Solomon's Pools

On Sunday I went with a German couple to see a few things around Bethlehem. This is a couple that I have been doing a few things with recently and will probably do a few things in the future. The women is working at Wi'am right now through the partnership with KURVE and the husband is writing his thesis (I'm not sure if it's Masters or PhD) in psychology. He is doing his research in the refugee camps around Bethlehem.

When they asked if I was interested in going, I said sure without knowing any details. I figured that the Germans could plan a trip well enough. When I met them in Manger Square, they each had a guidebook ready. They told me that we were first going to go to Solomon's Pools. To get there, we took a Dheisheh Camp bus. It cost two shekels, compared to the 15 to 20 a taxi would have cost.

This bus had a lot of character

Upon arriving at Solomon's Pools, it wasn't quite what I expected. I was thinking a tourist attraction, but it's more of a poorly maintained archeological site. There are three pools in total, but they have been empty for quite a while. There was also a fence in the way that prevented good photos.

That was until I got to the third pool. At the third pool there was a number of men who were working in the pool. I'm not quite sure what they were doing, but it seemed that they were cleaning out the bottom of the pool. They had a section of the fence cut down so I was able to get much better photos. 

There was about 15 men in total

After the pools, we decided to talk along the road to a nearby village. We heard that there were going to be Roman ruins in the village, but we didn't see them.

The surrounding countryside 

Local kids

We did find something we did not expect though. In the village was a massive church or monastery. I never found out what it was but it was very beautiful. There was security at the entrance and we were told that we could not go in, but as we were trying to figure out where to go next, the security guard camp back to us and told us we could go in. I'm not sure exactly what was going on, but there were a few Argentinian flags on the cars there and I think there were a few dignitaries there. 

While we were there a service started but we decided to leave before it got too late. We caught a shared taxi for the ride home. When we got back in Bethlehem, we thought about trying to go somewhere else, but instead decided to round out our day with some Kanafi. 

Kanafi is a desert of goat cheese, shredded wheat, nuts and honey