Despite the end of the days of Eid al-Fitr thousands of Palestinians did not stop visiting the Bazan parks to the northeast of the city of Nablus as an escape from the extreme heat to the cold waterfalls and swimming pools and large amusement parks.
The main street adjacent to the parks was overcrowded with vehicles on Friday (30/6/2017) because of the high temperature which was 5 degrees higher than usual while hundreds of families took advantage of their children’s completion of their high school exams to get some recreation after several hectic weeks.
Attractive areas
Emad Salahat the head of the Bazan village council told the Palestinian Information Center that more than 10 thousand tourists come to Al-Bazan on a daily basis making it one of the most attractive areas in the summer “due to its distinction and the wonderful areas for recreation and to escape the summer heat.”
He is proud of the prosperity of the town’s internal tourism despite the obstacles it faces most notably the presence of a nearby landfill and the traffic crisis due to the narrow and only road that leads to the parks.
The youth activist Atheer Salahat told our correspondent that annually more than 600 thousand tourists from the West Bank and the 1948 occupied territories in addition to expatriates and foreign tourists visit the Bazan parks in the peak seasons of tourism. He pointed out that the town has a population of about 3200 people in an area of 15 thousand acres and it contains many aquifers surface springs and more than 10 natural parks.
According to Abdul Salam Al-Faris one of the supervisors of the Bazan Falls area the services provided to the visitors such as the swimming pools restaurants and parks encourage hundreds of families to spend long hours in the area. Besides the sphere of comfort and privacy encourages a lot of people to visit and relax.
Disadvantages and chaos
Despite the visitors’ delight there are some opinions that criticized the parks’ accommodation of large numbers of visitors beyond its capacity noting that one of the parks at the entrance cuts tickets without any consideration to the visitor if he would get a place to sit and relax or not.
According to Mahmoud al-Khalili from Nablus he spent five hours in a park with his eight family members. When he tried to leave with his car it took him three hours to reach the city which is only 6 kilometers from the Bazan; Due to the traffic jam and chaos.
The Bazan Valley full of parks is located on the main public road between Nablus and Jericho which is part of the village of Talluza.
The valley contains several springs (Bazan springs) which are located on slopes of Talluzah’s southeastern mounds including Ain al-Sidra and Ras al-Naba’a. When these springs converge they meet in the middle with the waters of Ein al-Teban which is located near the Roman village of the Bazan today known as “Khirbat Farwa.”
From the site of the Bazan Roman village came the name of the valley.
The running water in the Bazan last throughout the year. However the water is not very abundant. The valleys coming from the vicinity of the villages of Askar and Balata meet and end in Wadi Bazan.
This area is one of the most beautiful natural areas in Palestine characterized by abundant water and green fruit and wild trees.
