Day 8 Part 5 Floating in the Dead Sea.

We once again are on the road heading north.  From what I can see there isn't a lot of Dead Sea left to drive by and I wonder if we will get our chance to take a dip.  I don't see any of the little resorts that have been all along the way.  Just when it looks like we will take the road that heads away from the Dead Sea, there is one more turn off to the east and we take it.  The four buses of our tour snake their way down to what turns out to be a very large parking lot with lots of cars.  There are old looking buildings near the parking lot that have a sort of military feel to them, they also appear to be abandoned or at least not in current use.  This spot seems to have some kind of history.

We debus and head to the resort with our little bundles of towels and trunks and wearing our water shoes.  We pass through some gates and discover this is a very popular place!  Lots of people, a restaurant and lots and lots of picnic tables that all have their own little grill.  Smoke is thick and the smell of savory roasting meat is amazing!  I am instantly starving as the unremarkable lunch I just had is a distant memory.  

The place looks to be full of Arab and or Palestinian people.  The men are all dark skinned, bare chested, in Speedos while most of the women are dressed head to toe in headscarves and long dresses.  I wonder if they see the irony. It is my brilliant deduction that most of these people must be Muslim.  

It is a little confusing to find out where to change clothes and where to put your stuff. There are crowds of people of many nationalities coming and going, almost crazy with all the traffic.  As usual, the demarcation between men's and women's changing areas is not clear and men wander into the women's area on a regular basis.  Whoever runs this place should read "User Friendly Churches" by George Barna so they could improve their signage and visitors can at least know where the men's and women's areas are.  No helpful person is there to ask where to change clothes so I observe for a moment and follow a man into an open air locker area.  Again, the architects do not use angles and corners to provide ample room for modesty from the continuous stream of humanity only feet away from where I am planning on baring my pasty whiteness in just a moment.  

I do the deed as fast and effeiciently as I can and don my trunks and t-shirt quickly.  Now I wait for Indiana Jolie while holding my towel and rolled up clothes.  She emerges soon enough and we head to the water.  She had a similar experience with getting changed with men heading into the women's locker area on a regular basis.  We figure we will never see any of these people ever again so, C'est la vie!  Ha ha!  We snake our way through the outdoor eating area of the restaurant (again, no signage pointing the way).  We find the stairs (lots of stairs) that switchback down the steep bank to the "beach".  Because of the steep terrain of this spot, the water is not very far away. You can easily tell the water level is far below where it once was, but because of the steepness, it remains close.  

We are a little nervous as we approach the water.  A friend offers to hold our stuff while we go for a float.  People are literally rolling in the mud which is very black and slick and sticky.  

We hear this is supposed to do amazing and wonderful things for your skin.  Women with headscarves and long dresses also frolic in the mud and water.  It looks really awkward to be so clothed and wet and muddy.  

With some excitement I head to the water first while Indiana Jolie talks with our friends.  I wade in surprised by how cold the water feels.  The air temperature is 86 degrees at this spot.  I don't know if the water is actually "cold" or if it is just the difference between the air and water temperature.  I was expecting that the water of the Dead Sea would be warm.  The water near the shore is black with the mud.  The bottom is very uneven, muddy and sticky.  It would be easy to lose your water shoes.  Once the water is up to my waist the bottom is smooth and walking is easier.  They tell us that once you are waist deep to just sit down like you would in a chair and the water will float you.  It worked exactly that way.  

It was weird floating effortlessly, kind of what I imagine floating in space would be like.  Since I am a bigger person I am surprised that the water floats me as easily as a smaller person.  Out in the deeper water the water is crystal clear and the bottom can be seen easily about 10 feet below us.  

Indian Jolie joins me and we float around for some time together and visit with our friends.  I have my waterproof digital camera with me and I take pictures as we float in the Dead Sea.  It is refreshing and fun.

We are very near the north shore of the Dead Sea and the receding waterline is obvious against the exposed lake bed.  I look below me and think if the Dead Sea loses another 10 feet of water again this year that where I am floating will be shoreline in a year.  Hard to imagine.  

I wonder if anyone could drown in the Dead Sea.  It is probably a rare occurrence.  If a person towed a water bottle and a floating picnic basket you could probably swim clear across the lake without a lot of effort.  Kind of like paddling a canoe without a canoe.  

