Day Seven - From Israel to Jordan

After a long and wonderful day in Jerusalem, we left the city behind us as we continued our trip.  That last view of Jerusalem is always a bit sad, for you never know whether you will get to the Holy City again, and you know there is so much  more to see and experience.  We had to leave a bit early to get to Jericho for an 8:00 a.m. Mass.  Jericho doesn't have a church designating a particular site or miracle; there is simply a parish church with a school.  We heard that the parish has only about 225 Catholic among the much larger city population.  It is run by Franciscans, and we met a brother who had spent some time in the Air Force in North Dakota.

The school children were celebrating the Palestinian Independence Day, a day early.  Since there was a lot of noise due to this, we had Mass in an upstairs room rather than outside, which was our other option.  The gracious hosts let me use a chasuble and stole that had never been worn before (something in there sounds scriptural) and we used the reading about Zacchaeus.  We took up a collection for the parish - we collected over $400 dollars which I am sure is much more than the typical weekly collection.

Jericho is just off the main route north and south.  We got back to this main road and headed south.  We passed by Qumran and had some of the caves which held the scrolls pointed out to us.  I've been to Qumran a few times, and don't find it compelling.  You aren't allowed anywhere near the caves, and you see what was probably a spot where the Essenes lived in community, but some people question that as well.

We stopped at a the factory outlet for some very good hand cream and other products made from minerals harvested from the Dead Sea.  It is cheaper here than in the U.S., so I like to stock up.

Our next stop was Masada.  This is a mesa near the Dead Sea which was the final holdout for the Jewish Zealots during the revolt against the Romans in 66-73 A.D.  They held out here for the final three years with thousands of Roman soldiers surrounding them.  In the 1970s a mini-series was made of this final stand.  Masada had been a strategic defense place and palace of Herod.  Huge cisterns were filled atop Masada with an ingenious method of getting water.  Stores of food were there as well.  It had been largely abandoned after the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, but it became a place for the Zealots about 70 years later.  More than 100 Zealots soldiers and their families were able to live there for those three years without resupply.

Finally the Romans were able to build a ramp to the top and breach the walls with battering rams and fire.  They retired for the night to prepare for a final assault the next day.  But the Zealots chose suicide for themselves and their families over slavery.  Lots were chosen, and ten men helped all the others die.  Then one of those ten was chosen to kill the remaining nine before killing himself.  When the Romans arrived the next morning, there were only two or three women and children remaining. Years later archaeologists discovered the pottery shards with the names of the Zealots on them, used for the lottery.  This is now a national park, and every Israeli school child and everyone in the compulsory military service makes an official visit to this testimony of this sort of courage.

The top is accessed by a cable car, but there is a switchback trail that can be walked to reach the top.  One of our group, Mike chose that route.

After Masada we continued south to a lunch area and resort which accessed the Dead Sea.  Most of use took advantage of taking a dip in the Dead Sea.  This is an apt name as the water content, which is 34% mineral, is so salty nothing can live in it: no fish, no seaweed, no algae.  The water has the feel of Johnson & Johnson baby oil.  It is impossible to sink in it.  You can sit in it as though you were reclining in an easy chair, and read a magazine if you like without getting the paper wet.  If you have cut, it will sting, but the cut will heal quickly.  Your skin gets very soft, and you notice that for several days.  Some places have mud deposits along the shore and you can smear it all over your body if you wish.  At this place we found it painful to walk into the water because of the sharp salt covering the floor of the walkway and sea bottom itself.  Happily you can float in about two or three  feet of water, so that doesn't last long.

The Dead Sea is shrinking rapidly as its main source of water flowing into it, the Jordan River, is nearly completely drained for the purpose of irrigating crops along the entire valley.  The Dead Sea has perhaps only 50-70% of the surface area it had when I first visited it in 1990.

When you get out of the Sea, you make sure to wash off in the shower provided.  You will feel the salt if you do not.  Those with longer hair who had it dip into the Dead Sea had stiff hair until all the salt was washed out that night.

From the Dead Sea we made a dead run for the southern border city of Elait (on the Israeli side) and Aqaba (on the Jordanian side).  You pass through many miles of desert.  Much of it shows no sign of life.  Once in a while you see an odd shelter or hut of some sort.  There are some huge mining areas as well - some from the ground around the Dead Sea, but more of it from the Sea itself.  We saw piles of magnesium and other minerals.

Finally we arrived at the border, around 5:00 p.m.  We had to get off the bus, go through passport control on both the Israeli and Jordanian side, routed through the obligatory duty free shops.  People who had purchased enough items in Israel (rather than Palestine) were able to get a refund on their VAT (value added tax)- about 15%.    Between the passport controls was about a quarter mile of what I will call "No-Man's Land."   We had said goodbye to Joseph and Mo, our guide and driver who had seen us through Israel, and on the other side met Ace, our guide for Jordan.

We boarded another bus and made the 20 minute trip to our hotel for the night, an amazing Intercontinental hotel along the Gulf of Aqaba, a part of the Red Sea.  We got to our rooms, cleaned up as we needed, and gathered for a wonderful meal (many of us ate on the veranda) and several of us explored the beautiful scene outside afterward.

It was a day of saying goodbye, of seeing the wonders of nature, and the desert where so many come into contact with God.