Do’s and Don’ts Daring to Dip into the Dead Sea

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I’ll just give it to you straight, the unadulterated list, which I wish someone had spelled out for me (or that I’d listened more carefully). My normal narrative will follow, and reasons for some of these rules should become crystal clear, unlike the waters of the Dead Sea. Do any of the things in the “Don’t” list and you will regret doing so. Don’t do things in the “Do” list and the worst that can happen is you might miss a once in a lifetime opportunity.

First,the “Don’ts”:

1. Don’t drink the water. (This one is a biggie)

2. Don’t get water in your eyes.

3. Don’t dunk your head in the water.

4. Don’t splash.

5. Don’t try to swim.

6. Don’t go out over your head.

7. Don’t get water in your mouth.

8. Don’t wear flip-flops into the water.

9. Don’t run in the water.

10. Don’t shave within 24-hours of floating in the Dead Sea. (This goes for men and women.)



Next, the “Do’s”:



1. Do bring a swim suit.

2. Do bring a towel.

3. Do bring flip-flops.

4. Do (at least) go in and get your feet wet.

5. Do float on your back.

6. Do thoroughly rinse from head to toe in the fresh-water shower when getting out of the water.

7. Do wear sun screen.

8. Do have someone take your picture floating in the Dead Sea.

9. Do join those who can say that they’ve floated in the Dead Sea.

10. Do have a buddy with you, when you go in the water.



Sharon’s prospects for breakfast continued to be bleak, with a sort of egg casserole being offered along with soft boiled eggs. Today I discovered some great sesame twist rolls where you need to tear off a portion. I suggested Sharon try some and she feigned interest. More than one pilgrim has been heard saying that they were surprised at how similar meal after meal after meal has been, and how surprisingly unexceptional as well. Dennis’s back bore the brunt of dealing with Erin’s scooter the day before on the Via Dolorosa, and he is quite sore this morning. Last night when I laid down on the bed, I too noticed that I could not get my back to relax. That was in part due to the strain placed on my back carrying the scooter, and part (a big part) because the mattress in these freaking twin beds doesn’t provide good support for the back. Sharon and I both are looking forward to returning home, if just to get a good night’s sleep, which so far we really haven’t been able to do.



Our original schedule for today was changed slightly due to the death of a Palestinian Minister earlier this week. Father Dave reports now that the word is the Palestinian minister may have been hit in the chest before having his heart attack, and many expect there to be demonstrations after the Friday noon prayers. We were scheduled to walk to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for an early mass and then come back to the hotel for Breakfast before heading to Bethany and the Tomb of Lazarus. So there was some concern there may be some demonstrations after the prayer service and there are many mosques in Bethany which could make it difficult for us to get out of the area as scheduled. So it was determined that we would have breakfast and then go to mass at the Church of Lazarus in Bethany which would get us out of there well before noon.



It used to take just five minutes to drive the two miles to Bethany; however, since the security wall was built it now takes fifteen minutes. Only the Gospel According to John mentions the story of Lazarus in the Bible. Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha, had urged Jesus to come and help their ailing brother, but he died before Jesus arrived. Each in their own way blamed Jesus for not arriving sooner. He went to the tomb, had it opened, and commanded Lazarus to arise. Coming up the steep narrow steps that wind down to where Lazarus lay could not have been easy for someone who’d been dead for three days; because, I assure you it was none too easy for us Pilgrims who were only dead on our feet. Sharon went down the first set of steps, and decided that only I should proceed and come back with pictures, which I did; except, I did not get down on my knees and crawl into the actual burial chamber through a two foot high opening. Some in our group did. If I had tried I suspect that’d still be trying to get me out.



The small chapel for the Church of Lazarus was decorated with a green-and-white marble altar and other decorative trim. Our mass was held here this morning beneath the sunlit dome lighting the chapel below; but, Dennis remained outside with the bus drivers and talking to the vendors. Their understanding of what happened to the Palestinian minister was that he was hit in the head with a rifle butt, which then triggered a heart attack. Their read of the local mood was that there would not be any demonstrations after the noon prayers. He also said that the day before the security forces had come and arrested his nine year-old son, hauling him off in hand-cuffs because he had been identified as having been at the demonstration. And these demonstrations are all about property, who owns what: What should belong to Israelis and what should belong to the Palestinians? The fine for his son’s actions is $5,000. The vendor could only shake his head lamenting in his broken English, “At nine, he has no mind.” I got the feeling that one grows up pretty fast in this part of the world, and too many don’t get a chance to be children. Part of the problem since the security wall was built, is that there is a community of 40,000 that has no way of getting to a hospital, which is on the other side of the wall. In this area under the complete autonomy of the Palestinian Authority. We were only able to get to Bethany because of U.S. aide to develop and maintain the roads that pilgrims use coming to this region. Many businesses have failed because the wall prevents visitors who used to fill the streets from easily getting to this side of the wall. Dennis had checked out the vendors, in search of the $2 T-Shirts, and found this man who had 8 wives. Islam allows a man to have four wives (at the same time), but there can be special allowances, for example, if one of the wives cannot have children that could be grounds to get another wife. This man had many of his wives in other countries, one as far away as Greece, and while he was talking to Dennis he got a number of text messages from his wife in Greece, showing Dennis the Greek letters on his phone’s display, as if Dennis reads Greek. I could only marvel at the number of languages and alphabets with which this vendor is fluent. And I imagine, having wives in different countries might just be one of those grounds for having more than four wives. Dennis just shook his head as he watch this man text back the wife in Greece, and then get a phone call from the mother of the son just arrested. “Can you imagine trying to keep eight women happy?” Dennis just shook his head.



