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Published: January 2nd 2009
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Finally a tan!
Didn't last very long It’s a long story why we headed back down to Eilat at the Red Sea and it has to do with border crossings and visas and I spare you the details. More exciting (for me) was that the trip involved a car and me behind the wheel. I really miss driving around and being able to stop wherever we like. So we boarded our new four wheels and headed south again.
One of the things not to miss when coming to Israel is to float in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has a very high concentration of salt and other stuff which makes the water a lot more dense than the usual salt water. Ein Gedi was our chosen point of entry. The Dead Sea is actually in danger of disappearing and the water level drops by more than one meter very year. A reminder of this is the way from the Ein Gedi spa to the shore. When the resort was build the Dead Sea lapped up against the building. Now we had to board a small train which drove us the 500 meters to the “new” shore line. There are markers where the shoreline was in 2000
and its scaring to see how far away this is from the current location.
Once at the “beach” we had to put on our sandals as the beach consists of salt and is quite sharp. The water is amazingly clear and has a beautiful blue colour. In we went, sat back and …. floated. Its so easy its amazing. You just lay back, let your feet go and viola they pop up by themselves. Then it’s rest and relax your body. It’s a great and strange feeling.
The only problem is that we needed to keep our heads over water. Not a good idea to get that stuff into the eye (ouch) or swallow it (hospital). No visit would be complete without smearing Dead Sea mud all over my body and let it try. No idea if its really that good for the skin but its fun.
After this therapeutic session we went and visited the
Massada mountain fortress. Massada is for strange reasons very important to the Israeli psyche. It was here that the Jewish fled to when the Romans kicked their ass after the Jewish started the second revolt. The fort is very impressive and was build
Showing the way for the caravan
The main mode of transport for goods in the good old days. by Herod the Great in 31 BC. It is strategically situated on top of a mountain and is virtually impregnable. Well virtually, the Romans captured it. They surrounded the mountain with thousands of soldiers and then build an enormous ramp up to the top. A siege tower was rolled up and the wall was rammed to pieces. They Jewish rebels knew they were done and decided that they didn’t want to be Roman slaves. Ten of their men got the sad task to kill all the inhabitants and then themselves. Only seven people of hundreds survived. Up to this day the Israelis say that Massada shall never fall again. Guess they want to keep this dry mountain top.
The original fortress must have been a great sight. It contained two palaces, lots of buildings and a great view over the dead sea. As to be expect most of it was in ruins and was painstakingly rebuilt over the last few years.
The next day we drove on to the
Ramon Crater which and I quote wikipedia is
… a spectacular geological feature … the landform is not actually an impact crater from a meteor, but rather is the world's largest erosion cirque or makhtesh.. Sounds good hey. We thought so too but in fact it is just a big hole with some interesting coloured hills in it.
We moved quickly on to Eilat and “enjoyed “ Israelis most touristy sea side town for one evening before heading over to Jordan.
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