Well, our time is up and we need to get changed.  As we near the shore Indiana Jolie wants to try the mud.  

I help her smear it on any exposed skin and we kind of wade around waiting for its magical powers to have their effect.  We rinse it off and sure enough she is smooth and silky!  We wonder if we could carry a blob of mud with us in our stuff.  Probably not a good idea.

We climb up the switchbacking stairs up to the top level to now find a shower to rinse the brine and mud off of ourselves.  The men's shower is right off the main path where all of humanity is streaming by in an unending line.  All that exists as a modesty screen between the inside of the men's shower and the unending stream of humanity is a ridiculously small sheet which slides back and forth on a curtain rod in the entrance.  Even fully deployed, it does not fully cover the entrance.  Every person who enters slides it to one side and walks in leaving the entrance uncovered for all of the streaming humanity to see inside.  For this reason I think, the only open showers are the ones closest to the entrance.  I enter, close the curtain behind me which is instantly swished aside by the next person.  The room is not well lit and despite the bright sunlight outside, the further you venture into the shower room the darker it gets.  

I face a dilemma, go deeper into the shower room for more "privacy" with tight, crowded quarters with many naked strangers or take my chances with the flimsy curtain near the entrance?   I opt to take my chances.  I carefully close the curtain.  I am about to remove my trunks when the curtain swishes open for all of humanity to see.  This is repeated a few times.  I am wondering if I will ever get a shower.  It finally occurs to me to disrobe in the privacy of the shower itself where I control the curtain.  Duh.  The fresh water feels great and I wash the briny residue and mud off of myself.  

After I turn off the water, I discover I have sabotaged myself.  My towel hangs across the way from the shower and the flimsy curtain once again hangs wide open to the world.  I stealthily stay just out of sight until I can reach the curtain which hangs on the far side of the opening.  I am grateful for my long reach and I secure the opening (I use the word "secure" loosely).  I quickly grab my towel and bury my face in it and begin to dry my hair.  I momentarily forget about the curtain.  With sudden thought I turn and see that some thoughtful person who was coming or going has left the entrance wide open and my pasty whiteness is bumming out all nations and tribes and tongues and genders and age groups as they stream endlessly past the entrance just two feet away.  I jump into the shower wondering how many got a free show.  I dress in the shower stall muttering to myself about the dismal state of intelligence and courtesy in the world.  Fully clothed I leave the shower room and push the flimsy curtain all the way to the far side as everyone obviously prefers it this way.

I wander a bit waiting for Indiana Jolie to appear.  The picnic area is full of families, little children wander about, beautiful with their dark skin, black hair and white teeth.  I feel a bit conspicuous and out of place, but smile and nod at everyone around me.  The smoke is thick and the aroma of whatever meat they are roasting is tantalizing.  No one invites me to dinner.  There are no rocks here so I don't even think of taking pictures. 

I catch up with friends and we visit while our wives arrive.  I share my experience in the shower room with everyone who then laugh at my expense.  C'est la vie!  Ha ha!  We head over to the buses to start our journey back to Jerusalem after one more stop.  Something about a balcony....  

Day 8 Part 4 Qumran

The daily feeling of not getting to spend enough time at some fantastic site again hits me hard.  Thinking through all the places where we have been I wonder what I would eliminate in order to spend more time at any of the other sites.  I can only think of one or two I would have given up in order to stay longer somewhere else.  The rub must be the excitement of the present feels greater than the discovery of where you haven't been yet.  One bird in the hand versus two in the bush scenario I guess.

We board the buses and begin retracing our route back up the shore of the Dead Sea.  Masada will be the furthest south we will go in Israel.  As we head north occasionally we pass what were once "shore side" Dead Sea resorts.  Where once the waters of the Dead Sea lapped within yards of their lawn chairs and umbrellas the water line is now up to a mile away.  Their guests now take golf carts down to the water line in order to float in the brine.  I can imagine it takes its toll on their business, they didn't look too busy. That's what happens when the Dead Sea loses 10 feet of depth per year for the past 14 years I guess.  Not only is this area hot and dry and also experiencing less than usual rainfall, but the waters of the Jordan River are so diverted for agriculture and drinking water for the rest of Israel that it simply cannot replenish the evaporating waters of the Dead Sea.  

