By Lisa T. Bergren

Think crossing the Israeli border is easy? Think again. We began our day as we did many others in Jerusalem, all packed up, water bottles filled, cameras stationed around our necks. We walked through the winding streets of the Old City, through the Damascus Gate and over to the bus station, where our guide made arrangements for our group of twenty-two to be dropped in Bethany.

The plan was to visit the tomb of Lazarus, then make a pilgrimage walk through Bethany, Bethphage, and over the Mount of Olives, just as Christ did on his triumphal entry into the city.

Our path was not quite so triumphal. The visit to Lazarus’s tomb went all right. Because of the border wall that now divides these hills like the fin on a fish’s back, the streets were quiet, that part of the city devoid of most tourists. New, beautiful limestone steps lined the steep hill, a gift of “The People of the United States of America,” a blatant attempt to buy some Palestinian love. We climbed them, made arrangements with a man on crutches to enter the tomb (a traditionally celebrated site since Byzantine times), climbed down the narrow, steep stairs. After peering around the dank tomb we exited the same way, the more claustrophobic among us out first.

After asking around for lunch options, we decided to head back over the hill, hoping for a better option than the souvenir shopkeeper’s back room. But at the top of the hill, where our guide had easily passed through the wall and back into Jerusalem two years before, we found it firmly closed, no guard in the tower above.

A friendly Palestinian man, son in tow, stopped and inquired after us. Clearly, we were a bunch of lost tourists. He peeked through the gaps in the wall, said something about guards on occasion, but then shrugged his shoulders and pointed us toward the next gate, about a half hour’s walk away. It was hilly country, and the thermometer was hovering around ninety-five. Our stomachs were rumbling with hunger. And there was no guarantee that once we got to the next gate, it’d be open.

Seeing our hesitation, the man made a call on his cell and five minutes later, a big red panel van showed up. Our guide and the driver and the man made a deal, then five of our party packed into the two bench seats up front, and the rest of us packed into the back, sitting on top of burlap bags of coffee beans. Two men—one of them, my husband—sat at the back, simultaneously trying to keep the doors partway open for air and yet not fall out.

The van set off and that’s when we began to pray. Sweat rolled down our faces and backs. It was dark, except for the dirty windows at the back and the small gap between the doors. Tires screeched below us. The tall van seemed to tip, precariously, as we rounded each corner. People laughed nervously or settled into subdued silence. I thought about illegal immigrants and Jews packed into cattle cars. I mused about how this was an adventure, a story we could tell later. I worried we’d all be kidnapped and hauled off for ransom—the stupid American pilgrims who hopped into a van like they were asking for it. I chastised myself for an overactive imagination.

We reached the next border crossing and exited the van, well clear of the terminal, since we didn’t want them asking any questions about our curious mode of transportation. We entered, showing our passports, tense until we were through and on the other side. Once past the metal detectors and cameras and armed guards, I walked over to the chain link fence, curling barbed wire atop it, and gazed back over.

It looked the same, on both sides. Limestone neighborhoods. Mules. Chickens. Battered cars. Kids with sticks and cans. Old men, sitting on porches, dolefully staring out at the street. Many undoubtedly had friends on the other side of the wall, family. But now, they were painfully divided.

We hailed a bunch of taxis and were hauled to the top of the Mount of Olives, where we had some of the best falafel we ate in all of Israel. But what we’d just experienced hovered, like a shadow we couldn’t shake, until we’d slept and awakened, and had given ourselves permission to think of it as an uncomfortable dream.

Been to Israel and dealt with border crossings? What was your experience? Comment below.