We're at Ein Fawwar on the West Bank,
the site of an ancient spring, and also there was a Byzantine church here before.
It's just a brief drive from Jerusalem,
and it's amazing how little time it actually takes to get from the big city to natural landscapes like this.
And the best way to see it -- just take a hike.
We're going where many have gone before since the dawn of history --
down ancient footpaths in the wilds of the West Bank.
We're following in what could be the footsteps of Abraham,
the biblical patriarch revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Our guide, Habib, knows every twist and turn in these rocky valleys.
His specialty is this, the so-called Abraham Trail,
the brainchild of a European diplomat who was based in Jerusalem.
The path is strewn with history going back millennia.
The Bible says Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, in what is today southern Iraq.
At God's command, Abraham and his family left Ur and went to Harran, believed to be in southeastern Turkey,
then westward and from there down through Syria to the Land of Canaan,
eventually ending up in the Negev, then Egypt, then back to Canaan.
Now, nobody knows if Abraham actually came this way. The Bible doesn't mention the route he took.
But logically he would have gone through an area like this
because back then, of course, you could not go to the store and buy a bottle of water. You had to stay close to sources of water.
Nowadays, this wadi is dry because there's a pump taking all the water out at the head of the valley.
But before that pump was put in place, there was water going through here year-round.
So, who knows?
Only small stretches of the Abraham Trail have been set up in Turkey, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel.
It's an ambitious, indeed wildly idealistic, project, hardly feasible in a region convulsed by war and unrest.
But here the unhappy present seems far away.
The harsh, dry hills suddenly spring to life at Ein Auja, where cool, clear water gushes to the surface.
It's a place where weary hikers can rest and refresh themselves, and pray, perhaps, for a safe journey.
Habib recounts that archaeologists found an inscription in an old Byzantine church imploring God not to let this spring run dry.
You see here, this is a large Byzantine mosaic.
But the... it appears that nobody is taking care of it. It's just exposed to the elements.
Of course, the West Bank is full of thousands and thousands of sites like this where you can come and go.
If nobody's looking, you can do other things as well.
The trade in stolen antiquities is a global multimillion-dollar business,
and the crumbs off that table help feed some residents of the West Bank.
This is clearly some sort of pottery shard dating back to the Byzantine period.
You can just sort of come along with a stick and dig up what you like.
Now, I did not dig this up. I just sort of found it here,
but, you know, it just shows how it's open season on these ruins.
We're now in the Jordan Valley, still following the Abraham Trail.
Abraham's journey, however, was divinely inspired,
but it doesn't take too much imagination to feel some of that inspiration in these hills.