Dead Sea & Desert

Israel gets about 30 days of rain a year and unfortunately it started just as I arrived. Jerusalem is also pretty cold this time of year so we decided to head further south in search of the sun.

We hopped on a bus towards the Dead Sea and the journey was amazing. Once you get outside the city you release that the whole country is actually just desert! I saw a few little tin shacks dotted around with washing-lines and a couple of goats outside but nothing else around except mountains of sand.

Floating in the super salty water of the Dead Sea was great fun until you got some in your mouth or eyes and then you entered a world of pain. It was hilarious just watching people get in very cautiously and then giggling like children as they floated away down the coast. I was raging I forgot to bring a newspaper for a photo-op and had to make do with a book instead!

Seemly the mud around the sea is good for exfoliating the skin, so we dug some out of the ground and went to town!

After all the mud was scraped off we headed to Mosada, which is this ancient palace built on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert. We planned to do the early morning climb at 6am and then watch the sunrise from the top, but when we arrived the hostel was pretty expensive. A security guard told us there was a campsite nearby and even though we had no tent, we set off into the desert to find it. The ‘campsite’ turned out to be flat patch of sand with a sign, so we declined and climbed over some dunes to find a better spot to make camp for the night.

A spot was found and we then scoured the surrounding terrain for materials to make a fire and some beds. A surprising amount of wood was found and a big fire was built that we hoped would keep us warm and also scare off any desert predators! Luckily we had a little bit of food with us and so improvised a meal of pittas filled with a tasty tuna/sweetcorn/houmus mix we heated in a can.

After roughly 3.5 hours of sleep and 1.5 hours of thinking I was going to get eaten by a wolf, the time came to get up and head for the mountain. We buried our big backpacks under some rocks, jumped the gate and had only walked a hundred meters when a light shone on our backs. We turned round and there was a half asleep guard with a massive torch shouting at us to come back. He told us that it was an hour too early to climb and that the park opened at 6am, when we could pay an entrance fee of 45 Shekels. I was so angry that I just lay down on the ground and went to sleep.

An hour later I woke up and we paid the money, climbed to the top and had a victory pitta bread breakfast while the sun came up (video below).

The actual ruins of the palace up there are incredible, so huge it’s like a mountain-top village. There was a system to collect water for the swimming pools, underfloor heating and a dove sanctuary; old King Herod knew how to live in style! If you are a history buff definitely check out this place online, crazy story about how the Romans built a huge tower and eventually invaded. And to think all this was done over 1900 years ago, crazy!

Anyway, Mosada is definitely a good story for the grand-kids; how we slept rough in the desert then climbed a mountain to find a palace at the top, awesome!