Day 4- Tuesday

After a rough nights sleep I finally decided it was okay to get out of bed (6am) and start the day. Between the traffic noise, car alarms, cats fighting and occasional loud bang (was that a bomb?) all night long there was very little sleep to be had that night. We felt safe though… inside a stone church with our car parked inside the gate. We had a nice Israeli buffet style breakfast before we headed off on our next adventure. We drove inside the old city to pick up a couple of hats we had seen the day before. It ended up being a costly adventure but we got what we needed. The next step was to find the freeway towards the Dead Sea. We were amazed at how quickly the scenery changes from Jerusalem to the Negev. Near the Dead Seas we stopped at the Ein Gedi nature Reserve for a hike to David’s waterfall. It was a terrific hike. Probably only about 45 minutes long, but beautiful. It was mostly up hill but we stopped at the lower and middle falls for a quick break. The middle falls was perfect for swimming in the pool below. We got a few pictures of us in the waterfall itself. It was really nice. I felt like I could have stayed there all afternoon if it wasn’t for the tour bus of people that came and interrupted the serenity of this amazing place. Sara and I reluctantly put our shoes back on and kept hiking up the trail. We saw a few fuzzy creatures along the way and some ibex too. Knowing we had a few hours of driving ahead of us, we ate a quick picnic lunch and moved on to Masada. Even though this was my second time visiting Masada it was still quite impressive. This time I remembered to take our water bottles wit us to the top. I saw much more of the Northern Palace this time which I prioritized after racing so quickly through it last time. I think Sara liked it too. At the bottom we indulged in a n ice cream treat before driving to Eilat. We weren’t sure how long it would take and hoped to get there before dark. The drive ended up only being about 2.5 hours. The challenge then became finding the Eilat Guest House which is where I made reservations. I didn’t have a chance to get directions and thought the address and map would be sufficient. Ooops. We drove around for about 45 minutes before we found someone who could help us. No one seemed to recognize anything on our map or the address we had. Finally we called the phone number I had written down and soon we were checking in. After much needed showers we set out to find dinner. We went to the mall across the street and had shwarma. I know this was not too adventurous, but we were exhausted from a long day and even though it was 9pm it felt like 100 degrees outside. Air conditioning relief was a guarantee at the mall:-) Totally wiped out we decided to go to bed early….especially with a 6:30am pickup from the Petra tour group. Just as I was turning out the lights we heard a sequence of loud bangs outside the window. Seeing a bunch of military personnel (with their guns) at the youth hostel, my first thought was they were starting target practice at 10pm and our room must be close to the shooting gallery. After looking out the window I discovered there was a firework show across the street which marked the beginning of an outdoor concert (which would last for another two hours). I felt like I was doing okay drowning out the music until the planes started flying in over the hostel. I guess we are right next to the airport:-) I think I finally fell asleep around 5am.