Day 1 in Israel continues!

After leaving the Jordan River, we drove through the Judean desert, where the mountains are filled with caves. We stopped at a point where our guide, Leo. pointed out caves high in the mountains where Jesus is believed to have stayed after his baptism by John. 

Along one horizontal ridge of caves, Mount of Temptation Monastery was built.  Its largest dome covers the cave where it’s believed Jesus stayed after his baptism by John.

Next, we traveled to Jericho where we stopped at the Church of the Good Shepherd, where we held our daily mass in the chapel.

Not far from the church was the oldest sycamore tree in Jericho – it could have been 1000 or 2000 years old, since sycamore trees never die, they simply send out new shoots that become huge trees. Here Leo recounted the story of Zacchaeus and showed us that it would have been easy for a short person to climb that type of tree.    

We had lunch at a pretty, outside restaurant that was set up with long tables under an arbor.  And then it was on to the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea lies below a hill, where a long building with a bathhouse and a large shop stood.

Mid-way down the hill was an outside bar, where we were told we could rent a “towel” if we wanted to go into the water.  The towel turned out to be half of a thin beach towel – but  it was better than nothing… Sometimes you need to remember that you’re in a different country…. 

The bath house was one big, open room with only a few changing cubicles with dozens of people waiting. The small group of women from our tour just shook our heads and quickly changed into our suits in the open room, then packed up our clothes and headed out to the water.

To get to the beach, we took many, many stairs down to a level of packed grey sand that ends at the water’s rocky edge.

Beneath the water was soft mud, and people were sinking in very easily, so I  kept my flip-flops and walked right in.

We muddied ourselves because the minerals were known to be really good for your skin.  And then we went deeper in and floated. We just had to lean back a little – the water picked us up and held us like a warm hand.  No movement was needed to stay floating – you just lay there. But when I wanted to stand, I couldn’t put my feet back down because the flip-flops I had on kept catching the water and making me float! I was floating helplessly and next to me my daughter, Jess, was rolling around in circles – and couldn’t stop…  Thankfully the ladies we were with rescued Jess, then took off my flip-flops and out pushed my legs down so I could stand again!   In the process, my face was splashed with the water, and it tasted horrible!

Getting out of the water was a trick, because I had mud up my knees, that I needed to rinse off – which meant climbing up a slippery, muddy hill to a square, wooden platform with a single spigot of clear water.   With all the mud on my feet, I’d make it half-way up, then slide back down the rocks and into the water!  After my 5^th try, a guy on the platform took pity on me and pulled me up.    As I started back up the stairs I realized that I’d left my flip-flops in the mud, so I tap-danced over the rocks and got my arms all muddy again pulling them out!   I rinsed me and the flip-flops off, grabbed by bag of clothes and my half-towel and headed back to the changing area – where Jess was already waiting for me! We both decided it was high time to join the rest our group, who were either having a great time at the bar or shopping.   We chose the bar!

Our last stop of the day was at the “Shadow of the Valley” (Leo’s term) where the bus drove us part way up a steep hill; then we were left to climb the rest of the way along a very skinny path to the top.  A few people had a hard time climbing such a steep path (and the drop below us), but my friend Carol had talked me into packing climbing poles – and were we glad now!  (Of course, Jess and the younger girls were practically running up that little path!)          

At the top we were treated to a view of St. George’s Monastery, the monastery built in the rocks and that looked a lot like it was hanging onto them!  There are huge caves in the mount on the side of it.

We didn’t realize then that we were standing above was the far end of the Valley of the Shadow of Death!  It’s a real valley that once was a shortcut between Jerusalem and Jericho. It’s name comes from the deadly heat of summer and the danger of robbers in Jesus’ time – and that the valley is nearly always in shadow from the high cliffs.