Some Other Stuff Happened

So what about the rest of the week? To be honest, it felt rather like the gap year I never had, crammed into three days: I lay on my bed listening to the minarets, waiting for the immodium to kick in and watching a solitary cockroach scuttle up my wall, and I thought: wow - this is all rather exciting. Aside from Bethlehem, we went everywhere - Masada, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Caeserea, Tiberius...

Geographically, Israel is the most amazing country I've ever visited. Roughly the size of that universal unit of measurement that is the Wales, Israel neverthless manages to cram into itself just about every type of scenery possible. Head towards the North, and you could be forgoven for thinking you've stumbled into North Yorkshire, with huge, rough moor-like hills liberally covered with sheep for as far as you can see. Head west a little way and you're on the Med, and could easily mistake your surroundings for Sicily, or the Greek islands. Turn around and head south, and you could be in the middle of the Grand Canyon; mosey into Jericho, and you're in the middle of a desert. you simply don't get this in the South East - frankly a hillock constitutes news in South Camden.

So when we weren't hopping around being Pilgrims we were hopping around being tourists, and the first obvious stop was the Dead Sea. At -418 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea boasts, amongst its more famous accolades, the Lowest Bar in the World, where you can buy coca cola, Budweiser and other products imported from the USA. Admittedly this fades into insignificance alongside the Sea itself, famously full of salt to the extent that nothing can live in it, and shrinking at an alarming rate each year to such an extent that within 100 years it will probably have gone altogether. It's claimed that its waters, 8.6 times saltier than the ocean, apparently, and mud have healing properties, a fact that makes a lot of money for their gift shops where bottles of the stuff are sold by the thousand. I don't know about that, all I know is the water flippin' hurts on mouth ulcers. There is nevertheless something rather exhilirating at being able to fall backwards and then bob up and down with absolutely no effort, and I like the Dead Sea.

Next stop Masada, about which I had strangely mixed feelings. On the one hand I felt a sort of spine-tingling exhilaration gaping out of the bus window at the vast and awesome scenery, complete with the occasional camel; on the other three of us, me included, spent much of the trip retching into Tesco bags, which did mar the mood slightly. Probably fortunately for me and everyone else on the bus I eventually emptied my stomach in the toilets at Masada and happily moseyed up to Herod's fort to some of the most stunning views I've ever seen. Masada must have been the most impressive of palaces, though it's famous mainly for the mass suicide of all of its 960 citizens while under siege my Romans, which frankly strikes me as a bit over the top, not to say daft.

Another seriously odd place is Jericho. For a start we're told that, if we're asked at the checkpoint later on if we've been there, we have to say no. This is something to do with the Intifada. Jericho is in many places a depressing place. Once rich in tourism not only due to its historical and Biblical fame, but also because it was home to Israel's only casino (gambling is banned in the State of Israel, but the Palestinian Authority's control of Jericho resulted in a nice loophole which meant that visitors and their cash came from afar for several years). Since the Intifada, though, tourism has unsurprisingly dropped massively. The casino has gone; the houses look tired and the whole town is in need of a bit of a face-life - it's a bit like Blackpool out of season, only uprooted and plonked in the middle of a desert. We do however visit a fabulous foodstore and leave with arms full of succulent Jericho oranges, dates (which are of less interest to those of us still on the immodium) and Turkish Delight to die for. Jericho also affords us one of the more interesting photo opportunities of the trip, in the shape of PLO-founded Al Quds Open University, its titled daubed in chalk above what looks like one of the body piercing salons in Camden Town, flanked with posters of Che Guevara and Yasser Arafat.

Tearing through the Jordan Valley, gazing into a whole other country on one side of us, Morrissey aptly singing "I will see you in far off places" on my iPod, I am, for a moment, utterly content. We pass by nomads, the children playing outside makeshift, ramshackle, corrugated iron dwellings, camels teathered outside and, anachronistically, satellite dishes on the roof. Maybe they can't cope without the cricket (which incidentally was going rather well this morning... less so now...)