Day 7: Camels, Masada, Dead Sea, and Jerusalem!

This morning, many of us woke up at 6 AM to watch the sunrise. We went back to where we stargazed last night, only for it to be gloomy and drizzling. Though we didn’t get an inspirational sunrise, I suppose the silver lining I could find for this one is that Solomon had brought his flute and played for us as the sky began to light up. But overall I would have probably enjoyed sleeping for another hour. Soon after, still before breakfast, we went riding camels! This was a super fun, yet quick time. Solomon and I shared a camel, and he did this funny shaking thing before cooperating. There’s not much to say about riding the camels, except that it was raining by this point. Either way, we all had lots of fun and truthfully forgot about the rain anyways.

We then headed to breakfast before getting on the bus for Masada (or Matsadah, מצדה, as it appears to be spelled in Hebrew). I didn’t know the importance of Masada before arriving, all I knew is that it’s where my mom had her Bat Mitzvah. But the historical significance is that this was a site of mass suicide. Where a group of Jews decided that they’d rather kill themselves being proud and Jewish than be enslaved by the Romans (and Herod, the same guy who built Caesarea). We hiked Masada with another group, whose tour guide was sick today. They were the same group that we were with around the campfire, and we’d see them again around Jerusalem a few times as well. The hike wasn’t bad at all, and the beauty of the hike took away from any difficulty it may have thrown at us. When we got to the top, we got a beautiful view of the Dead Sea on one side, and the rock formations all around us as well. Omer, whose primary background is in geology,

gave us lots of information about the formation of the area. She explained that Israel’s eastern boundary is on a tectonic plate boundary. Both the African and Arabian plates are moving north, but at different speeds. This has caused a large fissure, creating the River of Jordan, and more importantly, the Kineret and the Dead Sea. It’s not, actually, that Masada is so high—it’s top is only around 100’ above proper sea level—but it’s still about 1400’ above the level of the Dead Sea, the lowest land earth. So, that’s pretty cool! From the top, we walked around a little more, learned about the aqueduct system to collect water from the infrequent rain in the desert, and of course, took our fair share of pictures. We also got to see the South Dead Sea, which I was curious about. It looked like several small seas all connected, and I had noticed this even when looking on my maps app days before. Turns out that the Dead Sea is no longer one continuous body, rather two. One that tourists swim in, and one that is used as pools for extracting potassium (not salt!). We also learned how the Dead Sea is shrinking by about 1 m every 10 years. That’s because the supply to the Dead Sea is blocked, as the water from the Kineret, which would normally feed the Sea, is being taken to Syria to fuel their water supply. It is interesting that Syria would use the Kineret, as Israel currently claims and has control of the entire sea, but that was part of the peace deal. So, for this reason, the Dead Sea is shrinking at a significant rate. Water is flowing out of the aquifer, which leads to huge sinkholes around the Dead Sea area. It’s an unfortunate situation, but I believe that Israel wouldn’t let the Dead Sea shrink entirely. I’d like to imagine that they’ll come up with some solution to keep this landmark around.

After our nice time on Masada, which had stayed miraculously rain- and cloud-free, we took the hour-long bus ride over to the Dead Sea, or ים המלח (the salty sea). When we got there, we changed in the bathroom at the mall and headed outside. It was, of course, thunderstorming. But we didn’t let that ruin our time. Sure, it’s the deepest part around, but the water is also chalk full of electrolytes, so maybe it wasn’t the safest move. Either way, I’m here, writing this journal, so obviously I survived. We still swam, and though it was chilly outside, the water was not that cold at all. It was the coolest experience to float, though! I was told conflicting messages about clenching your butt, getting your head in, etc. So here’s what I did. First, before even getting much of my body in, I thought it would be a really good idea to lick the water. I was tasting salt until our next meal. It wasn’t like a just stick the tip of my tongue in, but like a full tongue in the water thing. Not one of my smarter moments. But once I was in, I did not clench my butt. Solomon and I got in an argument about whether it was wise to fart. He chickened out, and I farted in the water. My butt did not burn. He’s a wimp. The first time we got in, we didn’t go too deep, and when lightning struck nearby, we all rushed out of the water. We waited a few more minutes and got in again. This time, we walked first to the ramp that went from in the water to the beach. You could see all of the crystalized salt on it, which was super cool. Then, we went past the drop-off. It was as if nothing changed. You didn’t have to tread water, and I could sit crisscross-applesauce or stand straight up, and nothing would have been different. The hardest thing was just to keep balance. Of course, this launched me into a long rant about waterplane geometry and stability of boats, which all of my friends found absolutely fascinating (boring), but I was enjoying seeing my newfound boat knowledge from NA270 pay off in a very interesting feeling for a naval architect to-be.

