Saturday, August 15th - Masada

Today I went on another day trip. The following are the sites I visited and some basic information about them:









Masada – Mountaintop fortress developed by King Herod (who is responsible for much of the foundational building in Jerusalem as well) in the 2nd century BC. Then was the site of Zealot Jews who fought off the Roman army in a dramatic siege until they finally broke through. Upon their return to overtake the city the following day, they found hundreds of dead bodies as the residents chose death over slavery. The Romans in turn felt slightly defeated and left the city to ruin. Only a brief period of Byzantine monastic occupation had added to the site since. The site has a very good display of ruins from this early. NOTE: My dad somehow has a book on the story of Masada and if you’re ever interested I’m sure he would lend it to you haha.
















Qumran – This is the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were located in the mid-20th Century in a series of caves that was inhabited by an early tribe of Judaism. Their writings (scrolls) were found on their complex and the surrounding caves











Dead Sea – Its shores are the lowest place on earth, and the salinity is so high that you can’t not float… I had seen pictures in the past, but you truly feel like a bobber on a fishing line. There is also very fine clay at the bottom that is supposed to be good for the skin if applied.
Jericho – Known as the oldest continuously inhabited city, and contains the remains of the oldest wall (8000ish BC). The city is also known as the lowest city on earth.

Towards the end of the tour, I found myself mentally exhausted and feeling saturated with knowledge for the time being. Much of this feeling came from the way in which the trips were run; with five minutes for a picture here or an hour to explore a site there it’s really hard to get anything out of it. This is why I tend not to join tours when they are optional, but realized the difficulties of getting to all these sites if I hadn’t had the driver. I can feel my trip coming to a close, yet I’ve decided yet again to pack as much as I can into a short amount of time. I like this strategy because of my current financial status and ability to find energy even after I feel exhausted… But it definitely begins to get to me towards the end. Eventually, I hope to spend an extended time really getting in touch with many of my places throughout the world… For now, I will do what a woman from Barcelona on the day trip told me is the “American Way” of travel (two, three, four days in a place and then moving on). She is right in that it would take months or years to truly understand the old city of Jerusalem, as is the case for many places that I’ve stayed. One thing is for sure though… Next time I will not bring the extra bag I did this time!