8.24.10
3:15 am: up and out of bed.
3:30 am: start car, Jamie, our guide shows up, off we go, on the 90 minute drive to Masada. A full moon setting in the west...the Dead Sea invisible along the east side of the highway as we drive south. When we arrive at Masada the full moon is setting just to the side of the plateau inbetween the hills, the moon disappears as we pull into the parking lot...
5:00 am: arrive at Masada, hike up Masada, 1 mile straight up, a gain of 1000 feet in elevation, bringing us up to sea level on the plateau of Masada, looking out at the Dead Sea, the lowest spot in the world at 1000 feet below sea level.
6:00 am: at top of Masada, awaiting sunrise.
6:20 am: sunrise...
And then we hiked around Masada getting 2 stories from Jamie, the story of why Herod built a palace at Masada, it was to be his retirement home which it appears he never used. And the story of the Jewish Zealots and their revolt and what happened to them at Masada.
Hiking to the top of Masada to see the sunrise is an Israel coming of age ritual, so Micah has now had his bar mitzvah and seen the sunrise at Masada. "Masada will never fall again" is an Israeli saying, more or less saying Israel will live! A quick synopsis of the story of Masada was that the Zealots represented the last independent Israeli state which existed at the time of the Roman Empire at around 70 in the Common Era, it was an independent state under the thumb of the Roman Empire, the jews revolted and lost their independent state until almost 2000 years later in 1948...
The story of Herod and the story of the zealots at Masada are both interesting ones written down by the historian Johosephat (sp?). So we walked around all of Masada, the cisterns, the palace, the guest house, the baths, the mikvahs, the synagogue (one of the first jewish synagogues ever). We explored and Jamie unveiled the story...
At about 8 am we took the cable car down the mountain and were off to the Dead Sea where Micah and I floated in the dense salt water sea for just a few minutes. I found it as uncomfortable as I did when i floated in it when I was 16... Micah seemed to enjoy himself, but it isn't the type of sea you hang out and go swimming. Instead we moved onto Ein Gedi, a natural spring, hiking area with lots of fresh water swimming holes at the bottom of waterfalls, literally across the street from the Dead Sea.
At Ein Gedi, we hiked, we saw Ibex, Rock Badgers, Desert Mice, and we hiked to the Cave Dodim (Lover's Cave) a mostly private swimming pool on top of a big waterfall. Ein Gedi is a very popular hiking/swimming trail national park with lots of groups, but few people hike all the way to Cave Dodim, it's another steep trail and as the day progressed so did the heat. But it was so worth it!
It was really a fabulous and tiring day. We got back to our hotel around 2 pm and took naps, then around 6 pm or so we took a walk to a different area that Susan Chertok told me about and we ate a fabulous dinner at Tzion Hagadol where they give you like 20 small salad plates with fresh lafa bread and hummus and the a skewer of steak for each of us plus lots of french fries. Micah and I were both starving as neither of us had hardly eaten all day, but we couldn't finish the abundance of food. Another great day in Israel....
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