Masada, En Gedi and the Dead Sea

Today we woke at the base of Masada - a palace fortress built by Herod the Great and later used by Jewish rebels as the fought against the Romans. It was the last holdout against the Romans and finally fell in 73 AD after a 3 year siege. There were three ways we could get up - a sunrise hike leaving at 5:15am, a hike leaving at 7am and riding the cable car up. Matt and I picked opposite extremes - he got up for the sunrise hike and I took the cable car up :)



The view from the top of the mountain Matt hiked up that morning




The giant store houses on top of Masada - there was enough food stored here in case Herod needed to hide out. The Jewish rebels were able to take advantage of that during the siege.

 
Herod's palace had 3 levels on the north side going down the side of the mountain. Incredible feats of engineering took place here.



When I turned around from taking the picture above, this is what I saw. The view from the north end of Herod's Palace. You see the Wilderness in the foreground and the dead sea in the background.




Little did Matt know, we were up for another hike that morning. This time we hiked up near En Gedi - an oasis in the desert where David camped while running from Saul (Psalm 63, 1 Samuel 23)

In a bamboo cave on the way up. There were a lot of families and kids here because it was a holiday weekend as Israel just celebrated their Independence Day.




In front of the waterfall at En Gedi



After En Gedi we headed over to the Dead Sea - where it is impossible to sink. It is the lowest place on earth - 1300 ft below sea level. The salt content of the Dead Sea is 10 times that of the ocean! Needless to say, we were warned not to get it in our eyes. A lot of people flock to the Dead Sea because it's mineral composition (it has a number of other minerals besides just salt) are said to be healing for a lot of skin ailments. I picked up some Dead Sea Mineral hand cremes in the gift shop :)




The view on the walk down to the Dead Sea. A lot of people like to rub the black/brown mud from the sea shore on their bodies like a body scrub/mask. We did not try it.







There were HUGE salt crystals that just build up at the waters edge.






Matt and I floating in the Dead Sea. We could not get our feet to stay under the water for long. It was like trying to hold a swimming noodle under the water... it just pops right back up. Our bodies have a higher water concentration in them than the Dead Sea does. Bizarre. I felt like I was on Mars or something. You couldn't really swim in the traditional way since anytime you were on your stomach you had to work not to flip back over. We did a lot of back floating and peddling.  We only touched the bottom when we got in then we could not touch it anymore... but it didn't matter because we couldn't sink! We literally just bobbed like corks in the water. SO FUN!




Down the road about 30 minutes from En Gedi is Qumran. This is the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. I already typed some about them from Day 1 when we actually got to see them on display in the Shrine of the Book, but over 900 fragments were found in the 11 caves. Above is a picture of the pots that the scrolls were stored in.




A picture of Cave 4 which held some of the most important finds.

 
On our way home, we drove up the Ascent of Adummim - the road that goes down to Jericho from Jerusalem and is the road that Jesus referenced in telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. We also saw this monastery built into the side of this Wadi, or drainage canal. This was a very high, very scary, but breathtaking lookout.

We are ready for our day of rest tomorrow! And we have some free time in Jerusalem again! Still having a wonderful time and are learning so much that we can't wait to share with you all in person!