Le Sixième Jour, Dimanche. (The sixth day, Sunday 5/22)

 On Sunday we got a wonderful 5:15 wake up call. Yea, it rocked. Pause not. I really don't know why our wake up was an hour earlier than usual, either, because we only left a half hour earlier than usual...whatever. Anyway, the reason that we got up so early is because we were headed to Masada, an ancient stronghold on a plateau on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Masada is famous because a group of Jews hid up there from the Romans for many months and when the Romans finally but a giant ramp and made it up to the top they found that the Jews had all killed themselves. We climbed up the side that had the ramp, but used a trail of mostly stairs that went along the side of the ramp because it is mostly deteriorated. But we had to get up there so early because it gets horrifically hot up there! We were off the mountain by like 10:30 and I was already dying in the sun!

At the top, there was a scribe making a copy of the Torah. Or something like that. It was pretty cool to see a person actually up there doing the work though, so I figured I'd put my picture here despite the fact that it's a bad picture with all the reflection going on because he was behind glass...



On North side of Masada is the palace for Herod, the person who originally fortified the mountain because he was super paranoid and made fortified placed all over the land so that he could hole up in them if necessary. We observed this part of the city from the highest of three levels of his palace, so this is a shot looking down at the other levels. 



Up on top of Masada there was also an excellent view of the area around it. It was kind of hazy still because it was still morning and the haze doesn't usually burn off til afternoon, but it was beautiful all the same. The whole time I was up there though, I kept thinking about the Vampire Weekend song "Horchata" (a drink that is like spiced hot chocolate). Now, I understand that when you use the word horchata in a song, there aren't many things that rhyme with it, and you have to use everything that you can to fit into the rest of the song. But still, I think they were definitely wrong when they wrote the line "you'd still enjoy it with your feet on Masada". Um, that would be a no. I do not want a hot chocolate while standing under the baking hot sun in the middle of the desert, thank you.

To get down, we got to ride the gondola on the other side of the mountain. The side we climbed up was 150 meters, if I remember correctly, and the side we went down is 400 meters of more difficult climb. So it would have totally stunk to go down that side without a gondola. I rode down holding the hand of the trip leaders' four year old daughter, Ellie. Her full name is Elisheva, which is the Hebrew version of Elizabeth. She's like superrrrr tall! Her dad, Marc, is 6'7'' and her mom, Amy, is pretty tall too. They also have two sons; Lucas, who is a six foot tall 12 year old (take that, Jonny!) and Jordan, who is 10 and right about my height. He might be taller than I am though, I'm not sure...



Our next stop was kind of a fail, because we were trying to get somewhere that the road to wasn't passable, so instead the leaders took us to some cliffs and told us some of the history from that area, including pointing out the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and talking about David hiding out from Saul and stuff. During that stop I had to pee like crazy and we were just kinda pulled over on the highway in the wilderness (basically, desert) on cliffs. There were definitely no bathrooms and it wasn't the ideal place to just pee outside, but our tour guide told me and another girl to go around in a particular spot that wouldn't be visible from the buses. So yes people, I have now officially popped a squat in the desert. Hurray!


After the cliffs and lunch, we headed to a nature reserve. The really cool thing about it was that there are all sorts of natural, fresh water streams that have created many fresh water ponds. Even though they are right next to the Dead Sea, which is so salty it can't sustain life, these little ponds are just brimming with life. This particular pond contains every single specimen of fish that can be found anywhere in Israel. The reason for this is probably that birds stopping in to eat at different places also pick up eggs on their feet and then they get deposited into this one. It was pretty cool.


Our last stop of the day was the Dead Sea! From something so salty that it can't sustain life, one would expect a murky and icky color, but as you see below it is quite bright and beautiful. The sectioned off swimming area is pretty brown though because everybody is stirring up all the mud in it. Apparently the water and mud contain really helpful minerals that do wonders for your skin (although the salt content- 10 times that of the ocean- can be fatal if ingested) and so people rub in all over their skin. There are also really strict rules about what you can and can't do in the area sectioned off for people to got in. For instance, you can't run or splash at all because you can't get other people's faces wet (although we all kept slipping and falling down accidentally), you can't go underwater or get your face wet (although you float so easily that it would actually be incredibly difficult to get fully underwater), and you can't be floating on your stomach in the water, even just to pull yourself along. It was pretty intense! Below is a picture of pretty much everyone in our group with mud slathered all over us. Can you find me?