The whine of the diesel engine indicates that we are slowing down in what looks to be the middle of nowhere.  We turn off the road and rumble down a gravel road that seems fairly unimproved to an equally unimproved parking area.  I wonder what is up.  We debus and feel the heat of this place.  We are at a part of the Dead Sea where the road hugs the mountain range closer and the shore of the sea is further away.  Here we are surrounded by what looks like thorny, dry desert scrub.

Without a lot of explanation, we all begin a hike down a dirt path through the brush.  I reach for my new bottle of warm water and take an long drink.  I really feel like pouring it over my head but it is probably more valuable as a thirst quencher.  We walk for a fair amount and finally reach a pond of water that at its deepest point looks to be a little over a foot deep.  

It seems like there should be no water here at all.  We gather under the little shade the scrub offers to hear a lecture.

The point of this little excursion is to demonstrate Deuteronomy 11:
Deut. 11:11 (NKJV)  
    but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 

The source of the this pond of water is the result of the near mountain range "drinking" the rain.  Much like the headwaters of the Jordan River at the Temple of Pan at Mt. Hermon, the water does not run off so much on the surface of the mountains, but the water penetrates down into the rock, filters thoroughly through it and emerges in places like this.  We must be at least a couple of miles from the slope of the mountains at this point.  I wonder how many years it must take for a drop of rain to make its underground journey to finally re-emerge.  There must be a resupply of this water enough to sustain this little pond in this heat and arid environment.  

As we are sitting and listening the the lecture, I am looking into the water and I am sure that I see a fish.  This couldn't be?  How would fish get here?  How would a fish survive?  I keep looking, sure enough, more fish.  They looks somewhat like catfish although I have never actually seen a catfish.  They swim in and out of the reeds that grow on the backside of the pond.  Amazing.  

I wonder if the water is drinkable.  What if you were lost in this place and stumbled upon this water?  I wonder if it is salty like the Dead Sea or brackish or fresh.  I'll never know.  

We are feeling our hunger pangs as we head back to the buses.  We are told we will eat lunch at Qumran.  The place they found the Dead Sea Scrolls?  Yes.  There is actually a community of Palestinians at Qumran who live there year around. 

As we get back on the highway someone asks if the actual caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in are where we will be eating lunch.  We are asked, "do you want to see them?"  Yes!  is the collective answer.  Our guide instructs the driver to pull over on the side of the road.  We quickly do so near what looks like a dry wash.  Not 100 yards from the edge of the road our guide points to two caves in the side of the rocks.  There, those are the caves, he says.

What?  Just right there?  Just off the side of the road?  No tourist facilities?  No tours?  Just those little caves right there?  Yep.  I am kind of amazed and disappointed all at the same time.  For some reason I had thought of these caves as high up on the mountainside, inaccessible, hidden, hard to see.  Nope. They are right there by the side of the road and nobody seems to care.  We stop only long enough for a few snaps of our digital cameras and we head on to the community of Qumran.  

For being the site of the most amazing treasure trove of biblical and extra-biblical materials ever discovered it sure isn't celebrated.  Not even a parking lot and a sign.  You would just drive right past it without ever knowing if someone didn't point it out to you.  Maybe there isn't a lot to see and maybe I am the only one who cares, but I think they missed something of interest here.

Not long from our view of the caves hear the diesel engines whine at a higher pitch as they slow down to pull up into the Qumran community.  It is quite nice looking.  Palm trees and paved streets, little buildings and picnic tables.  Quite a contrast to the rest of the area we are traveling through.  

We debus at a building that is set up like a cafeteria.  There are four lines that allow us to access the two buffets on both sides so our large group gets through quickly.  Lunch is $14 US.   A little more expensive than most of the places we have been.  I am anxious to see what the offerings are.  Lots of salads of one sort or another, lots of salads, and more salads.  I take a little of some of them, but I am looking for something a little more substantial.  Right near the end, there are a few choices of main dishes.  I don't recognize anything.  Not even the staples of schnitzel and falafal.  I take a couple of servings of what is there.  I wonder if the other buffet is offering something different.  Oh, drinks are extra.  I've got to pay for a bottled drink.  $2 US.  We sit down near the windows on long benches/tables just like we had in junior high.  The view is amazing, the food, not so much.  This was probably the most expensive lunch of the tour and it rates, "unremarkable".  Whoever runs this establishment doesn't know about the American "all-you-can-eat" tradition on buffets.  I don't know if I would have gone back or not.  

