It's definitely Dead!

Not a fan of the early alarm, I tried convince myself it actually still late night, East Coast. I had swapped the tour schedule due to a lack of bookings for this tour on Wednesday and a chance of rain and much cooler weather, as well. However I neglected to consider that this is Sunday in Israel. I will come back to that.

Uneventful start from the hostel in West Jerusalem that I will return to on Monday night. Larger van of 16 people, 50% American, and we are quickly out of the city heading east to our first stop of Masada.

I must find out why this is but something geological must have happened for the Dead Sea to drop below sea level by almost 1000 ft. So because it is so low and so hot, the Jordan River which feeds it dries up.

So just out of the city we enter into the desert and began to descend. We hit 0 fast because Israel as a whole isn't that high. Unfortunately it is very hazy so the views at this point are not great. In about an hour we reach Masada - which is really amazing battle site with an interesting if not totally known story.

It is a huge rock plateau on which the Romans built a settlement including a palace complex. The archeological ruins are impressive as was the ingenuity for capturing water and storing food - even eating the nesting birds.

After the Romans abandoned the complex during the Jewish uprising it became occupied by Jews fleeing Jerusalem and to the west.

There were estimated 1000 inhabitants when the Romans we made wise to this. So unable to scale their own defenses they opted to build a ramp system to actually scale the walls. The rebels had little defense to this and accepted the evict able that they would be defeated and forced into slavery or worse.

So they made the decision that death was a better fate and executed the population drawing lots to see who would kill each of his fellow executions and then kill himself.

The plan worked. The Romans siege broke through the wall and found just three survivors.

This was really interesting and early enough to avoid the crowds. Our next stop was a nature reserve that I won't bother to even discuss except that there a little stream that kind of formed an oasis and some pretty waterfalls. But there were so many screaming kids and families that the chance of seeing a bird would have been a miracle. And it was a lousy lunch stop.

Which lead to the final stop of the day at a beach along the Dead Sea. So once again loads of people, music, bbqs but that is all at the upper level. The water level is dropping 3ft a year.

So it now a decent walk down a series of terraces finally arriving in a small swimming area. It was good fun. The water was much cooler than I expected. And of course it is condensed by condensation. So it unbelievable salty and you float like a cork. You cannot sink. The other fun bit is the mud which of course "filled with mineral benefits".

You really can't swim and after a bit you get your fill. We ran into a massive traffic snarl at the intermediate check point. Not sure what that was about. And I am just finishing a fairly nondescript dinner at an Palestinian restaurant called Philadelphia (I guess there is one in Jordan) it was also president Carters favorite place to eat. Faded glory I think. A nice mezzah course, some grilled hamouri cheese and a chicken musakash which under the circumstance was fine but nothing special.

So heading home to finish packing up and another early start. No idea on wifi in Jordan so it might be a day or two.