Day Nine (Group B - Dead Sea & Masada) Ooooh, You Really DO Float! (Randy Dickson)

We started our day out waking up in Jerusalem.

From there we headed on down to Masada through the Judean Desert. Along the way, we were told a story about some Bedouin children playing in the caves up above and around us as we were driving by.  They were throwing rocks in the caves when they heard an unfamiliar sound to them from one of the rocks that they had thrown. When they went to investigate, they found that the rocks had hit some clay pots, and that was an unfamiliar sound.  Upon further investigating, the pots had scrolls in them. Those scrolls turned out to be the Dead Sea scrolls!

Continuing toward Masada, Eric relayed a story about some geological phenomena that I can’t explain as well, but essentially resulting in various very dangerous sink holes and the abandoning of the main road down to Masada.  But no worries, a new road was created that is passable most of the time, except for when the rains create flash floods coming off the mountains, which are also connected to the formation of the sink holes! Continuing on, we drove by the desert oasis of Ein Gedi. Not much to report, as we didn’t stop here, but just to see a lush naturally formed fertile green area seemingly pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the desert, is absolutely remarkable and amazing!


And now on to the star of the day: We made it to Masada!

The group took a  gondola up to the top, and I (Randy) steadfastly wanted to hike it. So I missed most of the retelling of the story, although I know the outline. The snake path, which zig zags (for our bus driver Sinai who loved that silly sounding word) up the east side of the mountain, provided me with some beautiful views of the desert meeting the Dead Sea. At the top, Eric was taking us around to various sections of the ‘city’, explaining how they lived back then. Here he is (pic on the right) explaining to the group about their water storage, and retrieval. He also relayed a powerfully moving story which beautifully summed up the sentiment of the whole experience:  

• On January 10, 1943, Eric’s grandparents, who were in arguably one of the worst places on earth at the time, the Warsaw Ghetto, were ‘celebrating’ their marriage. His grandfather was also organizing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which would happen in a mere, few, short months. The personal connection to Masada is, that very same day, members of the Zionist Youth Movement, ‘broke into’ Masada, and ‘graffiti-ed’: “Masada will not fall again.” Just an absolutely beautiful personal connection to tie everything together.

From there, I took the gondola back down with the group, and it was a short ride over to the Dead Sea. Highlight for me, was watching and hearing person after person walk in, and say... 

‘Oooooh, you really do float!’

‘Oooooh, you really do float!’

It’s a very uneasy feeling and takes a minute to get used to. Just trying to ‘tread water’ without the bottom, your feet are either going to come up in front of or behind you. Just that couple of feet of depth, trying to stay vertical, is not possible! But there it is, the salt mixing with the sand. And also, the salt covers the structures in the water at the resort. This is a post for a little shady walkway area. It truly is remarkably unique! And then onto dinner, not much to say about it. It was a good meal of... more meat or chicken! (No pictures required... Ha!)