So I said how it was rare for it to rain in the desert—shocker! Well, we got to see a really cool side-effect of the rain: a waterfall. It’s not like Angel Falls or Niagara Falls, but it was certainly a waterfall. A rather heavy stream flowing down from what was probably close to sea level into the abyss of the continental rift. Being that far down was so cool, because you got cool geological formations that arose from the surface, not from far above.

After floating for a little longer, we went inside. The mall was a total luxury mall, filled with clothes stores and perfume sellers. There were only three places to eat, and we were informed by those who had decided to wait out the storm and eat first that the two restaurants were slow. And one of them was McDonalds. It was really funny, seeing מקדונלד’ס written. For most of my life, I’ve always seen Hebrew in a holy context. In reading prayers, readingfrom the Torah, but here, I saw just about the antithesis of Torah: McDonalds. The symbol for modern megacorporations and globalization, written in this script I’ve always viewed as somehow holy and pure.

We ended up not getting food, but just going to the local ice cream parlor and getting some ice cream there. Was it good for my stomach? Not at all, but it was the only option, since we didn’t want to make the bus late. I got three scoops of this 70% dark chocolate ice cream, which was delicious, and called it good. We then took the two hour drive into Jerusalem. The drive was through the West Bank, and even more so than most of our drives, I kept my eyes glued to the window. I was so curious as to what the West Bank looked like from the inside. And what I saw confused me. We drove mostly in the middle of nowhere, which is what would be considered likely Area C. And in these Area C places, you’d find Israeli flags and writing only in Hebrew. It didn’t feel any less Israeli than Israel itself. In fact, I’m not sure I saw a single Palestinian flag on our drive. But we did pass through a city maybe 20 minutes before we first saw Jerusalem. It was starting to get dark at this point, and I could see that very little of the city actually had lights on. That was a stark moment certainly. That this densely populated zone, likely Area A territory, couldn’t provide its citizens with electricity in this time of the year where the sun sets at 4:30 PM. Until I come back, and if I come back and make my way into an Area A zone, this is the closest I’ll feel to what it’s like to be in the West Bank. It wasn’t sufficient, but maybe for my safety, it’s best left to imagination and observation through the windows of our bus.

The other really interesting thing about our drive to Jerusalem was that, along the banks of the Dead Sea, there were sinkholes all over. Since the only inlet currently to the sea is the aquifer, lots of water has been draining out of the ground around the Dead Sea. That leads to a massive sinkhole issue, which we could see out the windows of the bus.

As we drove into Jerusalem, the music on the bus got good. We were all singing along and having a good time. We got to our hotel, the Jerusalem Gate Hotel, which was right by this cool-looking bridge. All the room assignments up until now had been random, however, Justin, Omer, and Allison picked the rooms this time along lines of friends. I was put with Solomon and Max, which was super awesome. At this point, it was a joke that I always had to use the bathroom, and Solomon made the silly announcement that, after I was inevitably going to use the bathroom, he would be going (I had not yet announced my intent to go, but I did have to go. I appreciated him giving me first dibs). We went down for dinner, and they had this really delicious Asian noddle dish that I had many servings of. It was the first time in a while that I had eaten a lot of food, and I felt real good. That night, we headed down to the local פז, their gas station, and we grabbed some drinks. We drank that night in one of the other rooms, and played a few games to inspire conversation as well.