Jericho أريحا

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Last weekend, Friday, 26 June to Sunday, 28 June, I visited Jericho, known as the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. The city lies a little less than 1000ft below sea level and is located close to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. Temperatures are characteristically much higher, perhaps as many as ten degrees, than most cities and villages in the region.

I took a servees (shared taxi) from Ramallah to Jericho Friday morning. Because Friday is a holy day for Muslims many businesses are closed and travel is scarce. For this reason myself and two other people travelling to Jericho as well paid extra to leave sooner rather than having to wait to fill the bus (7-person capacity). The drive took just under an hour travelling on a briskly-winding road through the hilly terrain to Jericho.

After being dropped-off at the city centre I walked for a while en-route to Hisham's Palace. Along the way I passed the Sycamore Tree where legend has it that Zacchaeus climbed in order to see Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. As I continued on I passed patches of agricultural land laden with palm trees and clusters of clay-built homes. Once I finally found the road leading to Hisham's Palace I walked by a group of Bedouins sipping tea in the shade while goats and sheep hovered under the dense shade of the palm trees. One man who spoke broken English invited me to drink tea with them so I spent a bit of time talking to them and practising Arabic. When I told them that I was going to Hisham's Palace, only a handful of metres away, they insisted that I take their donkey. Couldn't refuse that means of transportation! Here I am pulling up to this site on the back of a donkey!

Hisham's Palace was initially constructed by the Caliph Hisham bin Abed al-Malik who reigned between 724-43 AD. Unfortunately a large percentage of the infrastructure was irreparably damaged after a devastating earthquake in 749. The site as it exists now is still quite a place to behold - many of the columns which secured ancient halls, crumbling walls, a small mosque and the iconic star that is a symbol of Jericho still stand.

After visiting the palace I decided to return to the city centre to fetch a ride to An-Nabi Musa or to Qumran. I ended up going to An-Nabi Musa, a small village tucked away south of the city amongst waves of sandy hills. As its name implies (An-Nabi Musa is Arabic for "the Prophet Moses") this is the place where Moses is allegedly buried within a mosque. I was dropped off on a highway and walked the road leading to the village. Once there I walked onto the grounds of the mosque and to the room that holds the mausoleum of Moses. People were gathering to enter the mosque for prayer. Before leaving the village to return to Jericho I noticed a couple camels cooling themselves in the shade and asked a man there if it would be alright to ride one of them. He allowed me to ride one, having it lie down with its long legs tucked beneath its massive body. I hopped up and with his hind legs first, then his front legs, stood right up and there I was nearly as high as an NBA basketball hoop in the air. I would have liked to tour the area on the camel for an hour or two.

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