Jericho is said to be the oldest walled city on earth. It's also one of the lowest at 223 meters below sea level. We also think it is one of hottest. We arrived in our air conditioned car and hopped out...... almost falling to our knees in the sweltering heat. We were interested in visiting the monastery that's on the Mount of Temptation where Jesus spent 40 days and nights fasting. There were two ways to get up there. Hike, or cable car....hmm....Not much of a choice with this heat. The ride up took us over remnants of the old city. They have never found the walls that "came falling down" but there is lots of other signs of the old civilization. Tel Jericho is reportedly 10,000 years old!
The hot dry desert carried away into the hazy horizon. At the top we still had about 300 stairs to climb. We arrived at the closed door when we realized that it was Sunday. The monks were in prayer and surely they didn't want to be disrupted. Judy knocked on the door and we waited. Just as we were walking away the door creaked open. A sleepily looking little fellow greeted us. We asked if we could tour the Monastery today.. He looked out the door and asked "are there more?" Uh...No, just us. He smiled and invited us in. Talking in whispers we moved through the cave like structure.

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After a few stairwells and tunnel like passageways we arrived at the ancient doors to the chapel. Our guide pushed them open and we stepped inside. We were instantly transported back in to the 12 century AD when the Greek Orthodox Christians constructed this holy place. Our guide directed us up more stairs and passageways to the cave where Jesus is said to have fasted. For some reason we were allowed one picture here.

We were then lead back to the entrance. After a short chat with our host we trudged down the shadeless stairs to the tram. 20 minutes later we were back at 220 meters below sea level.