Today we headed south for a swim in the Dead Sea, with a couple of stops along the way.
The En Gedi Nature Reserve is “the largest oasis in the Judean Desert” (see here for more information). There are 4 springs flowing year round, with hiking trails, waterfalls, pools for swimming, and diverse wildlife. We just scratched the surface during our short visit there. We hiked a short distance up Nahal David (i.e. David’s stream) to the Lower Waterfall. In the Old Testament, Saul was anointed king in Gilgal, just north of the Dead Sea (1 Samuel 10:1). Later, during the conflict between David and Saul, the two met in En Gedi, when Saul entered the cave where David was hiding, and David, rather than killing him, secretly took a part of Saul’s cloak as evidence that he was merciful to him. Kevin taught about this from 1 Samuel 24:1-23. This is an ‘A’ site. Kevin also taught about David’s Lament from 2 Samuel 1:19-27. This is a beautiful poem by David to mourn the loss of Saul, and of Saul’s son, Jonathan.
We got a nice surprise at the visitor center of En Gedi. There was a large group of Nubian Ibex mountain goats there. It’s unusual to encounter them in such large numbers at the visitor center; our guide said that he’s never seen it before. There were adult ewes, and young ewes and rams, but no adult male rams. The adult male rams have very large horns. These mountain goats are mentioned in several places in the Old Testament. The name ‘En Gedi’ means ‘spring of the goats’, so it’s fitting that we saw them there!
Our next stop was the Vert Hotel on the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest land based elevation on earth, at about 1400 feet below sea level. It is one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water – about 10 times more salty than the ocean. This makes the water very buoyant, so that, when we were in the water, we floated like corks; we couldn’t go under the water. The Vert Hotel is a high end resort with fresh water swimming pools, and swimming pools with salt water from the Dead Sea. The resort also accesses the sea itself, so we could swim in the Dead Sea.
Then we traveled to Masada National Park (if you’re interested, see here; there is a good brochure at this website: click ‘Useful files’ on the left). Because of its historical significance and the archeological finds there, UNESCO has declared it a World Heritage Site. Herod built a large palace there as a refuge from his enemies, and as a winter residence. During the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans that began in 66 AD, the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Jews final retreat was to Masada, where they held out until the Romans built siege engines to break down the Jewish defenses. Finally, rather than allow themselves to be captured and abused by the brutal Romans, the remaining Jews agreed to a suicide pact, and killed themselves. This was all documented by the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
We took a cable car to get to the top of the mountain at the site. It’s a pretty challenging hike, so the cable car was much easier!
On the way back to out hotel we stopped at a shop called Ahava that sells Dead Sea products – skin creams and cosmetics. It was near En Gedi.
The next post will be for Day 8; a busy day back in the Old City.
