The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea was long awaited but very very inspiring. Approaching the water’s edge there was sign after sign in all sorts of languages warning not to submerge your head under water!! That was freaky, swimming in water you can’t put your head into?! Come on? Haha immediately going in we could feel something different. The water left almost an oily slick feeling on our skin. You can smell the salt and mud as others played around in it.

Reaching a point where we can get in and swim we were absolutely amazed at how easy it is to float. And not just float I mean that water was almost trying to push you out of it. Normally in the beaches we swim at the water goes up to your neck and you float about there, in the Dead Sea almost all of my upper body wanted to come out of the water.

Forget about lifting your feet while you’re standing, you don’t move your feet to stay afloat but to balance you from flipping over as the water tries to push your legs up out of the water. It was quite impressive and now I understood why so many have told us “you have to swim in the Dead Sea but trust me it was my first and last and you won’t want to be in more than a few minutes.” I, being from a place surrounded by beaches and loving to swim I was like how can this be. But after a while that salt find every scratch and pour in your body you didn’t even know you had and the oily feeling becomes annoying.

And when you decide to play with the mud and rub it all over your body and let it dry, you start itching as the salt just dries right on your skin. Let me tell you I had a lot of fun, I would do it again and again given the opportunity to be in such a country ever again. But I probably wouldn’t be in more then 15-20 minute’s hahaha.

The views of the salt forming around the seas edge are very impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think it should be one of the natural wonders of the world. Unfortunately we’ve seen tons of factories and private companies taking tons and tons of salt from the sea, hopefully the sea will last a few more generations.

Masada

One of the most interesting stories about the fall of an ancient city, must be the story of Masada.

Masada was built by king Herod as a safe retreat for the royal family. The High steep impassible cliffs made it ideal for the greatest of protection however it also made it very difficult to bring supplies to the city.

Herod eventual passed on the city was taken over by other empires and countries and armies of the day. The last ones to survive had to deal with the encroaching roman army. The indestructible and enormous and strong and incessant Roman army led by Governor Flavius at the time, 72ad, could not take over the city. They decided to blockade the city and starve them out. What they did not realize was that the city was so well designed by Herod that the water cisterns and food storage rooms would end up lasting months.

It wasn't until 7 months later the the army decided that this would not work and they must take the city. They began building a HUGE ramp on the western side of the side slowly dumping tons and tons of rock and debris as they got closer to the city walls on top of the mountain. Eventually with much labor and hardship they breached the first walls of the city, called it a day and told themselves that tomorrow morning the city would be theirs.

Little did the Romans know what was being conjured up inside the walls of Masada. The Men of the city and leader Eleazar went into the synagogue and had a final meeting:

"Let our wives die unabused, our children without knowledge of slavery; after that let us do each other an ungrudging kindness, preserving our freedom as a glorious unwinding sheet. but first let our possessions and fortress go up in flames. it will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that i know, to find our persons beyond their reach and nothing left for them to loot. one thing only, let us spare our food storage; it will bear witness when we are dead to the fact that we perished, not through want but because, as we resolved at the beginning, we chose death rather then slavery."

On the morning after the roman soldiers entered the city, it was quiet, they found nothing but food and 960 dead persons. 10 men killed all and then drew lots (pieces of pots with there names written on them) to begin killing the last of them to leave only one man to kill himself, because by Jewish law suicide is forbidden. Upon seeing this Flavius exited and turned away from the city, not in disgust but with honor for the people of Masada and left the city alone.

Jordan - Petra

If you want to read the pictures in the correct order start from the end and work your way up. sort of like reading the Hebrew script, backwards haha

Standing on top of the ridges that look down into Petra.

Finally my camel ride and for only 3 dinars (~4.50$)

A great view looking from the top of the gorge to the ground.

The infamous Treasury of Petra. One of the few well intact facades left on the mountain walls. The rest have been worn away by sand sun water and wind.

The entrance to see the Treasury building was quite intimidating. small gaping crevices lead you to slowly unveil the enormous facade of this building.

Heading into one of the wonders of the world. Keeping in mind the last remaining ancient wonder of the world is the great pyramid at Giza, so in 2007 the list was revised to include existing structures. One of which was Petra. (An ancient spice trade route stop from India to the roman empire, through Arabia and the red sea into modern day land of Israel ending in Gaza where it would then be shipped to Rome.

These guys were all over the city. Either the people like them or the people are forced to like them. but from what locals and our tour guide said it seems as if the Jordanian Government provides well for its people. Not luxury but at least a life.

Our day takes us into Jordan. One of the wonders of the Arab world hhahah not as small as UAE but not as important as Saudi Arabia.

Swimming in Eilat

Eilat was one of the most amazing cities I have been to. Jerusalem we all know is the center of the world. But as Dividl tells us, 'the jewish people go to Jerusalem to pray and come to Eilat to play!'

The area reminded me of home in Miami, with the nice beaches and warm water, the bars and music in the background. the only difference is I cant see the Bahamas or Cuba from the beach but in Eilat you can see four different countries just by sitting in the water. Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. What an experience.

Swimming was a lot of fun because the water was perfect temperature although later in the night it dropped down to be cool very quickly. we sat in the water no lie from like 430 to 830 and kept
having our waiter bring us drinks.

Then we even got to have a great enormous dinner with fried fish, salads, drinks and all right on the water. It was an experience to have had dinner right on the red sea as the sun was going down over the Egyptian and Israeli mountains.

If I was to ever come back to Israel, This city would be High on my priority because there's not many cities like this especially with 4 countries on all sides, enormous coral reefs, and a culture unlike any other in the world. after all it is the "Jewish State of Israel".

Sourthern Israel

Southern Israel was a lot less vegetated. It was the Negev, The Desert! hahaah there was sand and mountains everywhere. We passed by the dead sea but were returning later this week to swim and put mud all over ourselves.

The first thing we did when we arrived in Eilat was to go to the underwater observatory. The red sea is full of HUGE beautiful coral reefs. and this whole area from aqaba, Jordan, eilat, Israel, and taba Egypt are lined with miles of live and vivid reefs.

The aquarium was like any others you go to but they have an entire observatory structure under the water right in the middle of the reefs. Amazing sites.

We spent some time at the center of the city and the beaches. and were getting ready for petra the next day.

On the way back up we made a couple of stops in the desert like the 'crater', Ben Gurions house (their George Washington), and even a drip system factory for irrigation. All very interesting but we were exhausted and hurting from the ride up. But we did drive through an active military zone with huge tanks and weapons fields! There were even military guys in the McDonald's!