DEAD SEA and much MORE

It's crazy how two weeks have flown by since the last time I posted. I have one maybe two more posts about the last week of Christ's life so stay tuned for my finishing touches. This post is about one of my favorite days in Jerusalem visiting Masada, the Dead Sea, En Gedi, and Qumran. We left bright and early on Monday, April 13th with our first stop at Masada. This fortress city was seized by robber-assassins called Sicarii and played a huge role in the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. I was still waking up at this point and it was super hot so that's all the exciting news I have about that place. (Side note: the weather during the last two weeks in Jerusalem reached the 90's so we were blessed with some major heat to give us all a midsummer tan.) After that, it was off to the Dead Sea which was absolutely INCREDIBLE!!! The previous day, I was kind of sketchy about getting in the nasty, super salty water but after I saw a couple people floating effortlessly on top of the water, I ran in there as quick as possible. You might be asking yourself how the heck we could be floating on top of the water; well let me inform you. There is more solids in the water than in the human body which makes you float on your back or belly and it is SO sweet! The Great Salt Lake is like that too, hence the name. There were tons of people in the water with ailments while others of us were just chillin on the surface getting the best ab workout of a lifetime. Here is an interesting concept I learned in my New Testament class: In the Millennium, the water underneath the Dome of the Rock is supposed to heal the Dead Sea. I never even knew water was even under the temple mount so pretty interesting stuff. Down the Sea a little ways, there is some sulfur black mud that exfoliates your skin and rejuvenates your pores so we all floated over there and put it all over our bodies. We smelled like poop the rest of the day. Our poor bus driver. We rushed to En Gedi Nature Reserve after that and hiked up to a waterfall grumbling the whole way up. It was fun, nonetheless, although I'm pretty sure we were all quite dehydrated. Qumran was our last site which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It was a super quick 20-minute stop since they were shutting down for the day. Even though we weren't able to hike down to any of the caves, it was still way cool to see the exact cave that these scrolls were discovered. What a long day filled with fun and excitement.