Israel and the Dead Sea

The Dead Sea area is interesting. The Israeli Bureau of Tourism really need to do something about the name, though. Its big selling point is that you float in the Dead Sea. Its not that you can - you must. You feel like a cork in the water. I've never really mastered the back float. Here I was like an Olympic champ. Floating on your front is hard, though. For some reason your legs go up in the air and you really have to work hard to keep your head above water.

The water feels oily and after a while I got a little bit of a rash on my arms. Overall I wasn't crazy about the experience. I'm glad I did it, but one time was plenty for me.

Other adventures on the bus tour -

We went Qumran and saw the cave where they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Were were at Ein Geddi where is where David hid out in caves. You can see the caves along the hillside.

Masada. I read it would be on the itinerary. But, I didn't think were would be going up in cramped tram suspended by a thin cable. I do not like heights. This was terrifying. The guide said the trip up would take about three minutes. After getting on I closed my eyes and counted to 180. After getting there we still had to walk on a wooden ramp with nothing by thin metal hand rails to hold on to while being suspended over the abyss. Awful. When we got to the top it was very interesting. We spent about two hours. Our guide told a lot of interesting things. I was interested in that, at the same time was thinking about the return trip down.

I made it but I would have had a lot more fun just hearing about it from the parking lot.