After all the disturbing things we've seen the day before, we planed on having a calmer day. That said it turned out not to be that easy in Jerusalem.
As we haven't seen much of Jerusalem so far, we were heading to the famous old town in the morning. The old town is divided in a Christian, Muslim and an Armenian quarter. It hosts the holiest sanctuaries of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All concentrated in one place. We entered the city through Damascus gate, which is the entrance to the Muslim quarter. We were immediately hit by the masses of pilgrims, tourists and marketers. Even if the city itself is quite small finding our way through theses masses in the tiny side streets takes long and is sort of complicated.
We first entered the Church of Resurrection, the place were Jesus was buried. The church was mainly visited by Russian Orthodox tourists by the time we walked around there.
We basically got there by chance as we were originally aiming on visiting Temple Mount first. This place is by far the most intense place in Jerusalem. As a visitor you are only allowed to enter the mountain through the Old Western Wall. Once we passed the usual security checks we were standing right in front of the Western Wall, the holiest sanctuary in Judaism. Surrounded by orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews we got provided with a Kippah in order to near the Wailing Wall. Even if you don't believe in religion you feel the deep atmosphere at this holy site. Interesting fact - I didn't see any Muslims around there, neither was there any Jew around the Temple Dome or Al Aksa Mosque, which are build right on top of the Western Wall. Sure you will ask now, why would they go to the others sanctuary? The thing is that these places are only 100 meters away from each other. However Arabic and Israeli security forces try to avoid tensions caused by religious fundamentalists.
In front of the Al-Aksa Mosque we met an old Palestinian man based in the US. At first he seemed to be quite reasonable talking about the Mosque and it's surrounding. That changed quite fast when he was talking about the Jewish occupation, conversion to Islam and the sins of homosexuals in the US. This short chat again reminded me that the Middle East Conflict is not only about land and access to water resources, it also has deep religious routs. The Temple Mount and the old city of Jerusalem has been the desire of foreign imperial powers for centuries and cause of countless wars, massacres and displacements. I remember how our Palestinian guide the day before pointed out the impossibility of seeing the dome of Temple Mount from the Palestinian territory in the Westbank.
Later that day we made a half day trip to the Dead Sea. Our driver, a young Israeli with two little daughters gave us a completely different impression about the Westbank. From his point of view the Westbank seems to be an example of how Palestinians and Israelis can live together and even use the same roads. I don't think that he was trying the glorify the Israeli settlement policies, I rather believe that most ordinary people are sick of this conflict and want to live their life in peace.
The Dead Sea however is a fascinating place. Once we made it to the beach, crossing all the small Israeli tourist resort, we were standing in front of this grey little pond 400 meter bellow sea level. Though the wetter was incredibly hot the water wasn't promising any cooling. It is boiling hot! But once you get in there your body finds its way to the surface, no matter what you do. A pretty amazing feeling.
Coming back to the hostel in Jerusalem we watched Germany getting kicked out of the Euro by Italy and had a few beers of snit. As I said it was unlikely that this day would turn out to be boring.cln
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