An ancient fortress and an even ancient-er Sea

Yesterdaywas a very interesting day.

Since it was the Sabbath and most of the city was closed, Hubby and I decided to go to the Dead Sea. We found a bus company willing to take us there on a tour which included visiting the mythical fortress of Massada.

Needless to say, visiting Massada turned out to be the highlight of the day. If you've never heard of Massada, that's ok, actually neither had we. Massada was actually a roman fortress that King Herod had built way back around 30 a.C. in case Jerusalem was ever attacked and he needed a safe place to protect himself not far from the city which in that time, as everyone knows, was under the Roman Empire's dominion (by the way, I'm getting pretty good at the timeline of history since being in Israel... I'm finally starting to understand all the who's and what's in all these b.C and a.C dates).

Anyway, so Herod built his fortress high up on a pretty flat and pretty large cliffy mountain overlooking the Dead Sea that only had one way up and then had loads and loads of food and water stored there in case he ever needed to use it. Turns out he never did and died a happy and peaceful death in Jerusalem. Then the romans burned the Temple and with this the Jews began a rebellion. Since Jews where being persecuted all over, a very small group crossed the Judeas dessert and took over the Massada from the few soliders that were guarding it and proceeded to install an amazing rebellion base/Jewish community there, equipped with a Synagogue and everything.

Of course the Roman Emperor couln't have this, so he set out an army of 25000 soldiers to track down the rebels (all 976 of them) but when they got to Massada the romans could simply not access the fortress because the only way up was heavily protected and not of easy access for 25000 men (after all, Herodes knew a thing or two about war tactics). Instead the Romans had to camp at the foot of cliffs for 9 months until they could build a ramp that would take them up and allow their army to reach the top. When the ramp was finished they went up, blasted the city gate and then went back down again waiting for the morning to be able to go up and finally take the city.

That night, high up on the Massada, the Jews gathered around the Rabbi and decided that it was better to die a free man than to live a life of slavery and hethery (the speech the Rabbi pronounced that night is sketched in the walls of the Massada visiting center and it's quite moving actually). So each man then proceded to kill his wife and kids and, when only 10 men remained, they threw "lots" to see and which order they would each proceed to kill each other until the very last one killed himself.

When the Romans entered the city the next morning they surely did not expect to find what they did. Ever since this story was discovered (Massada became an arqueology site sometime in the 50's even though the story was actually told by Falvius Joseph, a historian Jew in the 1st century) it has become the symbol of Israel and the army actually takes an oath that literally translates to "Massada will never fall again".

Well, as you can imagine, after that visiting the Dead Sea was a little less.... wow-ing.

A few words about the Dead Sea first:

- DO.NOT.ENTER.THE.DEAD.SEA.IF.YOU.HAVE.CHAPPED.LIPS
- A few orifices of your body sensitive to abrassive elements, like say salt, are going to sting. Be patient, it gets bereable after a while.

Swimming in the Dead Sea would be an experience I would describe as interesting. You shift your bottom a little to back, like if you were going to sit down, and your body simple floats up to the top like a wine bottle cork in water. It's pretty awesome at first, but very soon you realize it's really hard to "swim" in these waters (or do anything else for that matter). All you really can do is just stay there and.... float. Trying to stand up from the floating position is pretty difficult too and after a while you kinda get frustrated.

Also, don't let that salty water enter eyes, nose or mouth under any circumstances (as Hubby sadly discovered).

The good thing is that there are absolutely no fish or any other life form in the water (which is usually what freaks me out of swimming in the ocean) and the waters are cristal clear and calm as a lake (a guess this is also why it's called Dead). But do forget the idea of a sandy bottom. The bottom of this sea is made of huge chunky grany pieces of salt that are so rough and spiky you have to go in wearing sandals or you risk cutting yourself (and guess how much that would sting!) Still, the scenery around the Dead Sea is absolutely breathtaking.

In the end, the Dead Sea is not really a beach to hang out at as any other beach in the world. I guess this it what makes it pretty darn unique and it really was worth it to dip into it for a few hours!

Cheers!
Fned.