Erin was able to get the T-Shirts that she’d been looking for, and we all boarded the bus and were out of Dodge by noon. Father David noted that there are already fourth generation Palestinian refugees. Large keys are a symbol of protest visible in many intersections and round-abouts, in reference to the displaced people who left their homes with only their keys. In English and Arabic the word’s “We shall return” appear on the keys. During the major conflicts of the 6-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, many refugees were created, both Palestinian and Jewish. For the most part the Jewish refugees have been integrated into Israeli society; but, Syria and Jordan have severely restricted refugee rights, and no effort has been made to include them in their societies. We had seen the burden to Jordan to provide basic necessities to refugees. Only thirty percent of the burden is shouldered by foreign aid, with Jordan providing the bulk of the cost for services, water, food and shelter. In addition to Palestinian refugees, Jordan is also dealing with refugees from Lebanon and Syria.



We continued by bus to Jericho, the oldest known city in the Western World. We passed several of the “large keys” and a large red sign alerting that Israeli citizens are not permitted to continue on the road we were driving. Passing a street vendor offering fresh strawberries, Father David did a double-take, then smiled broadly noting, “Now you know my weakness: Strawberries!” We stopped to see a large sycamore tree, similar to the one that Zachariah had climbed to get a better view of Jesus passing nearby. After taking some pictures, Levon had bought a large bunch of local bananas for us to try. As one of the pilgrims walked down the aisle with the bananas offering them to others on the bus, the bananas were so ripe that they were falling off the bunch. The tiny bananas were very good.



Our next stop was the much promised “Wal-Mart of Israel”, the Temptation Trinket Gift Shop and Restaurant. Pilgrims seeking the best bargains had been encouraged to wait until we’d visited Jericho for the best deals. Sharon thought that it would be a very good idea for me to get a camel carved out of olive wood due to my fondness of a particular commercial that filled the airwaves: You probably know which one, but in case it escapes you, it has something to do with the question “What Daa-aay, is it?” The ad features of course a camel that is thrilled that it is Wednesday (Hump Day). Now, the question to see how good that commercial is, what company does this camel represent? Sharon found some Christmas ornaments, also made from olive would; and, a T-Shirt for me commemorating our visit to Jericho. The one thing I will say about the T-Shirts, which cost $15, they weren’t the ones vendors were offering on the street for $2 which might not survive the first cycle in a washing machine. The Jericho T-Shirt, of course featured a camel, all embroidered on the T-Shirt. Sharon got in line to use the WC before our bus left, but the line never moved. A fellow pilgrim had gotten locked into the stall, and ultimately had to crawl under the partition to escape in order to return to the bus. We them drove up to a parking lot for a view of the Mount of Temptation. Of course some people used the opportunity to do more shopping and another to get a camel ride.



On our way to the Dead Sea, we stopped at Qumran to view the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. Originally, a Bedouin had tossed a rock into a cave easily visible in the limestone cliff, and heard the breaking of pottery. He ventured inside, discovering that there were seven large clay jugs inside (okay, so now there were six large clay jugs and one broken in pieces). Each jug contained parchment. A Jewish sect had once lived in these arid environs, devoted to worship and recording a written record of the oral tradition. When word came of the death of John the Baptized, one of the group pondered if this might be the same John that had spent some time with the sect some years before; but, the elders dismissed such conjecture as inappropriate pursuits. That Bedouin took the parchments to Jerusalem, where four were sold to a bishop making an investment of $75. The State of Israel acquired the remaining scrolls, when acquired an expert on Hebrew antiquities and acting on their behalf. Later investigation of the site found eleven more caves with parchments and fragments. Many of the parchments, now in taters, had been found and destroyed by the Romans; but, they didn’t find them all. We watched a brief movie presentation of the Assine sect that had created these scrolls. Afterwards we walked around the ruins of this ancient settlement. A sign warns tourists not to go in the wadi, a fairly deep valley behind the ruins because of the danger of flash floods.



