The Dead Sea

Saturday we planned to go to the Dead Sea and surrounding sites. We found out that one of Ken's friends from work was in town this week on business and so we asked him if he wanted to join us. It took a while to find his hotel in TelAviv but we were glad to have his company. By 9am we were headed to Jerusalem. We stopped for gas and found out we are still having troubles with our VISA card :-( We gave them different card and they said, unless we had an Israeli credit card we could only get 1 liter of gas on a credit card ??? Wierd. Glad we had cash. It was interesting to watch the landscape change. Jerusalem looked beautiful (from the Highway). Lots of trees and greenery, past Jerusalem towards the dead sea is more what I expected Israel to look like when Ken first said we were moving here, very brown rocky hills almost looked like sand dunes. There were a few nomadic tents on the hills and some sheep/goats on the hillside. We even saw a camel on one of the highway exits (not sure where his owner was). We passed a couple of guard stations (we look like safe white Americans so they usually wave us through pretty quickly). First impression of the Dead Sea is it looks like its receeding. It's the lowest place on earth 412m below sea level.
We drove through to Qumeran (where the dead sea scrolls were discovered). The ruins of the city have been dated to 800 BC where the Essenes lived and copied the scriptures. Much of the Old Testament was found (including the whole book of Isaiah) since the discovery of the Clay Jars in a cave here in 1947.

From Qumeran we went South to Masada. Masada was built by Herod as a place to get away and rest. I guess this place became coveted by many since it was nearly impossible to attack. (I personally -in the 110 degree weather- kept asking myself why anyone would want to live here in the middle of nowhere on top of this big mountain!) After the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, Jewish revolters moved to Masada for safety. Eventually the Romans came and surrounded the base of the mountain and began building a ramp up to the city. We were wondering why the Jews couldn't have thrown rocks at the builders since they had the upper hand (and there were a ton of rocks up there) but I guess the Romans used Jewish slaves to build the ramp so that the revolters up top would be less likely to attack their own people. On the night before the Romans reached the entrance the story is that the Jewish revolters (although they had food water and supplies to sustain themselves for years to come) determined it was better to commit suicide than to be slaves to the Romans. The next morning the Romans ascended to the city to find everybody dead except a few small children and women. What an amazing place to see and a beautiful view of the mountains and dead sea. It almost seemed like we were in Arizona with the red rock mountains all around. We would have loved to stay longer, but it was way way way to hot and we didn't bring any water with us. We were glad to purchase the cable car tickets for an easy ride there and back. Watching the hikers snake up the mountain was exhausting in itself. I actually thought we would hike, but after seeing the path... the cable car was unanimous.

En Gedi was our final destination. It was amazing to see this small oasis in the middle of the desert/rocky terrain. Here David fled from King Saul, and actually had the chance to kill Saul when he found him sleeping in a cave. We went straight for Ein Bokek the famous tourist spot for floating in the dead sea. It was soooo hot and it was quite a trek from the parking lot down to the water. There were probably 10 other people out there floating when we got there. I noticed there was a lifeguard/nurse station up on the hill. I'm not sure what there purpose was though, because #1 everyone is supposed to float (why do you need a lifeguard?) and #2 if something did go wrong it would have taken them at least 4 minutes to get to shore and jump in. Now that I think about it, I didn't check to see if they had guns and were really supposed to be eyeing the Jordanian Hills across the sea. Anyway... we walked into the water and once I got to my thighs I just bent my knees and I was floating. This was the wierdest, coolest experience and you really have to experience it to believe it. I've seen pictures of friends who have floated in the dead sea before, but its unreal. There must be a rather quick drop off because I put my legs straight down and couldn't stand on any rocks, but I was totally upright. As soon as I put my legs slightly in front of me they went straight to the surface. Amazing! Then I looked at the water. What is in here that is making us float? The water looked a little oily, it was not gross like car oil leaking into the river. When we came out it looked like maybe we put on some suntanning oil. But it didn't seem any more sticky then when we went swimming at the beach in Haifa. I was glad there were some showers nearby to wash off. Ohhh that felt good. The shower water was a little cooler (but not much) than the dead sea which felt like warm bath water. Every-once-in-a-while you would feel a cooler current but then it would go warm again after 10 seconds. They say nothing lives in the Dead Sea (only 11 types of bacteria- good thing there was a shower nearby). We were careful not to dunk our heads since the salt would just burn in our eyes and ears. Just from moving around in the water I got a little on my lips and it was soooo gross. It was a bitter salt taste. Worse than what you would expect salt x10 to taste like.
The drive home seemed really long but we made it. It was definately worth the trip.