Monday November 4, 2013 Lihitra’ot, Jerusalem (Till We Meet Again)

Monday November 4, 2013 Lihitra’ot, Jerusalem (Till We Meet Again)

We had an early start on Monday caused by the combination of packing up to leave Jerusalem and the long drive to Masada.

It’s always sad to leave Jerusalem. The hope is that we may be able to come back during the extended part of our trip.

It’s about 90 minutes to Masada from Jerusalem. Back in 2003, entering and leaving the West Bank was a lot more stressful – check points guarded by uniformed soldiers bristling with large, nasty weapons. This time, a brief conversation with a non-uniformed border official, and off we went.

Masada is always impressive, no matter how many times I see it. Though this time our visit was limited to the north palace and the synagogue, due to time and the group’s physical capability restraints.

The reconstruction of the site has made huge progress since 2003 – many more of the rooms have higher walls, making it easier to imagine what it was like almost 2000 years ago.

The Synagogue on Masada. And a photo bomb by Raffi, our tour guide

After our 2 hour walk, we had lunch in the cafeteria. More felafel! I’m sure I’ll be sick of felafel by the end of this trip.

After lunch we headed to Ein Gedi, an oasis and nature preserve in the middle of the desert. We walked up to David’s Canyon to the waterfall. 

Waterfall at Ein Gedi

Along the way we saw ibex – normally skittish critters who didn’t seem to care if we walked right up and took their photo.

Ibex busy ignoring us

And then there were the hyrax (a Dr. Seuss creation maybe?) – they look like rodents, but the tour guide indicated that it was more closely related to elephants than rodents.

The highlight of the day was the Dead Sea adventure. We pulled into the Ein Gedi Dead Sea spa, got our locker keys and our towels, changed into our bathing suits and off we went to wait for the tram to take us to the shore.

The Dead Sea is a hoot – even walking in the shallowest edges is difficult due to the buoyancy of each step. Walk up to your waist or so and pick up your feet. And bob like a cork. Sit almost upright in the water with your feet sticking out and you will not sink. You also may not be able to get up.

Look Ma, no hands! (that's Gwen on the right from our group)

We must have been in the water 30 to 45 minutes, when we figured we’d better come out if we wanted to play in the mud before getting changed and meeting the tour guide.

The mud was gray and not black. And watery and thin. A little disappointing, actually, but still funny.

Aren't we lovely? 

There was no point in taking a full shower at the spa, since we were headed directly to the hotel afterwards. Basically the goal was to get as much of the mud out of my hair and bathing suit as I could and deal with it later.

Of course, the plastic bag I had brought to hold my change of clothes burst open in the locker room , dumping my clean clothes onto the nasty locker room floor. What a royal pain in the tuchas – luckily I had two smaller plastic bags and I was able to jam everything into those two bags after a fashion.

The hotel was a huge resort at the south end of the Dead Sea. The beach was just steps from the pool. But there was no mud.

And no free wifi! Oh no!

I took a real shower – but there seemed to be no or little hot water. I checked to make sure I was turning the faucet the correct way according to its little red/blue symbol – left for hot, right for cold. Yep, that’s what I was doing.

Called the front desk to find out that in fact the plumbing was reversed – left for cold and right for hot.

Ok, then.

But the room was nice and big and the food at dinner was great. And the elevators were plentiful and fast.

We were only staying one night – this is the annoying part of bus tours, the unpacking and packing, unpacking and packing. Even just living out of the suitcase doesn’t really help much.

And the selection of TV channels is worse than Jerusalem. At least in Jerusalem we had 4 English speaking channels, giving us 2 alternatives to CNN and FoxNEWS. Here we had 2 English speaking channels: BBC and FoxNEWS.

Only one night, though.

Tomorrow: Heading north.