Israel Trip: December-January 2014-2015
We stopped first at the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, where we hiked the Lower David waterfall trail. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we really enjoyed the walk.
After eating hummus and eggplant dip with pretzels, and chips, Bamba, strawberries, and clementines in the car, we headed across the road to the Dead Sea itself.
This was an adventure, to say the least. At the top of the beach was a snack stand and changing rooms you had to pay 2 shekels to use. We changed, and then started walking down toward the water, only to find that they were doing construction on the walkway down to the shore. Still, it seemed crazy to come all the way here and not float in the Dead Sea, so we hiked down anyway.
This was a difficult climb down, and an even more arduous hike back up. Robert was barefoot, and Marcus and I were wearing Crocs, all in bathing suits, clinging to a chain-link fence at the edge of the construction site, picking our way down a steep rocky slope of rubble. On the way back up, our feet, wet from the sea (the water, in addition to being extra salty, is very oily and sticky) started attracting pebbles and dirt and rocks, even in the shoes, and then we were walking on a bed of rocks impossible to get rid of. Marcus made it up the first twenty or so feet, and then just as Samantha fell asleep on me, he gave out—his toes had gotten cut up on the salty rocks in the sea (salt deposits = razor-sharp) and then the salt mixed with the wounds, and now the rubble in his shoes was too much, so I scooped him up on my front and climbed the remaining thirty yards or so uphill with Samantha asleep in the sling on my back and Marcus clinging to my front. At one point I kissed his neck to encourage him, and I recoiled from the taste of the sea. He and Robert had stayed in for about fifteen minutes or more, absolutely loving it, whereas Samantha and I had only just barely floated for a minute or two before she decided the experience was not for her. Up at the top, we changed and showered to try to wash the salt off our skin, but the showers were brisk, and Samantha decided that the only thing she liked less than floating in the Dead Sea was showering off afterward. None of this is to say we regret going, however! Robert got to fulfill one of his long-time dreams, Marcus got a really cool experience, and we all got a great story out of it, at the very least.
That night we slept at the Ein Gedi Kibbutz Resort, just a few minutes away, and ate at their dinner buffet (thrown in free with the room due to a mix-up with our reservation and Robert's powers of persuasion). The kebobs on eggplant with hummus and spicy sauce and preserved lemons were fabulous. Breakfast the next morning was similarly delicious, with mushroom gnocchi at breakfast that Marcus ate several plates of (I stuck to the more familiar fare, at this point, of shakshuka, hummus, bread, and halvah).
From Ein Gedi we drove just about 20 minutes south to Masada, the site of one of Herod's great palaces. We climbed the Snake Path up, taking about 70 minutes to do so. It was about 80-85, at 10:00 in the morning, and Marcus took off his shirt. Some college students gave him a bright orange cap from their tour group, and he loved the hat for the rest of the trip. The climb wasn't incredibly steep, but the level of uneven rock underfoot made the going a bit unsteady.
At the top, Samantha got down to explore the palace, and we walked around admiring the ruins of bathhouses, cisterns, storerooms, and the mosaics of the palace itself. Marcus, after climbing the whole way with a great deal of enthusiasm, fell about 10 minutes after we got to the top and scraped his knee, and hung out on Robert's back until it was time for us to take the cable car back down. "This is the tram in my 'Goodnight, Israel' book!" Samantha helpfully told us.
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Created: 1/11/15. Last Modified: 1/11/15.