So Friday’s our first day off. Woooo!!! We decide to sleep in!
…
Until six thirty am.
Now I don’t know about you but there’s something off-putting about calling that sleeping in. Anyway it was all worth it, as we, (Melissa, Kate, Josh and Savannah, Cindy and Thomas, our intrepid film crew of John, Chris and Dan minus John’s hilarious mother Karen, Achim pronounced ah-CHEEM with the ch like l’chaim, and of course Rick, our almost self-appointed fearless leader) departed at 7 am (or a bit after) bound for Mt. Masada, some other historical place, and Ein Gedi by the dead sea.
We quickly noticed that our (hopefully) valiant driver was not so good on the language front. That is to say, I’m sure he spoke one, if not two or more languages awesomely, but was having difficulty bridging the English gap with the stupid uneducated Americans paying to be on his bus.
So, Rick, almost-self-appointed-leader-of-the-hour hops out of the bus to find some random guy wandering Jaffa Gate at seven in the morning. The plan: pay the resident 100 scheckel to come along on a tourist trip and translate occasionally.
Victory is his!
Almost. (Again with the almost.) Rick returned to us having nearly secured a man with very good English (and, we can only assume, Arabic or Hebrew) who had agreed to join our forces, until he heard we were going to the scorching mount of Masada. (That’s a bad sign…)
Despite these challenges our courageous fellowship carried on with plans. (And Melissa used her iPhone to google tour guide-ish stuff.) Within five minutes, someone noticed the TV that could be opened. “27 Dresses!” says Cindy. THAT was a ridiculous movie if I ever saw one. Did it go straight to DVD?
At any rate, it turns out there is such a thing as BUS KARAOKE, and it had as if by divine intervention come to us. I can’t even describe how ridiculous it was or how hard we laughed at it. Just imagine a lot of sleep deprived travellors with a mean age of about 21 and outliers at 35 and 50 watching a very out of date woman wandering over Julie Andrews hills to a sappy song.
Aaaanyway. We hardly recovered from that shock to the system before the TV was closed and crazy 80s music started blasting. (Chris knew all the songs on that cd, whatever it was…Oh dear.)
In other news, the desert backdrop was pretty brilliant, with the city changing to a rugged, red-brown landscape with rock outcroppings like that stuff we have in Ithaca carved by the glacier. (Glaciers in the middle east, huh? Some ice age that must have been.) We passed goats and sheep, and tiny little deer/antelope looking things. Fascintating stuff.
I was especially taken by the Dead Sea, when it finally made its appearance. Often, we’re really excited to see a particular site because it’s supposed to be fantastic, and when you get there it’s nothing more than what it is. But the Dead Sea is actually breath taking, with extremely blue water contrasting with the redness of the land, blanketed by a light fog (before eight in the morning, anyway) and cute little inlets and shorelines. (Also a bunch of danger signs telling you not to approach, as there are land mines meant for the Jordanians some years ago.)
…Great.
The other surprising thing is how BIG it is. I mean sure it’s a sea, but we were all imagining this little puddle thing.
Masada was cool, but pretty much death for everybody but me and Savannah. We all road the cable car up with every intention of walking down (in the scary scary heat) but traipsing around Herod’s little palatial hangout conveniently (and illegally) borrowed by the Jews, my ankle got all swelled and temperamental (which was highly distressing, as it was just FINE earlier that morning.)
So I did not walk and neither did Savannah. Everybody else was absolutely dead at the bottom (no breakfast, you must understand) and John was nearly violently ill.
…So probably not a repeatable experience. Next we ate somewhere or other and went not to Ein Gedi but some other private beach which was not free but apparently has less of a theft problem. (Clearly the eriver’s cousin once removed works there or something. Either way we didn’t have to pay full admission.)
The Dead Sea is, if you have never been in it, a bit like God decided to break the rules and make non-melting ice cream, or perhaps compostable latex. You do not, will not, cannot, sink.
Which is pretty hilarious actually, when you’re in a big group of unsuspecting first-timers. Everything went beautifully until my wet hair dripped water into my eyes, and I can tell you right now that, minus being in the hospital over spring break, I have never been in so much pain.
You cannot rub or touch your eyes, clearly, so the only choice left is to shut them.
…now they're shut.
Cool! And with my OTHER eyes, I will safely navigate to shore. (You see the difficulty.) Opening them again is out of the question, as more water drips in immediately.
Luckily, Rick’s paternal instinct kicked in (three little boys must be terribly accident prone) and he arrived in time to tow me back.
It was absurd.
After rinsing my eyes (and hair and entire body) I went back to the scene of the crime to discover my brave comrades covering themselves in mud.
Ridiculous.
I had no intention of getting all muddy. (I’m the kid that wouldn’t finger paint! No way in heck was I going to cover myself in black slime.)
Of course, a week of (relative) slave labor in a foreign country tends to facilitate a great deal more bonding and familiarity than was convenient for me, because no sooner had I cautiously waded back out when the whole group attacked me with “hugs” and large handfuls of mud.
Oh goodie.
Turns out to be quite a bit of fun actually, and the mud is amazing stuff. (I guess it would have to be, if they sell it in packages. There’s lots of probably embarrassing documentation of this for those of you that like to laugh at my life. *cough* NICK…)
So we wiled away our time, left reluctantly, popped into Jericho (and left quickly) and at last came home.
But wait! The day is young! But I'm not going to tell you about the Harnof adventure, it would take too long. Soon enough you will hear about the nutso taxi drivers, the "danger of death" signs, and a very nice if slightly unconventional Shabbat.)
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