Bet She'an, Qumran, and Live! from the Dead Sea

Sign of the Byzantine Cross at Bet She'an

We had to get up and at 'em earlier today to hit the road because we had a lot of ground to cover.  I am finally sleeping through the night, at least last night I slept great from midnight until 6 am, so I felt pretty refreshed getting up and pretty psyched that I might be past the jet lag stage.

After our usual breakfast fare we gathered up our luggage and loaded the bus and left the Galilee area.   We really spent most of the day driving and stopped only to visit two sites, and because they are not considered to be sacred locations, we could even wear shorts, which was nice because it was finally a really warm day.

Here is our trusty bus driver, Motti.  He is great, and I am glad today for Dramamine on our curvy descent to the Dead Sea area!

Sidenote:  Have I told you about the food here?  I might have already, but here's a rehash.  No salad bar in all of the United States has anything on the array of salads that are the mainstay of every single hotel buffet we have eaten since we got here.  At both breakfast and dinner are bowls and bowls of bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, different greens, onions, pickled beets, pickled turnips and radishes.  Every. single. meal.  There are also several mixed vegetable salads, hummus, and eggplant.  What about fruit?  There is always a bowl of cut up apples in some kind of syrup and sometimes there are canned peaches, grapefruit and pears.  For breakfast, there is yogurt (Yoplait, but a 3% version) and some breads, while dinner has some hot dishes which always include a fish entree, some kind of meat and surprisingly, there is usually spaghetti and marinara (probably they think everyone in the world likes that).  I have had some of the yummiest salads I have ever eaten, but I do miss fruit.  Today at lunch, I bought three oranges for a dollar and they were heavenly.  So that's the food recap for those who are interested.

Back to our adventure:

Columns at the front of the amphitheater

We made our way south to Bet She'an, which is where King Saul's and his sons' headless bodies were hung from the walls after they had been defeated by the Philistines.  (From I Samuel 31).  I have to say, this was the most dramatic site we have seen in terms of the scale of excavation and volume of what has been discovered.  Excavation began, according to Gershon, at  this site in 1987 and still continues today.  Without being too dramatic, I have to say, it was really thrilling to see what they had uncovered there.  Hundreds of columns, a huge amphitheater, a long promenade with intact mosaic and the stones still in the main street, shops that lined both sides of the promenade and the list goes on.  Apparently, Jesus Christ Superstar was filmed at this location.  I had promised myself yesterday that I would slow down on the photos, but I couldn't help myself here.  The city as it has been excavated is from the Byzantine era, and you can see crosses in the mosaics which identify this period.  We walked around here for quite a while, so much to take in.  The city was destroyed by earthquake in 748 AD.

Beautiful relief from Bet She'an

The cave to my right, just above my elbow, I believe is Cave #4

We packed into the bus again for our longer drive south along the Jordan river in order to get to Qumran.  On the way, we had to pass through Palestinian territory (the West Bank) and while the highway itself is actually governed by Israel, it runs through Palestine.  There were razor wire fences off the east side of the highway but other than that, it looked just like a regular highway.  One thing that did look different though was that shortly we were beginning to see the end of the green lush vegetation.  And, finally, we entered into what I have always imagined Israel to look like as we drove south to En Gedi.  Fields and flowers faded to a dull tan.  The landscape reminds me of the Badlands in South Dakota.  Miles and miles of rocky sand.  Not only were we driving through a new terrain, we also were descending slowly to the lowest point on earth...the Dead Sea.  But first, we arrived at Qumran, where we learned about, but did not see, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and walked around the site looking at the caves and learning about the Essenes who lived there in the first century.

The real high/lowpoint of the day was the Dead Sea.  It was the high point because it was the low point.  My friend, Terri, is the originator of my most often quoted saying and that is, "If it is not a good time, it's a good story!"  Well, we had a great example of that profound truth today.  We all were excited for our Dead Sea float, I mean can you come to Israel and not float in the Dead Sea?  I think not!  I should have picked up on the fact that the couple of group members who had been here before politely bowed out of this experience, that should have been my first clue.  But, blindly we went laughing into the Sea and blindly we returned...with salt in our burning eyes.  The salt in the eyes was only part of the problem, especially for me, who did not bring flip flops and thus had to walk on about 5,000 jagged salt crystals that covered the beach and bottom of the sea.  When you walk on jagged salt crystals, someone is bound to get a jagged cut, which is then "cleansed" by the saline water (9X's the concentration of the ocean), and that smarts!  But, not only was it rocky, burning, salty water, the air temperature couldn't have been much above 60.  After 15 minutes of floating fun (and it was fun), the "life guard" (not sure what he was there for except perhaps to guide people blinded by salt water to a cold shower to clean out the eyes) announced the last shuttle was leaving for the day and we all needed to be on it.  So, cold and wet and eyes burning, oh, and, skin now covered in a thin layer of white salt, we rode up to the mud pits where we smeared dead sea mud and had a few laughs, washed that off and then headed up to the sulfur hot tubs.  All in all, we laughed pretty hard and it was a great bonding experience...and I'll probably check that off my list and go on my merry way.  If I ever return, I will be the one demurely declining the invitation to float.

Dead Sea Survivors

It's been a pretty good day.