Wednesday Morning

Hola my family and friends! Sorry it's been such a long break, we didn't have internet at Ein Gedi.

Monday we started out already feeling tired and our feet were not quite recovered but we went ahead and decide to make it a big day :) We started by walking down, down, down and then up, up to Mt. Zion. We saw the Zion gate of the Old City which is right up next to Mt. Zion, seems like they should have included it in the Old City...oh well. So we saw the upper room, which was pretty ornate, and pretty far from the Mt. of Olives, so maybe Mom was right about them walking off supper. We also saw the tomb of King David and a smaller Holocaust museum. There is a bigger one in town that unfortunately we didn't get to see.

We then checked out of the YMCA and went back to the Old City for one more walk through to see the Damascus gate and pick up a few more things. We then decided it was time to move on towards Ein Gedi. We both felt like we saw a lot of things but just didn't have enough time for everything on our lists. We hit the main things though and maybe one day we'll come back with Bob and Brett in tow!?

We started off towards Ein Gedi going through the West Bank, don't worry it's allowed on the roads we had to take, because of tourism I think. We were amazed at the change in scenery. It went very abruptly to mountainy-dessert. As are many things we've seen it is indescribable and beautiful. We finally started to descend and started catching glimpses of the Dead Sea past the mountains. We drove down and down and down and were finally there where we made the turn from going West to going South along the Sea. We stopped at Qumran, where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered and took some pictures before moving on to the Ein Gedi kibbutz where we stayed in a lovely little room looking over the cliffs that come to the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea is beautiful and sparkles with the sun as it sits in the valley between Israel and Jordan. It was lovely and we went straight down to see what it was like. Even though we'd been told we were startled at how easily we floated. It also stung a lot, I had a cut on my leg and Mom has trouble with her fingers and we both were a little surprised at how much it stung. I'm glad we took the advice not to shave within two days of going there! But we got there pretty close to the end of the day and had to leave before we were ready. We had dinner and then watched "North by Northwest" before going to bed.

In the morning on Tuesday we got up early and went back to the Sea to float some more and take pictures. The "beach" is just salt and I'm sure it would tear your feet up something awful but we had swim shoes, which took it pretty rough. The salt sparkles in the sun and the water is warm like a bath. I tried floating on my stomach and then we went back to check out.

We headed down to Masada, a plateau where King Herod had a palace and the home of the tragic story of resistance and mass suicide, to read more on the story: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/masada.html. It was lovely up there overlooking the Sea from above sea level. But it was also very hot and we explored for a couple hours and then had to be done. We saw most of it though.

Then we started roaming south to see if we could find some salt pillars. A few of our travel books showed pictures of salt pillars at the Dead Sea and we wanted to find them and get pictures, but the farther south we went the more industry there was mining the salt. We made a stop at the supposed site of Lot's wife and Mt. Sodom and then turned back to head up to Nazareth.

As we drove across East from the Dead Sea we saw camel crossing signs, as you might see deer crossing signs in Michigan and were sad to not see a camel crossing the road. We headed through what can certainly be described as the wilderness and then turned North at Be'er Sheva. For a trip that mile-wise should have taken three hours it took us almost 7 to get from Masada to Nazareth because of traffic and the limited roads because of the West Bank. We were both very tired and I was cranky by the time we got to Nazareth, a beautiful city on a hill. Imagine Charleston, West Virginia except times ten. It's very hilly. We got in and were going to stop for directions but randomly drove by the hotel!

We got in and went directly to eat and had a wonderful meal of lamb chops, a first for me but man were they good. Then we went to bed. Today we are headed out and about in the North and I will try to tell you about it later!!

Much love....