The Dead Sea  and  surrounding

my favorite places in Israel

Good old times.
This beduin man and his camel Shushi were a great tourist attraction on the way to the Dead Sea. You could tell that he treats his camel well. No hitting, no yelling. And the price for pictures was good too. No rip off.
But since few years now, this is all history. Israelis built the wall and the beduin was forced to give up that spot. Very sad to me.

WADI QELT
(also spelled Qilt, Kilt)

Came to this view point quite often. Always wanted to hike to the oasis, but never did as it is too dangerous.
Too many shootings going on here (israeli soldiers).

It is a long canyon stretching from the spring of Ein Farah, south of the Jerusalem suburb of Anata, down to Jericho in the east. “Wadi” is Arabic for a creek bed or ravine, and the high, sheer rock walls carve a deep crevice in the Judean Hills east of the Holy City. Many natural caves and shelters spread along the valley and are exploited by Bedouins and their livestock. From the top of the mountains, the Dead Sea and most of the Jordan River Valley are visible. Near the end of the wadi, Jericho appears in the midst of a wide, flat plain. Formerly part of the main highway, the valley saw frequent use right up to the end of the Ottomaan period in 1917.

Oasis in the desert

Monastery of St. George of Koziba
October 21, 2005

The Monastery of St. George clings to the canyon walls like a fairy-tale castle. Of all the monasteries founded in this spectcacularly ausere area between the 4th and 7th centuries A.D., it is the only survivor. The first monks to settle as hermits in the caves in this part of the wadi were named Prono, Elias, Gannaios, Ainan and Zenon (about 420 A.D.).
The monastery itself, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was founded by St. John of Thebes about 480 A.D. as a spiritual center for the hermits of the region. In the 6th century A.D. it became known as St. George under the leadership of St. George Of Koziba. Born in Cypus aobut 550 A.D., St. George lived for a time in Jordan, but later an intense longing for a more ascetic life brought him to the Wadi Kelt. Until its destruction during the Persian invasion of Palestine in 614 A.D. it housed scores of monks and was famed for its hospitality to travelers en route to Damascus and Baghdad.
A Greek-Arabic inscription above the old entrance of the monastery testifies to its reconstruction in 1179 by the Crusaders. But most of the present monastery dates back to a 1879-1901 reconstruction by the Greek Orthodox Church. The oldest part of the building is the 6th century A.D. mosaic floors of the Church of St. George and John. the skulls of the monks martyred by the Persians are kept here and a niche contains the tomb of St. George.

view from a distance

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