Jerusalem

What can we say about Jerusalem? Fought over for centuries, loved for Millennia, the subject of countless songs even the name has come to mean a great and special city. William Blake said, 'we shall build a new Jerusalem,' and many others have said the same.
For us Jerusalem represents many things - but the most predominant one yesterday was that it represented the top of a hill that some of us had been secretly (or not so secretly) dreading for days.
We left Tzor'a soon after 8, after a giant kibbutz breakfast, and headed along the main road for a little way, allowing me a brief encounter with a car (I came off worse but whilst Ed and Paul were rescuing me and Keith was elastoplasting me back together the driver was more interested in his bodywork) before turning into the Jerusalem forest.
I can hardly begin to describe how lovely it is in there. The rain yesterday had left it green and alive, smelling of juniper and young leaves. The track wound up and down in the shade of oak, ash and pine - and we began to see Other Cyclists coming the other way. This was a surprise to some of us, who had returned to cycling on the left on the basis that nobody else really wanted the road.
The forest is dedicated to the six million, and perhaps should therefore be sombre, but it isn't. It has a beautiful feel, as though it is a place people love, and come to to laugh and enjoy themselves. We loved our ride through it, and those at the back had the particular treat of songs from Peter and Tom as we went. There was spontaneous harmonisation, improvisation and on the spot composition going on that Gershwin would have been proud of (although the end result might have given him hiccups).
We stopped at a memorial in a glade. Although we have not come to look back and mourn, the Holocaust is a part of our shared history, not just of Jewish history, and seeing the very personal face of the tragedy was moving in the extreme. The eleven million personal stories we're brought alive and into focus by the one memorial, words from a survivor, to his unforgettable family. Wife, sisters, children, grandchild their names and nicknames bringing them alive to a group of strangers standing thoughtfully and reflectively in a beautiful wood. That really is the memorial, rather than the stone itself.
And then we went on, with Peter singing and Paul deliberately splashing through every single puddle. I was just behind him (as always on hills since I couldn't get up them without him) and was waiting for that vicar of Dibley moment (they were large puddles). It never quite came but there were a few close shaves.
We came out of the forest eventually to see the edge of Jerusalem above us. It still looked above to me but by now what we lacked in power we made up for in determination. Having said that mention must be made of Veila, who we suspect of being a descendant of the Greek God of fitness. Veila took several of the nastier hills two or three times, cycling up and down them repeatedly for fun (FUN) as she waited for the rest of us to catch up.
Stopping for a brief snack on a hill (when I asked Ed if we had just done the worst hill he simply smiled that smile. So charming, so handsome, so deadly. We understood it was going to hurt.
But do you know, we didn't mind. We've done so much together by now that we know we can get each other up any hill (and after friendships made on this trip I thing that statement is not only literally true but also profoundly true).
At this last stop we put on our Egypt to Jerusalem T shirts, a kind gift from Muhammed in Egypt, and onwards and upwards we went. Eventually we joined the main road into the city, cycling two abreast and becoming a part of the Shabat traffic.
The ride though the city itself was interesting - lights and traffic meant that we lost each other now and again, but the moment came when we were cycling through the Jaffa gate and along the pathways of the Armenian quarter towards the Western Wall
Our arrival was a time for reunions with family and with Brian, with Paul's red fez, and for a team photograph taken with so many different cameras that we suspect on some of them we will have the stretched rictus grins of the person told to smile a full minute too early . We were also able to visit the Western Wall itself, and feel the faith of those who stand at it bobbing and praying and chanting in such numbers that it is often called the Wailing Wall. Many of us put our prayers into the cracks, feeling the power of the place and touching the fair warm stones and. It was good to take a quiet moment there. Little bushes grow out of the wall in places, and birds nest in them. People come and go, mill and talk, cry and pray, read the Torah and write on slips of paper that take their prayers directly to God. It's both deeply personal and very public - and it also feels like a place of great pride, pride that it's still there and that those who pray are there to do so. It's tremendous. If more Christians and Muslims visited the Wall perhaps we would understand each other better.
Lunch was of course up another hill. Somehow we hadn't expected hills when we were actually in the city. But lunch was sumptuous - vine leaves and hummous, cheese and bread. It felt positively Biblical - the perfect food.
Then to the hotel - up, yes, you have it, a hill. And there with pain, sorrow, love, joy and relief, we finally said goodbye to our bicycles, the trusty iron horses that have carried us (with a bit of effort on our part) up and down and up, through desert, mountains and forests, through searing sun and driving rain (apart from those of us who hid in a bus shelter). On those bikes we had learned a huge amount about each other, and possibly even more about ourselves. We bid them goodbye like old friends.
And then, family and friends back home will be delighted to hear, we all headed straight for a hot bath. Ed's was full of bubbles and run by goddesses. The rest of us used taps and soap but it was still bliss. And we no longer small like old socks. Not that I ever did, obviously.
We met again before supper for a talk from one of the most amazing people I have ever heard speak. Father David Neuhaus is a Jesuit priest, fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, who works for reconciliation on both sides of the wall. He teaches Judaism to Palestinians, at the Bethlehem University, whose only encounter with Jews is as soldiers, settlers and policemen. He gave us a view of the other perspectives which are so often lacking, particularly that the Palestinians in the West Bank have lost their collective memory of a shared history, that Arab nations have somehow forgotten that there were once Arab Jews, and that the Palestinians cannot imagine that the Jews as a race were ever a persecuted minority. He is an inspiring man, a man who has the vision and the ability to sit atop of the walls that separate us, at the point where they all join, and see not only the squabbling and the conflicts, but also the common humanity. As he said, we are very good at building walls - but we clearly need help demolishing them. He is a man with a sledgehammer wielding it as gently and carefully as though it were an artists brush. It may be a gargantuan task - but so seemed the Berlin Wall once. We should be glad that he is in the world to tackle what so many feel is unresolvable. Nothing is unresolvable, and no conflict that is made cannot be unmade. It begins with shared understanding
After Michael had spoken we ate, we relaxed, we started to worry again about the sheer number of calories we were consuming, we cheered Robert, DJ and Peter who are leaving us on Saturday, then some of us went out - on FOOT (so inefficient compared to those lovely bikes) - to a juice bar in the Old City where we drank Palestinian wine, mint tea and pomegranate juice. It was a fitting end to a fantastic day, walking into the city together with the full moon reflected in shining silver from the top of DJ's recently shaved head to light our way.
Tomorrow we cease to be cyclists, but we remain pilgrims, and so will continue the tale for that one last day. For now most of us are collapsing into bed - but a few are off out clubbing. The energy of youth is quite something to those of us who need 8 hours in bed...but we haven't done so badly.
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