I return my tray and wander around a bit.  It sure is beautiful here in a desert, barren sort of way.  At least I am not hungry at this point and we are encouraged to board our buses so we can move on to the next destination/activity, floating in the Dead Sea!

Day 8 Part 3 On Top of Masada

The group begins to walk up the incline to the north end of Masada.  There are a lot of people on Masada today, I can imagine it is that way most days, it is a fascinating place.  There is nothing to do but join the herd of turtles moving slowly through the Masada complex.

Many of the buildings, rooms and walls have been reconstructed through the archaeological excavations.  The reconstructors traced a black line against the walls showing what was original and what was reconstructed on top of what was left standing.  Most places it seems that the original walls were only about 3 feet high.  

The exterior walls of the buildings have a very rough texture, but you have to remember that they were once plastered over.  For some reason, some of the columns still retain some of this plaster cover from about 3-4 feet down to the ground.  I don't know if the columns were protected by being buried in the wreckage of Masada or if there is another explanation.  Many of the interior walls retain the smooth plaster covering as well as the rich paintings they call frescoes. 

We wind our way through the buildings a little at a time.  There is an amazing complex of rooms and spaces, much more than I ever imagined.  Perhaps one of the most fascinating things to me was Herod's saunas.  We are standing on the highest level of three levels of Masada.  These saunas have suspended floors held up by small pillars around which water was added.  Below this level fires were stoked to heat the water.  The steam would be channeled through hollow bricks that lined the interior of the walls of the top level sauna.  

The hollow bricks were plastered over and painted in fresco style.  The steam would enter the sauna through vents throughout the room and make Herod happy.  The interior of these rooms were very nice, benches chiseled out of the stone lining the perimeter of the rooms and smooth tiled floors.  It would be fantastically luxurious even today.

We move to the most northern end of Masada which reveals a fantastic view of the Dead Sea Valley.  

From here you can see the remains of the little Roman camps that continue around the mountain preventing escape of the Jewish rebels.  I look down to the second and first levels of Herod's winter retreat.  The first level protrudes out further than the two levels above it with a beautiful patio that invites one to sit and enjoy the incredible views.  

There are little catwalks that one can take to go down to these lower levels.  I wish for the time!  We of course do not have time to visit all of these levels, our time on top is about half gone.  

Check out this website for incredible pictures and views:  http://www.masada.org.il/

We look down the slopes of Masada and see the trenching systems that diverted the precious water into the tunnels that looks like caves in the sides of the mountains.  

We work our way around to the west side of Masada and I see something that really excites me.  The siege ramp!  

The Roman siege ramp that was constructed to breach the mountain stronghold and kill the Jewish rebels still exists!  I don't know why I never considered that it might be on the other side of Masada, but there it is.  What a feat of engineering!  It makes so much sense that the ramp was constructed on the west side.  First that is the shadier side of Masada, second, it is a much shorter distance to the top than the front side and the mountains that rise behind Masada give the advantage of giving a higher elevation to begin construction that the valley floor. The siege ramp is not intact, the center of it has washed through by erosion over the centuries, but both ends, clear up to the point of breaching the defensive wall of Masada are still quite intact and still there.  It is amazing.

Continuing on the west wall and walking south, we see several curious rooms with little square boxes in the walls.  The "cubbies" are not real big, but there are many of them.  

I wonder what they were used for.  A sign soon explains this.  They were homes for doves which provided food for the Jews who were cut off from resupply or escape!  How genius!  I wondered what they ate, it would be hard to believe that enough food could be stored to exist for the number of people (nearly 1,000) and the number of years (3) they held out on this mountain top.

