Day 9 Part 3 - A Personal Adventure at Jaffa Gate!

We arrive at Jaffa Gate in a short time after leaving the Garden Tomb.  I really like this Jaffa Gate area for some reason.  Part of it is the history and importance of it being the main gate for commercial trade for the city in antiquity, part of it is the big stone walls and the ancient gate itself that still stands.  This is also known as the "Christian Quarter" of Jerusalem.  The Christian quarter is predominantly where Christian businesses and activities occur.  It is clean, busy and exciting to explore.    

By the time we walk through Jaffa Gate, I am starved.  We get to choose what we will eat today.  I am choosing "not falafala".  I am going to get a side of "not schnitzel" to go with it.  What I really, really, really want is an honest to goodness bagel and cream cheese, but bagels are no where to be found!  I assumed Jerusalem would have a bagel shop on every corner kind of like Starbucks in Seattle.  Not so.  We walk around and around and do not find a bagel shop.  I am told that bagels and a "schmear" is really a New York thing, not a Israel thing.  I am so disappointed.  

There are many other places to eat but most of them do not have my first two choices.  We finally play it entirely safe and settle for "Joseph's Pizza", partly because it appears to have the shortest line for getting your food.  We learn that short lines do not necessarily mean fast service.  We take our place in line and after some time, place our order.  We manage to snag a small table to sit at with some of our friends.  While we wait and talk about what we have seen in the morning, we sip some honest to goodness icy cold Dr. Peppers.  They taste so good as we sit in this little bakery / pizza parlor that oozes with yeasty aroma making my hunger pangs all the more intense.  

With our Dr. Peppers nearly gone, our slices of pizza begin to arrive.  They are a modest size with a modest amount of toppings.  No wonder they are small people here.  I figure I'll get something in the markets as we wander around in a little bit, maybe even find that elusive bagel and cream cheese.  By the time we consume Joseph's Pizza, a significant amount of our free time has slipped by.  We are anxious to get out and start exploring.  

Not far away we discover a large courtyard that is fairly devoid of people.  There isn't much going on here so we walk to the far corner where a narrow passage way leads to who-knows-where.  The number of people increases the farther we go so we figure we are on the right track.  Eventually this opens into the crazy busy open air markets!  We excitedly plunge into the crowd. We are soon separated from our friends.  I have no agenda to find anything to purchase so I let Indiana Jolie lead the way.  

These markets are narrow, crowded far beyond Fire Marshall safety standards and full of unusual wares, foods, trinkets and more people.  The ancient steps we tromp down are smooth and worn by ages and ages of people walking upon these very same stones.

We see some outlandish religious costumes worn by Orthodox Jews.  One man wearing sort of a bright silver shimmering business suit with the long Orthodox curly sideburns and beard with no mustache.  He is wearing a very large square box on top of his head at least the size of a "medium" Home Depot moving box.  I can only imagine this signifies he is the Grand Poobah of something.  We are so amused we forget to take his picture.  In fact, we pretty much forget to take any pictures at all this day, mostly for other reasons.

In this market area, you are either going uphill or downhill and sometimes you can go left or right.  These market areas must have hundreds of little shops. We keep it simple and continue downward steeply.  I am not looking forward to the return trip up the hill.  Mentally I count how many market blocks we descend downhill.  I have no idea where we are and I would like to have some kind of idea of how to get back to the bus when our time is up.  

After a few blocks I notice there is sort of a pattern to the shops.  On every block there must be the same vendor who sells handmade leather goods, several items look familiar at each store.  There are the tea and spice merchants whose exotic smelling goods seem to be repeated every block. There are jewelry merchants and antiquity merchants offering 1000 year old oil lamps and Roman glass necklaces that are even older.  You really don't have to remember where a particular shop is because wherever you go, eventually you will find another one just like it.  

We settle in and no longer feel the crowd as intensely as we did before, it is starting to be quieter as well.  Almost imperceptibly the atmosphere changes and after walking downhill 5 market blocks we reach an end to the downhill corridor which ends in another corridor that runs perpendicular, left or right.  Indiana Jolie has indicated she needs to find the facilities which in this old part of the city are not well marked.

For whatever reason, we decide to take a right turn and do find the facilities before long.  There is water running out of the door of the facilities and down the steps and on to the street.  No time to be picky I guess and Indiana Jolie disappears into the dark interior.  I wait in the street for her.  As I wait, I see a little man enter the women's side of the facilities.  I also notice it is very quiet here.  There is garbage rotting on both sides of the street and litter everywhere.  Many more of the women are wearing the black coverings from head to toe.  

