After
Spanair
flight departing from Barcelona at 18:25 and scheduled to arrive to Tel
Aviv at
22:30 leaves with 30 minutes of delay and arrives one hour later than
scheduled.
Somehow, immigration and security controls are shorter and simpler than
expected.
No interviews or baggage checks… just a passport control. Besides, the
number
of attending boxes is big and therefore queues are short and fast.
Then, a long trip across the airport to the
baggage claim area.
 
Just crossing the door outside that area we
have taxi signs driving to a near exit where we can identify several
sheruts as
yellow and green painted vans. When we say we’re going to Jerusalem the
guy
points to the first sherut at our right, which is waiting for two more
persons
to leave, but we’re four so we go to an empty sherut. The driver asks
me where
are we going while putting the bags at the back of the van and I answer
to be
delivered in Jaffa Gate. “Jaffa Gate is closed. It’s Yom Kippur!” he
states and
he tells me about leaving us at Damascus Gate. Will we have to go
across the
whole Old city with the baggage!?. I ask about the chance of being left
at New
Gate and he accepts. How lucky I learnt all about the seven gates!. The
van
gets full in two minutes and after a 40 minutes trip, which we feel as
short
looking through the windows and omitting the concert by a big
moustached
musician playing in the screen inside, we’re delivered in front of the
Old City
walls.
It’s
near 1 AM but streets are full of
people. We go into medieval city and follow our way down dodging people
and
keeping an eye on the western wall in our right until Jaffa gate. It
sounded
very strange for me to be told Jaffa gate was closed as I knew it was
an open
gate, no doors or bars, but when arriving at gate level we understand
what he
meant at once: the whole city seems to be here and going into the crowd
carrying our baggage seems a complicated task.
Hotel
is near, but the Street which drives us to it is cordoned off by police
and a couple
of military men with machine guns. I drive to one of them naturally
while he is
saying me I cannot pass from the distance and I explain to him our
hotel is
just after the fence. He doesn’t know what to answer and asks me to
explain my
situation to the policeman with the walkie talkie. I do and he
understands and sends
a couple of indications to the men in the fence for letting us to pass
through
it. Nobody could enter to that street but the amount of people going
out from
it is constant and big. I take my parents and wife and pass through the
fence
to the desired street and then our nightmare begins: carrying our
wheeled bags across
those stairs with long steps is a difficult task by itself, but if you
include
hundreds of people coming from the opposite direction then it is
madness.
Nobody stops and the flux of people is constant, we manage as we can
until we
reach the St. Marks street, which is a narrow stairs up to a narrow
street
where the hotel is. At least, we’re out now from that kind of rafting
against
the tide of a river of people.
Once in reception, it is so late than
even they tell us to checking in tomorrow morning. Rooms are small but
clean and views are amazing. We can see, lit at night, Holly Sepulchre
domes,
Redemption church tower and, as highlight, the Dome of the Rock.
We’re tired, but after seeing the animation
in the streets we decide to go out for a walk and to get something to
eat and
drink. We enjoy our walk, free of baggage now, joining the incredible
atmosphere liven up when we are later than 2 AM. Stores in street
bazaar are
opened. There are less people than before, so it seems we were fighting
with
our baggage in the Street at the worst moment of the day (and I can say
now the
worst time of the year too. What a coincidence!). We
come back to our rooms bringing bottles of water, some falafels and a
sort of
loaf of bread and bagel combined named pretzel, ready to fusion our
bodies with
bed. I’m so tired that I think I’ve been scammed a Little bit with the
food,
but I had no energy to bargain: they’ve asked 30 shekels for two
falafel and
one pretzel, I’ve put my “How much would be that?” face and they
immediately
changed the price to 25 shekels (5 euros).
One
second after coming into the room we’re sleeping.
|