It is interesting to note that the Jews holding out on top of Masada were not really a threat in any significant way to Rome.  They were too few and the rest of Palestine was already conquered.  The Roman general, Hadrian just wanted to completely defeat the Jews and wipe out any hope they might harbor for any new revolts and in the process send a message to any of Rome's enemies that Rome would stop at nothing to completely crush any challenge to their supremacy.  Masada was more symbolic than anything but still it had to go.  

Once the Romans breached the top of Masada, legend tells that all they found were already dead Jews.  All that work to build a ramp, lose untold numbers of Roman soldiers who daily took the assaults of the Jews who had the height advantage and could lob mortars of stone down upon them for the irony of not having to loose their swords in the end.  The Romans simply withdrew and left the country, mission accomplished.  

As I come to the point of the breached wall, we are told that our time is over and we must catch the next cable car down so we can move on to our next destination.  I dash to the breaching point and look down upon the siege ramp and try to imagine the drama that unfolded here some 2,000 years ago.  Sandaled Roman feet tromped this very spot.  I pull my camera out to snap some much desired pictures.  I turn it on only to be told my battery is dead!  Argh!  We are being urged to leave and I do not have time to dig in my stuff and replace it.  I want to scream.  I want to spend the rest of the day here.  

With reluctance, I turn to join our group and ride the cable car down.  My mind is filled with imaginations of the drama that filled this place that is now crawling with tourist pilgrims like myself.  What a fantastic place.

We ride the cable car down, it is a little anti-climatic in comparison and leaves me with a little angst about not getting to see all I wanted to see.  When will I ever get the chance to be here again?  This is a familiar feeling that we experience each day we are in this incredible land.  I think you could spend a lifetime here and not see it all.

I do take a few minutes as we wait for the group to assemble to look through the visitors center.  There is of course the gift shop but also some museum areas that show replicas (the real ones are always at the national museum) of the pots and archaeological finds.  It is interesting that Masada was identified after hundreds of years in about 1849 but it wasn't until the 1960's that Masada was excavated.  This is probably a good thing as the science and practices of archaeology had improved quite a bit and as a result, more history has no doubt been preserved.

We head out to the buses to go to our next stop, Qumran where we will have lunch.  I am kind of hungry...

Day 8 Part 2

Anticipation builds as we drive up the long road to Masada.  There it is, right in front of us.  My eyes eagerly try to take it all in.  There isn't a lot to see from the floor of the Dead Sea Valley.  I assume there will be more on top.  Part of the situation is that I really don't know what to look for or what I am looking at.  That will change before long.

The parking area is beautiful, lots of palm trees and wide paved areas that allow our big fat buses to navigate easily, not always the case in the places we have been.  

The visitor's center at the base of Masada is beautiful, shiny and modern.  

The view of the cable cars that ascend to the top of this mountain, butte, whatever it is, is amazing.  

There is a skinny little trail that "snakes" it's way up the side of Masada is called "The Serpent's Trail" I assume for the way it switchbacks it's way up.

I ponder going up by that means momentarily.  I quickly decide not to for a few reasons.  First, I don't want to spend most of my time getting there only to have to turn around and go back down.  Second, it is hot today and I don't want to melt into a greasy spot half way up the mountain and just ascending all the stairs to get into the visitor's center tells me that it will be a long trip.  The trail gets the full brunt of the sun on the east side and there is nothing to hint of shade.  Third, I am just so excited to get to the top and see what I can see.

I am a little disappointed to not see the siege ramp the Romans built to conquer Masada.  Apparently time and the elements have worn it away through the centuries.  Hard to believe what must have been a massive construction project just gone without apparently a trace.  

As nice as the visitor's center is, I don't look around too much as I want to get in line for the first cable car headed up, which I do.  Others are using the restrooms and looking around, so I am the first of our group to get into a car and soon I am on my way up.  By the way, Indiana Jolie has begun a new fascination with taking pictures of the commodes we are encountering.  See if you would know which "button" to push.

The view as I ascend in the cable car is amazing.  Immediately you can see little rock formations at even intervals all around the mountain that we learn are the remains of the Roman camps that were posted to eliminate the Jews from escaping.  There is one right at the place where you board the cable cars.  It must have been handy for the Romans who were besieging Masada to have the Visitors Center so close.

 The view of the surrounding area is fascinating as it reminds me of the South Dakota "Badlands" with it's ruggedness and broken landscape.  It almost looks like a city that is in ruins.  

