To those with walking difficulties, local Bedouin Arabs offer the option of covering the path on donkeys for about $20 to $30 (about 70 to 110 shekels).
By DANIELA BERRETTA
Associated Press
ERICHO, West Bank — Located between Jerusalem and Jericho, the Judean Desert provided an inspiration to thousands of hermits who lived here in the early Middle Ages. With its breathtaking, rugged beauty, it was the perfect setting for those searching spiritual fullness in the emptiness of the desert.
Today, only a handful of monks live here, but the desert and its stunning monasteries continue to attract thousands of visitors from all over the world.
With its majestic cliffs and arid rocks stretching to the sky, the Judean Desert is a spiritual place of eerie beauty.
During the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., it hosted a community of several thousand monks drawn by biblical stories and in search of a soulful experience. Away from earthly temptations, they lived a life of privation and isolation inside the dozens of caves scattered around this mountainous desert.
The desire to retrace the footsteps of early Christianity is still bringing pilgrims and tourists, said Elisa Moed, founder and chief executive of Travelujah.com, a faith-based website with resources for Christians traveling to the Holy Land.
“This is where John the Baptist resided. He was a hermit, and part of really experiencing the footsteps and really understanding the roots of Christianity is to come here and take a look at the wilderness and the landscape and try to understand the lifestyle of John the Baptist,” she said.
The prophet Elijah “also spent his time in the Judean wilderness, Jesus spent time in the Judean wilderness. So, yes, it’s a very important and very integral part of coming to the Holy Land and experiencing the Holy Land is to come into this wilderness,” she said.
With its source of natural water, the gorge of Wadi Qelt in the West Bank, located a 20-minute drive from Jerusalem on the way to the Dead Sea, provides a green respite amid the arid landscape of the Judean Desert. This is where the Bible says the prophet Elijah lived, and it is the spot chosen by fifth-century hermits. In a reminder of the modern Middle East, vehicles must pass through Israeli and Palestinian checkpoints on the trip.
Visitors come here to visit the monastery of St. George built in the late 19th century on the site of an earlier monastery destroyed by the Persians in 614.
Today a small community of Greek Orthodox monks resides here, allowing visitors to view the monastery.
Two years ago, the road to the site was expanded, allowing a larger number of visitors, mainly from Greece and Romania.
Even with the improvements, Wadi Qelt continues to be off the beaten path. Buses can reach the entrance gate, but visitors have to walk down a winding path for about 15 minutes in order to reach the monastery, a potential hurdle for senior citizens or people with disabilities.
To those with walking difficulties, local Bedouin Arabs offer the option of covering the path on donkeys for about $20 to $30 (about 70 to 110 shekels).