The Valley of Fire

This is the road to Bethlehem and Hebron for Palestinians without yellow plates on their cars. It takes at least twice as long on a good day (though we lost 15 minutes in each direction at the container checkpoint, shown. Not to mention the several hour wait at the checkpoint outside Ramallah later that night) over a road that was more of an unpaved rural path until the second Intifada. In some places it still looks like an untraveled country road, barely two lanes wide with tight bends in the road. There are also incredibly steep inclines that trapped more than one giant truck full of chickens on the day we passed.

The landscape is beautiful though...at times like you'd imagine the moon, and at others lush clean farmland dotted with olive trees, stone walls, and grape vines. And everywhere men in traditional Palestinian head dress herding sheep like in year one.