We stopped for lunch next at a tourist stop, gift store and cafeteria. The cafeteria was very busy, and double line winding into the cafeteria through the gift shop was so disorganized, it was the essence of chaos. At one point a group from Lagos formed a third line up the middle, pushing into the eating area through what was supposed to be the exit. For a while it looked like our line would never move. I was balancing a plate for the salad and some pita, a bowl of soup, another plate for the entrée (Sharon and I both chose the grilled meatballs), a bottle of coke and a small sealed container of water as I approached the table where Sharon, Erin and Dennis were already seated.



What better time to go swimming in the Dead Sea, than immediately after lunch! It was a short drive. A haze seemed to hang over the Dead Sea, some 1,700 feet below sea level. Earlier in the blog I’d reported the depth of the Dead Sea between 500 to 600 feet below sea level; but, I suspect this was in meters. This is the deepest place on the surface of the earth not under water. I was so proud that I’d had the foresight to bring some flip-flops; but, it was a considerable walk down to the water’s edge and Sharon, Erin and Dennis were not going to walk down that far. I decided to leave my sandals, towel and clothes with Sharon, who did go to a terrace overlooking the beach. The path down to the water was asphalt at times, before it turned sandy (and stony). Stepping into the water my feet felt first the very slick feeling water and then the slimy ooze of the bottom with the same texture as pond scum; except, this muck sucked my feet in above the ankles at times. It would have been quite problematic wearing sandals or flip-flops into this water, and expecting them to still be on your feet when you came out. Walking across the shallow undulating slippery bottom near the water’s edge was quite difficult; and, more than once I thought it was likely I’d end up on my butt. I did eventually get into water above my knees, wear I lowered myself into the water, and floated easily on my back. The buoyancy was remarkable. I made the mistake of rotating around onto my stomach. I splashed a bit getting back on my back. I tasted be highly saline water as a few drops entered my mouth, which I immediately spit out; then, another splash and some water got in my left eye. Wow, did that hurt… a lot! And it continued to hurt to the point I could only see out the other eye but only briefly. Closing both eyes interestingly enough, stopped the hurting, but it’s hard to find the shore with your eyes closed. So I would get my bearings by blinking and head to shore, not worrying so much about the slippery footing, just needing to get out of this infernal water. This is the whole reason for having a buddy with you, in case you get water in both eyes and that would really be bad. Well, I did get out of the water okay, and I made it to the outdoor shower, and I got a lot of relief from rinsing off. I thought I had done a good job of it, and made it back to Sharon. It’s not just that this water is a highly concentrated saline solution. Those bottles of Dead Sea Salt I’d seen in that Mosaic Gift Shop and Tourist Trap had listed the ingredients that read like a top-ten list of industrial waste, including Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, and Cadmium. On my way into the dressing room, my eye began to hurt again, akin to an eyelash in the eye plus the Dead Sea water irritating the eye. By the time I got back to Sharon I was in pretty bad shape. She was telling me to do this or that, and all I wanted was to get some water for my eye so she went to the bar area to get a bottle of water. Erin helped me rinse it out making sure I didn’t contaminate the other eye. Things did improve with the water wash (did I mention Sharon got me an ice cold bottle of water); but, it wasn’t until we were half-way back to Jerusalem that I was able to open both eyes without pain.

We were able to get back to the hotel about 4:30 so they were able to get the hotel chapel so the Archbishop could bless the religious articles we purchased on the trip. Sharon and Erin headed down for this service while I started to pack.

Dinner was at the Christmas Restaurant, where we’d twice eaten lunch, in Jerusalem. There was a thirty minute open bar, and I was feeling pretty good after a gin and tonic, a rum and coke and a Sambuca. There were typical Mediterranean appetizers on each table, and I was glad that there was hummus. The meal was bittersweet, sharing our final meal together with other pilgrims that we’d shared this adventure, realizing that most we’d never see again. Erin and Dennis had to miss this dinner, already on their way back to Newark and then on to Denver. Their flight scheduled for the following evening had been cancelled, and they changed to this earlier flight, departing the hotel by taxi shortly after returning from the Dead Sea. I survived my ordeal in the Dead Sea, only violating three of the Don’ts and one of the Do’s; still, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity I wouldn't have missed. And as for that “Do Number 9” on my list, it might be a good idea to have someone you can trust take those pictures for you… I mean, someone who is not likely to post a video of your very white skin, so very out of place from everyone else wading in the water and wearing a blue-and-white plaid bathing suit floundering in the Dead Sea on You-Tube.

And that camel was shilling for GEICO.

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