Day 7: To Jerusalem

The day started with the bright orange glow of sunrise and a float in the Dead Sea. It is said that 10 minutes floating in the Dead Sea makes you 10 years younger so you won't recognise us when we return home! 
Bocatov- good morning in Hebrew was our welcome onto the bus on a now overcast humid morning.
We then travelled along the road parallel to the Dead Sea until we reached the hilltop fortress of Masada. We caught the cable car to the top where Usama (our guide) took us on a comprehensive tour of the area. This fortress was built by Herod the Great - nicknamed Bob the Builder by our guide - before 31BC. It was to be a sanctuary in case he needed to get out of Jerusalem town in a hurry! The palace was designed so that the sun would not shine in Herods face at any angle and he could hear the sound of silence- the engineers had fun with this but it worked. There is no evidence that Herod ever visited this palace but it was fully decked out with stores and soldiers just in case. 
The site is significant as it was the last stand of the Jewish Zealots against the might of the Roman army in about 73AD. The Zealots decided to take their own lives rather than be captive to the Romans. A last act of defiance! 
It is a special place and for some, as goose bumps rose as we heard the story and we are now going to watch the Masada movie with Peter O' Toole when we get a chance.

We drove onto Ein Gedi the place where David spared King Sauls life in 1 Samuel 24:1-22. Some walked up to high waterfalls and could imagine the scene from the Bible. We saw ibex and some of us cooled our feet in the fresh spring waters. A beautiful waterfall in a parched and barren area close to the Dead Sea. 

We enjoyed lunch at Qumran the place of 2 moons, one in the sky the other a reflection from the Dead Sea. This was the site where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947.  Thousands of fragments of scrolls were found in 14 caves. It validates that the Old Testament we read today was the same one Jesus read from over 2000 years ago authenticating that nothing new has been added to these books by later copies. 

It was late in the afternoon when we travelled on through to Jericho reputed to be the oldest city in the world. We stopped to check out Zaccheus sycamore tree- well its great great ancestor! Then we drove onward to the Mt of Temptation where Jesus spent 40 days in he wilderness - and we could appreciate this wilderness! 

We headed for Jerusalem detouring to look at the Valley of the Shadow of Death. This is on the ancient route between Jericho and Jerusalem and it was a revelation to many to discover it is a physical place as well, as we often think of it as the metaphorical place from Psalm 23.

Then over the hills and onto Jerusalem! There were exclamations of wow as we saw the old city glowing in the last rays of the bright orange sunset! 

Photos: the white robe brigade heading to the Dead Sea; floating!; the Australian Dead Sea Olympic Synchronised Swimming Team!; steep slope of Masada; our guide Usama; looking to Dead Sea from Masada; Ein Gedi landscape; Ein Gedi spring; cave where the first scrolls were found at Qumran; jars like the ones in which the scrolls were found; a sycamore tree in Jericho; two locals??; Mt Temptation; Valley of the Shadow of death; Jerusalem on the hill.