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First day at Jerusalem. We talked with Abu Hassan, the organizator of the tours of the Jerusalem Hotel, who is a palestinian ex-activist. He was on jail few times and now he earn a living as "media guide", it is, the organization of visits to the most conflicting areas of the territory fot journalists and defenders of human rights, although sometimes he rendered service like a driver. We met with him next day to visit the construction of the wall that the israelies are building. This is the main problem they are confronting nowadays.
Before this, we went for a walk around the Old City, which entry the "Damascus Gate", is less than 200 meters from the hotel. This area is mainly arab and the lively atmosphere of the souq is noticiable from the other side of the walls. Inside, several small shops, palestinian women selling grapes and aromatic herbs in the middle of the street, always under the looking of the very young israelies soldiers.
It's curious to verify that the muslim and christian quarters are really one. The most part os the area is a bottom part where is the underground noisy souq and in the upper area there are the churches, domes of the temples and calm passages where stroll.
In one of the narrow streets where were in a cybercafe, where we recorded all the photos from the camera cards to a cdrom to have enough space in the cards. The boy of the cybercafe had no doubts to let us his computer to do the copy. While we were recording the cdrom we hearded a group of people praying in spanish, so we went outside the cybercafe to see what was happening.
We saw a group of spanish pilgrims with a big wooden cross in front of one of the stations of the Via Dolorosa. By the way, we didn't realize that we were in one of the most imprtant streets of Jerusalem until that moment. After that we went to the Holy Sepulchre Church. Some meters before a skillful guide approached us with the famous trick of "I'm not a guide, I work in the Church", so he came with us until we gave him a tip of 20 NIS.
His help was worthwhile because the Church is a place with some stations of the Via Crucis and temples of differents confessions like protestants, orthodoxs, coptics, catholics and even the etiopian church, that was one of the last to arrive to Jerusalem and must to build their temple over one of the top domes, with an original appearance of african village.
The inside of the Church impressed us due its dimensions, the spirituality of the site, the overloaded of the decoration and the smell of incience. In addition to the churches and altars of different confessions, there are some common areas that are of the most historic relevance and coincide with the last stations of the Via Crucis: the Golgota rock, where the Cross was erected, the Untion stone, where they anointed the Holy oils and was wrapped in the Holy Blanket, and the Holy Sepulchre, which the body of Jesus Christ was until the Resurrection. Some of these places are under spectaculars domes and a huge picture presides the main entry of the Church.
We spent long time walking by the rooms and taking photos calming, without the pression of the walk with the guide. Due the small number of tourists in the days we had the opportunity of go inside the Holy Sepulchre and stay for a while (some minutes) like a lonely place.
We went to the Four Seasons restaurant to have lunch, a good "fast-food" in front of the Damascus Gate and very near of the hotel. After the lunch we decided go around the walls to the jew quarter, where we visited the King David Tomb, the Cenaculum also knows as the Last Supper Room and the Dormition Church
Next, we went to the Wailing Wall, through the Zion Gate. After to go inside the Old City we could have the first view of the impressive Dome of the Rock. In the gate of the Wailing Wall the security controls are exhaustives. In the photo are the rules of the area.
Just in the entry, we saw the main area of praying for men, and at the right the area for women, smaller than the men area. The square finishes in the wall of the old King Salomon Temple, apparently the last remain of it, just under the Mosques esplanade.
We stayed for long time observing the faithful jews and their dedication to the pray. All the men have to cover their head with a small hat called kipa and the women must wear long skirts and modestly. Aslo it's curious to see like the women have to move back, because they aren't allowed to turn their back to the Wall. In one of the photos there are some soldier girls go out on this manner.
We went out the precint by the north gate, to other of the gates of the Mosques esplanade, and immediately we noticed that it was a difficult task to visit the famous temples of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. All the gates are controlled by the israeli army and apparently they only allow the pass to the faithful muslims. They informed us about the visit schedule for foreigners. We will try it again tomorrow. It's late, so we decided to go to the hotel and have dinner before to fall asleep.
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