October 4, 2011
Middle East Adventure, 10/4/11
Wow! We awoke to a beautiful dawn and saw bathers already floating on the Dead Sea.
Our adventure for the day began after an early breakfast when we took off on a jeep adventure in the Judean Desert. We had four adventurers and a driver to each of four jeeps -- with Jim, Jeanne, Steve, Bev in the first jeep with the head guide nicknamed Shin -- because it's hard for Americans to pronounce his name correctly and I sensed that he'd rather we use his nickname than for him to hear us mispronounce his given name!
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| Note the Jordanian mountains past the desert and across the Dead Sea |
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| Our jeeps |
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| Salty rocks |
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| Very large salt deposits in cave |
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| Shin, our lead guide |
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| Ruins of buildings just outside of cave |
We learned some differences between
Negev and
Judean deserts; the latter is the smaller of the two and is where we were for this adventure and also for visits to monasteries, Hebron, and a Bedouin camp on our Palestine excursion, which see October 6-10.
Israeli fighter jet pilots practice/patrol in the Dead Sea valley, frequently forcing us to cover our ears! Shin (our guide for the day) explained that his hearing was damaged in the Israeli army. He also asked us to speak our minds on any topic and not to "beat around the bush," as Israelis believe they have too little time in life to take the long way around a conversation topic.
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| Shin explaining the vegetation |
Our jeep drive took us to quiet, shady spots ("shady" for a desert) where we learned about desert trees: acacia, crown of thorns, carob, etc. We stopped for a picnic in the desert, complete with mat, camp stools, buffet table holding humus, pita, salads, veggies, fruit, marble cake, lemonade or water.
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| "Lot's wife" is the formation left of the gap |
Then began a fun (really!) jeep climb of
Mount Sodom, with views of and explanations about the Dead Sea, explanations of salt rocks and mountains versus limestone mountains, a view of the current formation representing "Lot's wife" and other highlights.
In the afternoon we very much enjoyed walking in and exploring
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve Park with sites of a herd of ibex including young ones, females, and several full-antlered males; birds such as
Tristram's grackle,
bulbuls, and a
green bee-eater (see photo); waterfall (David's Falls); human visitors, and rock hydraxes (see photo).
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| Ibex, Ein Gedi |
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| Rock Hyrax |
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| Green Bee-Eater bird (very center) |
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| David's Falls, Ein Gedi |
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| Ibex (part of a herd) |
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| Two Ibex (a stare down) |
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| Shell fossil, Ein Gedi |
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| Ein Gedi |
We returned to the hotel by ca 4pm in time for laps in the pool and 10 mins in the hot tub (Bev and Evelyn) and Dead Sea floating (Evelyn).
Our adventure for the day began after an early breakfast when we took off on a jeep adventure in the Judean Desert. We had four adventurers and a driver to each of four jeeps -- with Jim, Jeanne, Steve, Bev in the first jeep with the head guide nicknamed Shin -- because it's hard for Americans to pronounce his name correctly and I sensed that he'd rather we use his nickname than for him to hear us mispronounce his given name!
Our jeep drive took us to quiet, shady spots ("shady" for a desert) where we learned about desert trees: acacia, crown of thorns, carob, etc. We stopped for a picnic in the desert, complete with mat, camp stools, buffet table holding humus, pita, salads, veggies, fruit, marble cake, lemonade or water.
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