Bet Shean - Jericho First, it is ruggedly beautiful all the time, and second, it is an unusually long journey where you don't come across a single site of archeological or historical interest, as if the land wanted the traveler to appreciate the beauty of the landscape at his leisure. Fortunately, Dennis and I must have looked like locals because they waved us through. The PLO checkpoint in Jericho was different, we were not invited in, so we took the bypass and went on to Qumran. The mountains to the north of Wadi Qumran yielded up some 800 manuscripts during the period of 1947-1956. The site is a visitor friendly site and before we walked it we had lunch at the small visitor center.
History has a way of hiding truth.
Finally we arrived at Metsukei Dragot. The wilderness camp is perched on the edge of the Judean Wilderness about 1,500 feet above the Dead Sea. The view is breathtaking. The ride up the mountainside is breathtaking. Metsukei Dragot was developed by Mitzpeh Shalem.