the scrub offers to hear a lecture.

The point of this little excursion is to demonstrate Deuteronomy 11:
Deut. 11:11 (NKJV)  
    but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 

The source of the this pond of water is the result of the near mountain range "drinking" the rain.  Much like the headwaters of the Jordan River at the Temple of Pan at Mt. Hermon, the water does not run off so much on the surface of the mountains, but the water penetrates down into the rock, filters thoroughly through it and emerges in places like this.  We must be at least a couple of miles from the slope of the mountains at this point.  I wonder how many years it must take for a drop of rain to make its underground journey to finally re-emerge.  There must be a resupply of this water enough to sustain this little pond in this heat and arid environment.  

As we are sitting and listening the the lecture, I am looking into the water and I am sure that I see a fish.  This couldn't be?  How would fish get here?  How would a fish survive?  I keep looking, sure enough, more fish.  They looks somewhat like catfish although I have never actually seen a catfish.  They swim in and out of the reeds that grow on the backside of the pond.  Amazing.  

I wonder if the water is drinkable.  What if you were lost in this place and stumbled upon this water?  I wonder if it is salty like the Dead Sea or brackish or fresh.  I'll never know.  

We are feeling our hunger pangs as we head back to the buses.  We are told we will eat lunch at Qumran.  The place they found the Dead Sea Scrolls?  Yes.  There is actually a community of Palestinians at Qumran who live there year around. 

As we get back on the highway someone asks if the actual caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in are where we will be eating lunch.  We are asked, "do you want to see them?"  Yes!  is the collective answer.  Our guide instructs the driver to pull over on the side of the road.  We quickly do so near what looks like a dry wash.  Not 100 yards from the edge of the road our guide points to two caves in the side of the rocks.  There, those are the caves, he says.

What?  Just right there?  Just off the side of the road?  No tourist facilities?  No tours?  Just those little caves right there?  Yep.  I am kind of amazed and disappointed all at the same time.  For some reason I had thought of these caves as high up on the mountainside, inaccessible, hidden, hard to see.  Nope. They are right there by the side of the road and nobody seems to care.  We stop only long enough for a few snaps of our digital cameras and we head on to the community of Qumran.  

For being the site of the most amazing treasure trove of biblical and extra-biblical materials ever discovered it sure isn't celebrated.  Not even a parking lot and a sign.  You would just drive right past it without ever knowing if someone didn't point it out to you.  Maybe there isn't a lot to see and maybe I am the only one who cares, but I think they missed something of interest here.

Not long from our view of the caves hear the diesel engines whine at a higher pitch as they slow down to pull up into the Qumran community.  It is quite nice looking.  Palm trees and paved streets, little buildings and picnic tables.  Quite a contrast to the rest of the area we are traveling through.  

We debus at a building that is set up like a cafeteria.  There are four lines that allow us to access the two buffets on both sides so our large group gets through quickly.  Lunch is $14 US.   A little more expensive than most of the places we have been.  I am anxious to see what the offerings are.  Lots of salads of one sort or another, lots of salads, and more salads.  I take a little of some of them, but I am looking for something a little more substantial.  Right near the end, there are a few choices of main dishes.  I don't recognize anything.  Not even the staples of schnitzel and falafal.  I take a couple of servings of what is there.  I wonder if the other buffet is offering something different.  Oh, drinks are extra.  I've got to pay for a bottled drink.  $2 US.  We sit down near the windows on long benches/tables just like we had in junior high.  The view is amazing, the food, not so much.  This was probably the most expensive lunch of the tour and it rates, "unremarkable".  Whoever runs this establishment doesn't know about the American "all-you-can-eat" tradition on buffets.  I don't know if I would have gone back or not.  

I return my tray and wander around a bit.  It sure is beautiful here in a desert, barren sort of way.  At least I am not hungry at this point and we are encouraged to board our buses so we can move on to the next destination/activity, floating in the Dead Sea!