Day 9
At breakfast this morning our resident weather man Laz, informed us that it was going to be another scorcher. Brilliant! We are heading to Masada today, (an ancient fortification situated on top of an isolated rock plateau), and guess where that is? Only on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea.
As we approached this forbidding mountain, nervous whispers began permeating throughout the bus. “How on earth are we going to get up there!!!!!????”…”I’m not climbing that in this heat!!!!”
To everyone’s relief we got off the bus, climbed into an air conditioned gondola, and ascended to the mountain fortress, enjoying the magnificent views, and drawing a kind of sadistic pleasure from watching a small group of sweaty tourists walk the long and winding track below that serpentines its way to the top.
Masada was built over 2,000 years ago as one of King Herod’s many palaces. It has served as a royal residence, a refuge when the Jews were the rebellious subjects of Roman occupation, a monastery and even a kind of hippy commune. I loved the place. It was fascinating wandering around the site, looking at the old baths, storage facilities, mail service, snippets of wall paintings, stables, palace ruins and what not. But the thing everyone wanted to hear about, was the famous siege by the troops of the Roman Empire which lead to the mass suicide of the Sicarii rebels and resident Jewish families holed up here around AD 70.
Don Mourad took us to a nice shady spot and said that he and many historians now think that the mass suicide never happened. He said that the archaeological, social and cultural historical evidence does not support the story. Among many things that don’t add up is the fact that no mass graves nor human remains (the Romans wouldn’t have bothered burying them), have ever been found at the site. Another is because the story comes from just one source, Flavius Josephus a Jewish rebel leader captured by the Romans, and in whose service became a historian. According to Don Mourad, the only thing that is true about the story is that it inspired the highly successful 1981 epic Hollywood miniseries starring Peter O’Toole as Roman Commander Flavius Silva and Peter Strauss as Jewish Rebel Leader Eleazar ben Ya’ir.
Apparently some historians believe that although the troops of the Roman Empire did indeed march to Masada, (the fact that there is ample evidence of their presence is overwhelming) but not to lay siege as Flavius Josephus would have you believe. According to Don Mourad, “when they got there Flavius Silva took one look at the place and said to his officers; “What on earth are we doing here? If they’re all up there and can’t go anywhere, why are we bothering with them? Come, let us go back to Jerusalem, and leave this nasty place! As far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome to it!” But before they had gone more than a few steps, the rebels surrendered. Even they would rather risk being sold into slavery than spend another second in this god forsaken place.”
After spending a couple of hours at Masada, we hopped back on the bus and headed for the En Gedi Nature Reserve. Originally called Hazezon Tamar, En Gedi was once inhabited by the Amorites until the Israelites entered the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, seized En Gedi, and allotted it to the tribe of Judah. En Gedi was a place known for beauty and refuge amid the surrounding wilderness and served as the perfect setting for David (the rock slinging, Goliath slaying future King) and Saul (the current King) to play a great game of hide and seek.
Even though this place is a gorgeous spot and is often described as a desert oasis, (it has, waterfalls, flowing brooks, botanical gardens and is home to a variety of native fauna like ibexes and rock hyraxes), it was so hot that only a handful of us were keen to follow Don Mourad on an ambitious 60 minute walk around the reserve. The rest had more sense and stayed in the shade enjoying the refreshments offered by the cafe. We got as far as the closest waterfall, (5 minutes away) and spent a masochistic 15 minutes imagining ourselves diving in the cool spring, before Don Mourad announced “Bugger this” and sprinted back to the cafe leaving the rest of us in his wake.
Just then, about a dozen or so ibexes decided to wander towards us through the greenery of the botanical garden and as if by magic, the heat no longer mattered. We shutterbugs went into full paparazzi mode for about 20 minutes before sauntering back to the others feeling groovy.
We then stopped for a “Yallah, Yallah, Yallah” lunch at Ravi Shawarma and Falaf-Phil’s takeaway before heading off to Qumran.
Qumran is famous for being the place where, in 1947, some young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat, entered a long-untouched cave and found a bunch of jars containing the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Two thousand years prior to this, Qumran was the site of the local “Men’s Shed” in this isolated region west of the Dead Sea, primarily hosting a group of budding young creative writing enthusiasts calling themselves the Essenes.
Similar to En Gedi, only a small group of us were keen to walk around in the blazing heat exploring the archaeological site of the ancient “Men’s Shed”. It was very interesting wandering amongst the ruins and fascinating to be able to see (albeit from a distance), the actual caves where most of the scrolls were found.
Before we left, Don Mourad told us that there is a groundswell of opinion that John the Baptist, (the hot tempered, firebrand who loved nothing better than calling King’s wives loose women and preparing the way for Jesus like a volcanic “fissure of men”), may have been a member of the Essenes here at Qumran because his liking for honey and locust sandwiches, wearing camel hair onesies and obsessive ritual cleansing was very similar to theirs. He then went on to say that there are others who think this is a load of old tosh.
Our final destination was Kalia Beach where a few of us were keen for a dip in the Dead Sea. Kalia is the northern-most beach at the Dead Sea. It features great facilities, including a bar (perhaps the lowest in the world), restaurant, gift shop, pool, changing room facilities, and towel rental.
After quickly changing into our bathers, we headed down to the water. The experience is both amazing and bizarre. You cannot sink and float like a cork. I must say, I wasn’t keen to slather myself in mud like some of the others, but I thoroughly enjoyed bobbing around in these buoyant waters of the Dead Sea. The only downside was getting water in your eyes, which I can only describe as something akin to washing your eyeballs with hot chili sauce. Even the people in Jordan could hear me screaming “my eyes, my beautiful eyes!!!!!!!!”, as I staggered “mummy like” out of the water toward the cold showers nearby. Aaaaaaahhhhh, bliss. Feeling totally refreshed I got changed, joined the others, enjoyed a beer and hopped on the bus.
Excellent day.
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