The Dead Sea is also amazing to see at this vantage.  The narrow part is so narrow that the Dead Sea is almost two separate bodies of water because of the vast amount of water the Sea is losing every year.  We also see south into the haze where the tip of Israel touches the Red Sea.  Every bit of it is fascinating.

It does not take the cable car very long to get to the top and I am soon getting out and waiting for the rest of our group.  I walk the catwalk to the entrance of Masada which is accessed through a stone gateway.  

Inside the gateway is some welcome shade and two benches, one on either side of the opening.  Filling the benches are some shirtless, sweaty, red, exhausted young men who took the Serpent Trail up the side of the mountain.  I decide it was the better part of wisdom to take the cable car.  I reach for my bottle of water in my satchel to reassure myself that I will not die of thirst while we are looking around, a thought that occurs to me as I see these young men looking very dehydrated.

It is not long and the second cable car arrives full of people from our group.  We are all excited and noisy in our conversations taking in the views, snapping pictures and anticipating what is next.  

We are invited to enter Masada.  It is interesting, not like I thought it would be.  We enter about mid mountain top.  There is a HUGE amount of land up here!  Most of it is plain and vacant.  

To the north there are many ruins and Indiana Jolie and I cannot wait to take more pictures of rocks as there are many here.  There are not nearly as many rocks in Jerusalem which is confusing to us as we do not know what to take pictures of.  Here we are in our element.  Oh yes, many rocks. And we will photograph them all.

To the south, there is a large wide vacant area which we are asked to gather in.  Those who got there early have taken all the shade and sitting area.  I am left to sit in the sun which is making its presence known.  

For the first time on the trip I decide to unzip the legs off my adventuring pants to make them into shorts.  My blazingly white legs blinds my wife and makes people everywhere put on their sunglasses.  

It feels amazingly better...for about a minute and then I am just hot again and worrying about sunburn as I did not sunscreen my legs that morning.  I turn on my little blue receiver and put on my ear bud so I can listen to the lecture.

Dr. Marc Turnage is lecturing on the history of Masada.  It is so very interesting.  I will probably get some of it wrong and no doubt leave a lot out so I encourage any readers to "google" Masada for some much better information.  

The quick and probably inaccurate version of it all is, that Masada was Herod's idea.  It was his winter retreat.  Herod was as much a genius as he was ruthless.  He found ways to gather water in abundance to fill his saunas and pools to sustain him and is entourage during their stays here.  In one of the most arid places on the planet, Herod could luxuriate in hot water pools and saunas at will.  He built a three level winter palace on the north end of Masada that is simply amazing.  To supply this palace with water, he carved trenches around the slopes of Masada to catch the run off of rain which ran all along the sides of the mountain into tunnel openings that led inside the mountain depositing the water in cisterns which supplied the water needs of Herod.  They have little working scale models of this that demonstrate the effectiveness of this invention right there.  

You can pour a ladle of water against the side of this scale model of Masada and sure enough the water flows down the side, into the trench and into these little holes that take the water inside.  

Everywhere you see something that Herod built, you will find ways of collecting water for his pools and saunas.  He loved his water.  On our first day of touring at Ceasarea we visited the aquaduct that transported water from 8 miles away to fill his pools with fresh water at his seaside summer palace.  

Dr. Turnage disputes the legend that the Jewish resistance who occupied Masada long after Herod died in the second century committed suicide.  This is interesting to me as I had always heard it as an established fact.  He disputes this due to the religious nature of these resistance fighter Jews.  It is interesting.  

I am getting impatient to actually see what we came to see and I fidget a bit, my backside is also quite uncomfortable sitting on a rock this long.  I think I explained on the day we visited the Mount of the Beattiudes that all the rocks in Israel lack a smooth place to sit on.  It is true.  No matter the location or the size of the rock, there is always a pointy projection that makes your sitting time short as the cost/benefit analysis of sitting versus standing tilts towards standing soon after attempting to sit on these Israel rocks.  It is unexplainable how so many rocks can lack a smooth place to sit, they simply defy you to be comfortable.

Ah, but enough about my aching you-know-what.  We are going to start our tour of Herod's winter palace!