masada, ein gedi, dead sea: 23 april 2010

Once upon a time I lived in Jerusalem for five months--not nearly as long as Andrew. But Andrew was (and is) kind enough to repeat things he'd already done/seen for the sake of me being able to do/see them too. I would like to begin "reliving" some experiences I had there.

We packed in a whole lot the Friday before I came back to Utah for my brother's wedding. We went to Masada, hiked around Ein Gedi, and floated in the Dead Sea. We rented a car so we would have freedom to roam around and not have to rely on buses. I never get car-sick, but I was about seven weeks pregnant at this point and the drive down was not too pleasant. I survived, though.

We went to Masada first. It's rather impressive. It was fun to wander around and just take in the grandeur of it all. I was lucky to have the best tour guide ever in Andrew. The video before you go up to Masada itself is also pretty awesome.

After we took in as much of Masada as we could, we headed back down the road which skirts the Dead Sea and went to Ein Gedi. We hiked up to some pools and had a nice dip in the water. We hiked past the first pools and up to what is called David's pool. I thought it was all pretty sweet. The impressive thing to me is that as you're driving along the road, you just see barren mountains, but as you enter in on foot to these wadis (or springs), you're able to encounter vegetation and wildlife. I simply think the contrast is striking between such dry dry rocky areas to areas flowing with water. It was fun to hike around and get a pretty cool, high-up view of the Dead Sea.

Then it was off to float in some pretty salty water. What can I say? It was such a strange experience to be in the Dead Sea. Being a swimmer, I didn't quite know what to do because I didn't have to put any effort at all into floating. Getting out and feeling all that slimy saltiness on my skin was probably the grossest part, but it was pretty cool to have experienced that.