After taking in two straight days of consistent and oppressive sun and heat, Tina and I designated Monday to be our recoup/recap day. For all the ways I have loved the Middle East, it can seriously wear you out. We slept until we woke up, got caught up on some pictures, blogs and generally made ourselves extremely minimally productive. It was great! We also used the day to convince ourselves it would be worth our money to book an online tour to see both Masada and the Dead Sea.
So Tuesday we got going early and hopped on our usual bus to the Old City with what we figured to be a very generous window for reaching our meeting point in time. But our trip has slowly become a string of miscalculations/unforeseen scenarios that create either issues or adventures, depending on your current mood and time frame. Our time frame was quickly becoming very limited to get to the David Citadel Hotel in time so, naturally, the TRAIN TESTING and early morning traffic to the OC was very unamusing. In Kris’s words we became an episode of Amazing Race, trying to stay on the same side, while panic and stress steadily grew…Well anyhow, we made it just barely within our time frame, only to find out the company was 15 minutes behind. Well then.
Once the tour got under way, everything was pretty smooth sailing, save for the seemingly habitual lack of leg room on all public transportation in this city. (Kris was even crammed for room!) We drove south along the Dead Sea, were motioned towards lots of little scenes to look at and take horrible pictures of before stopping at a bathroom break at the local spa, Avada, that has made millions off the Dead Sea and it’s rich mineral content. The spiel was cheesy and overdone and the elderly on the tour were hooked. (I think one couple brought 3 bags of whatever) Made our exit and continued south and reached Masada within the hour.
Note: For those who don’t know of Masada, its historical importance or attraction for tourists, here’s a super brief sum-up. Masada is a natural large mesa of a mountain, separated from the other hills on all sides. Back in the 1st century AD, as Rome had already taken over Jerusalem and was looking to control the whole region, a band of Jewish rebels took flight and refuge at Masada, it having already been built into a mountain city by Herod, that included two palaces, an intricate water system and other buildings. The Jews were able to hold off the Romans, who decided to attack Masada, for over three years, using the very natural topographic advantage and area to keep them at bay. The Romans were eventually, over a long period of time, able to build a huge ramp leading up the western wall (with the use of slaves) and, long story short, able to penetrate the mountain fortress. But no Jewish rebels were to be found. The band, choosing suicide over surrender, had killed themselves in the middle of the night, when realizing the walls would be breached. Over a 1000 rebels were found dead on the mountain-top. So there you go, I guess not as short as I was thinking.
We took a cable car to the top, humored our tour guide for most of the time wandering around cool buildings, old bath houses and water systems before requesting an extra 20 minutes to wander on our own. This is where we discovered the enourmous cistern pictured above. It was incredible. I’ve learned it could hold over a million gallons of water at a time. Wow! The rest of the city was really, really cool but I think we both agreed this was our favorite. Thank goodness, we ditched the group!
After getting back down and finishing off the rest of our pita bread peanut butter and jellys (How Middle Eastern/American of us!) and listening to the tour guide use Masada to give a Zionistic speech about Israel not falling again and staying resilient in the face of its oppressors (we decidedly tuned this out) we took the bus to the Dead Sea. In what will probably go down as one of the most bizarre experiences of the trip, we floated like bath toys in chest deep water, rubbed mud all over ourselves and came out smelling like a rose, no wait I mean farts. (The sulphur of course) The only part I didn’t enjoy was that after I got sweat in my eyes (very common) I couldn’t rub them out, as the very high salt content of the water would have only made it worse. So I feigned blindness for the last 10 minutes before a much needed rinse. I broke a flip flop and Kris almost lost her sandal to the mud, but beyond that, it was a blast!
We made our way back to the city after that, stopping to see the sight of the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls. By stopping I mean pulling over to the side of the road so we could take more bad pictures *sigh* Nevertheless, we were glad we did the tour, even if we thought maybe it was the slightest bit overpriced. Got a very gracious pick-up from the OC and eased into the evening, starting with a shower of course!
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