Jerico

Yesterday was Jerico day, and it was great! One of the things that made it awesome was the rain. I doesn't rain very often in Jerico, it's in the Judean Wilderness, but yesterday was the exception. The air smelt wonderful, all of you Arizona people understand the desert rain smell, and the best part was the tempeture, it was cool. We went to the Mt. of Temptations Monastery or the Quruntul Monastery first. The monastery is literally built on the side of a cliff. It was built in the late 1800's and looks like it belongs on the mountain. It's built to comemorate the temptation of Christ. They (Greek Orthodox) believe that Chirst went to that mountain to fast 40 days and nights and that it was there that satan came to tempt him. They actually have a rock that they believe is the actual rock that satan wanted Christ to change into bread. Anyway, there was a great view from on top of the monastary, we could see the Dead Sea and the entire valley of Jerico. From there we headed to Tel-Jerico. Tel-Jerico is the ruin of Jerico. A tel is a city built on top of a city, built on top of a city, until it creates a huge mound. Jerico is supposed to be the oldest city on earth. The city it's self was much smaller then I expected, they suspect that only about 2,000 lived inside of the city walls when the Isrealites conquered it. We ate lunch there and a man at a fruit stand gave me something called a "pamelo," I think, it's a mix between a grapefruit and an orange, but more than double the size, it was great! We headed to get a look at Harods Summer Palacem there's a small foundation left and then up the road to a great overlook of the Judean Wilderness. The Wilderness is barren, I wouldn't have wanted to walk through there back in the day. The day was good and really interesting. Life is good, we're headed to Egypt in just a couple of days! Hasta luego!