There's tons of people in the lobby of the hotel this morning...and I point to an older man who is mostly bald, has a big dangley earring in one ear and is wearing his belt buckle off to the side of his pants. "That's probably our guide," I jokingly say to my husband. Of course...he is.
Dan had a lot to say from the minute we entered the van till we exited his van two days later. He was unafraid to give us his opinions on politics, Arabs-Israeli relations and the United States. Dan was been born in Israel and I'd guess he was 64ish. Although he said he was one of the managers of our tour company, he also grew olives so he knew quite a bit about agriculture/farming in this part of the world and obviously had served a stint in the army too.
Dan wants us to stop at the Mount of Olives, the tallest point in Jerusalem, so we can see the Wall and the Golden Dome of the great Mosque, from a different angle. It's a beautiful sight and the parking lot is already filled with drama because someone has brought a camel to this parking lot and a group of Japanese tourists are waiting in line for a 30 second ride on a camel. Their whole group (I'm thinking 30 folks) must be armed with at least 300 cameras....which click all at the same time as one of their members mounts the lone camel.
Several men come over to greet Dan....he switches his language to Arabic..."Just cousins" he said with a laugh. I don't know what he means...but it's obvious he has a good relationship with some of the bus drivers of other tours. "Let's move along," he says..."I want to stop at a kibbutz outside of Masada." I'm not sure if there's something for us to see or if he has business there and we're just tagging along.
Surprisingly, on the other side of Jerusalem...in just a few minutes you are out into the desert. There are Bedouin camped far back from the road in tents and sheds made of sheet metal. "They like to live like that," Dan says..."They don't like the cities....it's not in their blood." He is probably right about this...as I've read articles about the Israeli government building houses for the Bedouin and finding the people dislike them and abandon them.
Makes more sense, in a way, to let the Bedouin decide where they want to live and accommodate them. Dan also mentions that the Bedouin are disappearing...that there aren't too many generations left to live out in the wild. Bedouins by their very culture ...roam...but because of politics...boundaries and political realities .....they can not move freely over the landscape like they had for thousands of years. Bedouins must belong...and they have to belong to one country or another...must have ID papers....must respect borders that are foreign to them.
Very soon we come to an oasis...apparently it's a kibbutz outside of the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve. The reserve is huge...about 6000 acres and it shelters a variety of wild life and fauna because of 4 springs which irrigate the area. This kibbutz is growing lots of date palms and Dan points out how they are genetically making the date palms smaller so they don't have to use such large and expensive equipment on the trees. As soon as a date palm sprouts dates at the crown, they must be bagged...with mesh...or else all sorts of birds and bats eat the fruit. Long ago, guys would climb up the trees to put protective covers on the dates....then came cherry pickers ...and now with smaller date palms...I think they only need a ladder?
Of course with our cameras still packed away, we see a small herd of Nubian Ibex and then there's a bunch of these furry guys hugging a drainage pipe. In fact, there's a whole crowd of furry creatures hugging the pipes in the shade. Dan tells us these are Syrian Hyrax, which look to me like fat woodchucks, and they hug the pipes throughout the day to cool off. Most of them look like they are hanging on for dear life...and maybe they are...because when I step out of the van....I want to return to the comfort of the van in about two minutes.
It's only a short trip down the road and we turn into a almost deserted stretch of highway that leads to Masada. There's a bunch of palm trees in the parking lot (click on pic to enlarge) but they are pitiful against the sun and temperatures of 105. The National Park has closed the hiking trail up to Masada because of the heat danger but I can't imagine why anyone in the middle of the day would even consider attempting a 4 hour hike uphill. Dan informs us that people try to hike all the time...even in blistering temperatures. He says quite definitively, "You can not carry as much water as your body needs on a day like today up this hill." I see no reason to disagree with him.
I don't like heights and I've been a bit worried about taking the aerial tram from the base of the visitor center to the top of Masada...but for some reason ...I get in the tram....I'm alright and I'm surprised I am alright.
We arrive at the plateau of Masada and as soon as you start walking around....your mind fogs...the same kind of historical fog I felt in Herod's courtyard in Jerusalem......because this is the site of a famous Roman/Israelite confrontation about 2000 years ago.
