I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to watch the sun rise. What a beautiful sight to see! The Dead Sea was calm and the birds were chirping. Exactly one year ago, I was spending my first evening at the Indianapolis Great Banquet. God can sure work some amazing puzzles in life! We had a delicious breakfast about 7:00 am. Our bus rolled out at 8:30 and we were on our way to an unimaginable day!
The weather was a gorgeous 85 degrees and sunny - the warmest day of our tour. It made for a definitely hot hike ~ that's for sure!
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| The fresh fruit was heavily! |
Masada
Our first stop on the day's tour was to Masada (King Herod's Escape home). He planted Masada at the top of the mountain in order to keep himself safe from Jewish rebels who may try to overtake him. The area was placed perfectly for rainwater to come down from the mountains. Masada had food and water all year round because of this.
After Herod's death, and the Romans were taking over, many Jewish rebels used Masada as a safe hiding place. It was already fortified thanks to Herod. The Romans eventually found out the rebels and came to overtake them at Masada. The Romans built square forts at the bottom of Masada. They knew they could not come up the Snake Path because all the rebels had to do was throw rocks and boulders down on them. So they built a ramp along the backside of Masada. They used Jewish slaves (family members of the rebels) to build the ramp so that the rebels would not kill them ~ they were their own people.
The day before Romans made it to the top, the Jewish rebels decided that they would rather die by their own hand than of the Romans, so they killed their own families. 10 men left drew lots to see who would be the last to kill the rest. One of the men chose to hide his wife, two children, and his wife's sister in a cistern before their deaths. The last man killed the rest, and the following day, the Romans made it to the top of Masada and found all of the rebels dead. The hidden family lived to tell others of this experience.
While on this portion of the tour, I had the opportunity to climb the Snake Path with some of our group. The rest of the group rode up to the top of Masada on a cable car.
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| Hiking up the Snake Path |
The Dead Sea
We finished off the evening with a walk from our hotel over to the Dead Sea for a float. This was honestly the most FUN experience of the entire trip. It was crazy how all you had to do was walk into the water and fall backward. You floated instantly and with complete ease. The water temperature was very warm but every once in a while, we would feel a rush of cold water. We found out later that this is because they are beginning to discover pockets of fresh water within the sea. It fulfills the following scripture:
Ezekiel 47:9 There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows.
As we walked around in the water, we finally looked down and realized that we were standing on giant balls of salt! It is so crazy that this is what the entire sea floor is made of. We found a few of our favorite salt rocks and packed them to take home to friends and family. What a priceless, yet free gift from God!
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| Our first steps onto the shore of the Dead Sea |
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| We are floating! |
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| Salt Rocks!! |
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| Floating away! |
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| Floating Group photo!! |
Ending the Night
We ate dinner that night in a different section of the hotel. WOW - the food sure is good and the dessert tray was insane! Then we went to sleep for the last night in this hotel.
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| I knew Ayla would be jealous of this picture! |
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