Day 5 To Masada and Beyond

Day 5--To Masada and beyond OK, so I'm learning to write on Google Docs (saves automatically and can be accessed anywhere) and THEN transfer to my blog platform (Blogsy). Perhaps that way if I lose my prose, it'll be readily available in my Docs. See? An old dog learning new tricks.

Again up early and on our way by 7:30. A cloudy morning--our first since arriving on the 21st. Through the desolate area around Jerusalem to Masada, our bus passed a Bedouin homestead on the hillside. They are not allowed enter Jerusalem, and are traditionally thought of as an Arab ethnic group.

Thin visible parallel lines snake up the hillsides--reminders that the sheep and goats have grazed here over hundreds of years creating these mini-trails. Turning south in the Jericho Valley we approached the Dead Sea to the east--we're in the Judean Desert. The area was a mixture of brown to the left and a bit of green to the right where water's available.

We drove along with the sea to our left--realizing how drastically it's retreated--evaporating at the rate of about 3 feet/year. As the water began retreating, now fresh water was discovered to be nourishing some scrub brush and appearing in some sinkholes. Sinkholes are an issue along the sea and some have appeared recently, even in roadways--a startling situation.

To reach Masada, King Herod's winter palace, we took a cable car ride to the top and were amazed at the engineering it took to build this place, complete with its own aqueduct system and cisterns for gathering water, massive warehouses for storing food and grain, and various other structures so necessary for a great king: temple, baths, palace. The engineering feat is coupled with the second great story of this area, the Jews choosing to sacrifice themselves rather than become slaves of the Romans who were set on storming Masada.

Our walk to the waterfalls of the oasis of Ein Gedi was hampered a bit by more than 300 school kids who were frolicking in the pools of water made by cascading falls. They seemed like teens everywhere--totally oblivious to anything but having a great time on a day out of the classroom. But we had to maneuver around them on rocks made slippery by their antics. Thankfully we made it without incident.

The Dead Sea scrolls, discovered in 1947, were the work of the Essenes, a break-away Jewish sect that had chosen the desert as a place to focus on God.  We became acquainted with their elaborate rituals, their water system, their cave life, and eventually the scrolls they'd penned.  The scrolls, numbering 933, were discovered recently (if you call 1947 recent) by a Bedouin shepherd who found one of the Essenes caves and decided to toss a stone inside.  He heard pottery break, went to investigate, and brought to light these world ancient treasures.

I wasn't sure if I was gutsy enough to swim in the Dead Sea and smear myself with nourishing mud, but when it came down to it, how could I not? Though the temps were cool, we donned suits and walked backwards into the sea, eventually sitting or lying back. Yes, floating was just as easy as you've all heard, and the squishy mud? I'm confident our skin appeared ten years younger when we emerged.

Then because I could, I hopped on a camel for a bit of frolicking in a roadside lot. Turned out to be quite a ride when the critter decided he had a mind of his own. Adventures!