Jews from Jerusalem have fled to the top of this plateau after the Romans destroy the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. They harass the Romans from the safety of this plateau and so the Roman Emperor tells his troops to capture these rebels. Herod built a house and fortifications on this plateau long before the Romans caused this trouble so the rebels know there are deep cisterns which hold large amounts of water and storage areas on the top of the plateau to hold food. So the rebels prepare to outlast the Romans.
The Romans, using slave labor, took three years to create an embankment on the back side of Masada from which they could launch an attack on the rebels who had lived on top of the plateau. In the end, the Romans attack the plateau but the rebels at the last minute commit suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. So the Romans waited and occupied the base of Masada for three years and in the end had no prisoners or gains to show the Roman Emperor.
Interesting story. Interesting how anybody could live on this plateau....you feel so high and isolated...in its own way it feels to me like you're living in a prison. The top is 1.5 miles across so it's not a small plateau but when you think of a couple hundred people living in this one mile of land ....never being able to get off....it feels claustrophobic. I was actually happy to get into the tram going back down to the visitor center. Dan points out the earthquake and seismic activity sensors built in the wall by the tram....yep earthquakes happen here...which is just the information you want to know when you step into a tram hanging on a steel cable connect to towers that might shake.
At the visitor center, we were hungry and thirsty and turn a corner and there's a McDonalds??? Yes...at the visitor center in Masada there's a couple of food vendors and one of them is McDonald's.
Dan encouraged us to get a burger because the beef is Kosher..."it tastes better" ...he said...but I pass...and instead get an Aroma Cafe Iced Coffee....a highly addictive drink...which is frosty, gives me eye pain/brain freeze...but feeelsssss sooo goood going down.
We check in and Dan warns us not to drink the water at the hotel because the faucet water is salty and not for drinking. It's a strange arrangement....and there are signs posted in the bathroom not to drink or use the water for personal hygiene. If you want to brush your teeth or have a glass of water....you trudge down the hall with a glass bottle to get water from a spigot in the utility room.
It's now about 4:30 pm and hub and I put our bathing suits on and trudge down to the Sea. The sand is a thousand degrees hot even with sandals on. We claim a couple of chairs with umbrellas and head off to the Sea.
There's a slight salty hot smell in the air.... the water close to the beach is bathtub warm. It's strange to enter the water and feel warm instead of cool. It's more like a hot tub. I wade out from the beach till the water is waist high.....and try to bob down so my shoulders and neck will be wet.
That is....I try to bob down....I mean I try...really try and the water is like magic and you can not bob down...it literally throws you forward or backwards. At first, I almost lost my footing and plunged forward...but I tipped myself back and ended up floating on my back. I never float on my back....but there is no effort involved .....you simply lie back and your feet spring up and there you are floating. It's very Bizarre. I didn't stay float on my back for long because the sun is still beating down on me in the hot water and it's making me feel a little sick...like over-heated sick.
I manage to get my feet on the sand....and turn my back to the sun. My skin feels weird. Have you ever poured regular chlorine bleach on your hands? And you skin becomes weirdly smooth..???
That's how your skin feels that's been in the Sea.
I decide to get out of the water... shower off....and head to my chair to dry off. Hub felt weird too...and his skin felt the same way....so this must be the rejuvenating effect of the water. We dried off and decided to try the Sea one more time. I was ready this time...and didn't try bobbing...just splashed water on my torso. There's no way you could dive in or swim underwater....so I figured splashing was the way to go. It was still difficult to stay in the water....hot sun...hot water...hot smell. So hub and I got out again after about 15 minutes and restes. My skin, when dry, was a soft as a baby's ass. I could not believe how smooth it was....I totally understand why some people want to be here...for skin reasons...but I'm not sure if I could tolerate the Sea for more than a dunk or two. I certainly couldn't imagine staying here for a week or two just for the water...but the Sea helps some people who suffer from skin diseases so I'm sure if this was the cure ...I would take it.
Our hotel room was on the 15th floor...so after we came back to our room....we sat on the balcony for a while and watched the slow parade of tourists make their way to Sea.
Our beach below did not have mud....the famous mud people smear on their bodies at the Dead Sea. I was okay with that....I wasn't sure I wanted to smear hot mud on myself at this point...and I guess the nurse is me would want to know what's in the mud and where has it been and who has done what to it...before applying it to my skin. So I was happy to have smooth skin from just the Sea sans mud...and very happy to be out of the Dead Sea.
