valley of the way of the sun

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this morning we had breakfast at tiberius coffee and bakery and headed for the valley of the way of the sun, Wadi Fara which is where abraham came into the promised land to shechem and later jacob came this way after leaving Esau and the children of Israel after taking Jericho and Ai went to shechem this way it is the main route from the jordan valley to shechem. we drove up this Valley almost to shechem (Nablus) and saw mt Kabir where we had climbed to see this valley Wadi Fara from shechem.

Wadi Fara is a beautiful wide fertile valley fed from springs at shechem all year we are at the end of the dry now. the wadi Fara comes into the jordan valley at Adam (when the Israelites crossed the river further down at Gilgal it says that God stopped the river so as they crossed the water flooded the jordan valley right back to Adam and the river below them dried up to the dead sea.)

we drove further down the jordan valley to kumran where they found the dead sea scrolls and had our pre-prepared lunch on a table outside there was heaps of busses of tourists so nwe thought if we had lunch first they might all be gone, not so, they were all inside having lunch at the cafe but when we got to the museum part we were the only english speaking so had the place to ourselves, once outside I had already seen the ruins and the main cave so I went straight up the path to the cliffs and it wasn't long before James came running after me, we then explored the labarinth of caves and tunnels in the cliffs probably dug as escape routes the tunnels were small for me so a fully armoured roman soldier could not have gone through. There was even a rock bridge over a riven, we could have spent days exploring here.

we had to get to our motel at Ein-bokek and car we had hired as we Esther and I are leaving tomorrow for Italy and need to get to telaviv. so we headed off further down both south and in height along the dead sea coast stopping once for a closer look and arrived at our hotel at the lowest place on earth.

it took some time to get into our hotel as it is peak holiday season and one of our rooms had been cancelled. but we managed to get 2 double rooms over looking the pool and the sea with a double bed and a sofa bed so after puting our gear in the rooms Esther and I decided to get our car organised for tomorrow and hertze was just across the road but they closed at 3, we tried to ring and eventually asked someone who said the whole place is shut down till sunday because of holidays (sucot) we knew about sucot but had booked the car on line so we went back to the hotel to see if they could help meanwhile the others went for a swim in the dead sea while we panicked the last bus had gone for 3 days and the only option was a special taxi 800 sheckles so that was it we booked the taxi and went for a swim to calm ourselves

the dead sea here is much cleaner than the northern end where we have swam before which is muddy and rocky and not clear water, here the water is crystal clear and you can see the salt bottom we stayed in for about 30mins and then went for a swim in the hotel pool before dinner down the mall which was half the price of the hotel.

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Photos

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start of the way of the sun at jordan valley

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warning sign

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wadi Fara

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Wadi Fara near shechem

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Kumran on our own in the museum

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kumran

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Kumran tunnels

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Kumran oops!!

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on the way to Ein-bokek

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Hotel Samuel Ein-Bokek

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floating in the Dead sea