I am getting a little nervous waiting for Indiana Jolie as I feel suddenly conspicuous.  Is it just me? Or is everyone looking at me?  After what feels like too long, Indiana Jolie emerges from the dark facilities.  She tells me she never saw the little man inside when I ask. We continue walking down the corridor and it finally hits me.  There is no more Hebrew writing on the little street signs which are written in Arabic, Hebrew and usually English.  Now it is just Arabic.  I see a sign that points to the Al Aska Mosque (I can tell because it has a picture on it), which is on Temple Mount.  Now I know.  We have wandered into the Arab Quarter.

The further we walk the darker it gets and there are fewer people.  The shops here don't spill out into the street like the Jewish or Christian Quarter.  There isn't much to see.  I can't help but feel a little vulnerable here.  Where we were just an insignificant part of the teeming mob in the Christian Quarter, here we "stick out like a sore thumb".  I tell myself that we need to head back uphill as soon as we can, but there are no corridors heading that way.  Mostly men sit on both sides of the narrow corridor.  I don't say anything to Indiana Jolie, but she too is sensing we need to find our way back. It would feel so very awkward to do an about face and go back the way we came due to the close proximity we are to those who occupy both sides of the way.  We smile and nod to the dark and silent eyes on each side of the corridor, eyes that seem to linger on us a little longer than feels comfortable.  I feel conspicuous with my white skin, 6', 6" height and Indiana Jolie not wearing her burka like I told her she should. We don't exactly blend in here.  We walk a little faster and try to look as calm as we can.  It doesn't seem like a good time to start taking pictures.

We finally run out of corridor.  We can go uphill or downhill from here, or turn around and return from where we came.  I really don't feel like walking back through the gauntlet of silent staring eyes.  The route uphill is almost deserted and I know we have to gain some elevation.  I have no idea where this route leads but we are taking it.  

It feels weird.  The walls here are quite high and every so often there is a small set of steps and a door.  No signs, no adornment on the walls.  Our shoes make echo sounds as we walk, it is so quiet. We continue to climb upward.  We pass one of those little sets of steps that has an open door.  I glance in and see that it is someone's home!  We are in a neighborhood, an Arab neighborhood.  We don't know if we are welcome here or not as there are no "Welcome" mats on the steps.  We don't feel particularly welcome so we keep on climbing stairs up and up and up.  We pass a little stone gate on our right that leads off to who knows where but we keep going up.  

Further up the long corridor, there are small groups of young men, teens it looks like, every so often that are talking among themselves but go silent as we pass walking up the stairs.  Their eyes follow us.  I think to myself there must be a flashing neon sign above our heads that says, "WE ARE TOTALLY LOST".  

Indiana Jolie and I confer back and forth about how much we would like to get out of this area and back to the Christian Quarter and the markets.  We reach a dead end at the top of this long corridor.  We now have a decision to make. We really, really do not want to backtrack all the way down this long set of steps, past all the silent eyes but we may not have a choice.  It suddenly occurs to me, "the little stone gate".  I tell Indiana Jolie that is where we are going, it is only half way down the corridor and it has to lead somewhere and somewhere is probably better than here.

She isn't real excited about this but I figure we have to try it.  We walk down the steps past the little groups of young men who continue to be silent and watch as we go by.  I try to read their thoughts as we smile and nod.  No luck, I have no idea what they are thinking.  

We find the little stone gate.  It doesn't look very promising.  From the entrance it looks like it goes a little ways and then dead ends.  I plunge ahead.  Indiana Jolie loiters near a young German couple who has suddenly appeared and are looking at a little map book and seem to be as lost as we are.  I wait half way down the way from the little stone gate.  Jolie tells me that they are pointing in the direction we are going.  I figure it doesn't matter because this is our ONLY option without retracing about a half mile of our steps.

At what looks like a dead end, there is another short corridor to the left and uphill.  "This is good", I say to myself.  The left soon ends and opens to the right.  We go.  The right before long opens to a courtyard that I recognize!  This one is at the bottom of the Christian Quarter markets that we walked through about half an hour ago.   We have completed some kind of a loop. We are relieved, the tension instantly lessens.  We feel like sitting down and just relaxing but we still have about 4 blocks of market to climb and the sun is starting to lower in the sky and the shadows are longer.  I figure with the little time we have left we better get climbing.  

We re-enter the busy, crowded market so happy to be navigating through all of the chaos.  We are very near the top of the last flight of stairs when Indiana Jolie wants to stop and look at something in one of the shops.  I wait a little ways ahead in front of an interesting looking shop that is somewhat different than the regular pattern of shops we have passed all day.  It is then I meet Omar...