Desert Adventures

I know you were all waiting in anxious anticipation for my newest blog post so I apologize for my delay. In doing so many fun things I’ve been really neglecting school work, so I had to catch up on some of that before I could justify doing things like blogging. But now I want to tell you about the exciting desert adventure I had this weekend!

Thursday night I, along with 4 friends, took a bus down to Masada with the plan of hiking the famous monument for the sunrise on Friday morning. Masada is a hilltop fotress located in the middle of the Negev (the Judean Desert), famous as the site of a Jewish revolt around the year 70. According to the most widely-accepted and archaologically corroborated version of the story, the Jewish Zealots fled to Masada after the destruction of the temple and were followed there by the Roman army. The Romans laid siege to the hilltop and after building an entirely new ramp to the top, broke through the walls built by the Zealots, conquering the fortress. However, the Jews decided that rather than allowing themselves to be conquered and committing themselves to a life of slavery under the Romans they decided to kill themselves. So around 960 Jews committed suicide on the mountain rather than submitting to the Romans. Because of this incredible story Masada has become a really important part of Israeli history and culture, both as a symbol of the strength of the Jewish people in the face of oppression and as a landmark to antiquity and heritage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) Aside from all the historical stuff, Masada is just an awesome experience in and of itself. The hike is very steep, about 350 meters basically straight up, and the view from the top is phenomenal. The Dead Sea is very close so from the path and the top of the mountain itself you can see a gorgeous view of the Sea, Jordan on the other side, and the surrounding desert. Since we made it up for the sunrise the view was even more spectacular. We had a little complication with daylight savings time starting that same morning and our phones not automatically changing but we powered up that hill and made it without missing the sun.

Atop the mountain there are pretty well-preserved ruins of the fortress as it was during Roman times. There is a church, a synagogue, two palaces, mosaics, a really neat water cistern, etc.

That afternoon we headed over to Ein Gedi, where there is a public beach and access to the Dead Sea! We all laughed at the sign on the beach instructing swimmers of how to enter the sea: “Wade until you can squat then lean back gently”. Despite our mockery though, this proved to be the most effective way to enter the water. This was my second time in the Dead Sea (that I can remember) and it was no less bizarre an experience than the first time. It’s pretty hard to not float, if you’re on your back and try to stand up it takes a lot of effort to force your legs under water. Flipping over onto your stomach is funny too because you don’t want to get your face anywhere close to the water because of the salt, so you end up flailing trying to float on your stomach while craining your neck back to protect your face. Just watching people’s reactions to the Dead Sea experience provides hours of entertainment. We swam/floated/drifted over to a cove nearby in order to access a pit of the famous dead sea mud which we slathered all over our bodies. After rinsing it off my skin felt softer than I ever thought possible. It was very cool. A downside to the Dead Sea experience is that even the smallest cut on your body stings terribly in the salt water, and because all the rocks on the beach and on the sea floor are encrusted with salt they’re super sharp. So someone as clumsy and injury prone as I am had a little bit of a rough time handling myself, but luckily everyone looks like a fool at the Dead Sea so I fit in quite well.

We spent Saturday at the Ein Gedi nature reserve, basically a tropical oasis in the middle of the desert. It’s mentioned in the book of 1 Samuel that David goes there when he’s running from Saul who is trying to kill him. Today it’s a popular destination both for tourists and for Israelis taking a day trip to do some hiking. There are water falls, caves, canyons, ancient ruins—it’s just a really beautiful places. We spent several hours hiking up onto the cliffs surrounding the preserve, and in doing so witnessed some absolutely stunning views of the Dead Sea and desert surrounding the preserve. My favorite place we hiked to was called Dudim's cave, but I prefer to refer to it as Dooms cave. Several of us commented that we felt like we were in Lost or something like that. It was really really cool.

As always, check out facebook for more pictures. What's here is just a sampling.

On Sunday, after spending the day working on a paper, I joined my friends for a birthday celebration. We went to Beit Ticho, which is a house turned museum in Jerusalem known for it’s delicious restauruant. We read about it in our Hebrew textbook so we’d been dying to try it. It certainly did not disappoint. If you’re looking for a nice meal in Jerusalem, Little Jerusalem Café in Beit Ticho (The Ticho House) is an excellent choice.