Day 6: Planning and Touring

Tianna's corresponding blog: (click here)

Now that my luggage was officially here we really got proactive in getting the rest of the trip planned. First thing we did today was find Mazada Tours and schedule our stay in Egypt. I suddenly began to realize that Egypt would not be the cheapest portion of our trip. After hearing some of Tianna's horror stories about health, cleanliness, and Ramses Revenge in Cairo I decided a few extra dollars (or pounds as the case may be) spent erring on the side of caution would be worth its weight in Pepto, so I splurged. The first image is a simple city shot by Jaffa Gate with David's Tower in the background.
This sign may be a little hard to read but is says that "It is forbidden to throw garbage and litter here." You would see these signs occasionally and inevitably their would be a pile of garbage beneath it. The irony was irresistible.
In Israel there is mandatory military service of two to three years for men and women over 19 years old. It took a little getting used to seeing troops of soldiers on patrol around every other corner but getting used to it I did. Other than the uniforms they were still teenagers through and through. You would see girls wearing those bug-eye sunglasses and carrying pink backpacks along with there rifles. This group was outside the Western Wall by the washing stations and spent the majority of their time posing for pictures with tourists.

The only scheduled tourist activity for the day was going on the Kotel Tunnel tour. The funny thing about this tour is that what we where going to look at was in fact originally a street not a tunnel. After Jerusalem was destroyed and later resettled by the Muslims they built arches up and then built there city on top of these so that they could have a better view of the Dome of the Rock. You tried not to think about the fact that an entire city was precariously positioned above your head as you walked through. The most entertaining part was listening to the lightly veiled bias/sarcasm on history that our tour guide had as we went through. I kept having to play catch up as I took pictures because of the long exposures. I would finish an image and the tour group would be long gone. It starts to look like I had a private tour.

This old arch is considered to be the closest a Jew can now get to where they think the Holy of Holies was. You would get a small number of Jews that would come in to offer their prayers at this spot because of its sacred proximity.



The tour concludes right by the Ecce Homo Arch. We noticed that "The prison of Christ" was open. We have been walking by this spot every day and at all different times and never once saw it open. We decided it was probably now or never so we headed on in. It is apparently not a big tourist attraction and I doubt if it has any historical validity but I am willing to play the part of the gullible tourist if there is potential for a good picture involved. The modern iron bars help to pass off the prison argument but the detail I thought was the most compelling was in the third picture. You go down a spiral staircase (modern addition I think) and there is a rounding wall with a bench carved into it. About every five feet there was two notches at shoulder level and two at ankle level carved into the rock. It looked like a simple way to hold someone against there will. So it was probably a prison after all.


We then headed over to the Garden Tomb to set up another project picture. After passing through Damascus Gate I realized that this may be the emptiest I will ever see it.

I took another couple pictures of the Garden Tomb while I scouted locations and ideas for my picture the following morning. Here is one of the images I took.
These last two images evoked a good sense of street life in the old city. The first from an inhabitants view point and the second from a religious pilgrims view point.