Following on from yesterdays drive we woke up at 5.30 for our trip to Masada and the dead sea. We had parked the car in a nearby car park (there is no free parking overnight in tel Aviv unless you are a local), and after waiting for Jimmy to run back to the apartment for the car park ticket, we were on our way. Our route went through Jerusalem so it was the same drive as yesterday. The traffic wasn't too bad, less of a crazy drive than the day before (or maybe I was just more used to the crazy Israeli drivers, who are in my opinion just bad drivers). After Jerusalem we entered Palestine (or as Israelis call it, the West Bank), complete with shanties, the dividing wall, army patrols, border crossings etc. Hard to get around how divided the two peoples are :( . We passed the sea level marker and continued to descend down into the dead sea, arriving at Masada at 8.30. After grabbing some water and breakfast for Jimmy (3 Ferrero Roche's and a packet of chips) we headed up the mountain. The snake trail winds its way switch back up the mountain, taking us about 45 minutes in the growing heat. At the top we arrived at the palace of Horis. He chose either the best or worst place for a palace - middle of absolute nowhere on a giant hill. We spent an hour wandering around the hilltop with lots of other tourists, then descended back down the trail to the car. We drove a further 20 minutes south to the resort town of Ein Bokkek for our dead sea experience. Its a very touristy spot, over developed with high rise hotels and lots of "dead sea product" shops. We found a public beach and floated our way into the waters. Its pretty incredible how much you float; I was expecting a little difference but you are propelled out of the water.
After our swim we rinsed off and then had lunch at a nearby tourist cafe. We headed home via a different route than where we came from, driving west through Arad. Was very dry... Not sure how they eek out livings there.
We drove home in about 2 hours, then hit Tel Aviv traffic and spent 30 minute crawling along. We finally made it to near the Hertz rental office, found a petrol station and walked home. Dinner was pizza, with Jimmy heading out for wedding related stuff. Jackie and I had plans of watching a movie but we passed out at around 8.30.
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