Welcome to Ein Gedi
Although we left Jerusalem for Ein Gedi on March 22, for various reasons (as you will note if you've read previous entries) we haven't gotten around to updating this until today (March 28); sorry!
The photo below is of the desert between Jerusalem and Ein Gedi (it was taken from an Egged bus). There is oh-so-much more that I would like to write, but our first priority now is to get these pages up and the pictures accessible; we will write more (when we get home).
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The photo below is of dusk; if it's too dark, you might want to adjust your screen, because it's quite pretty.
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In Ein Gedi, we stayed at Beit Sefer Sadeh, the Ein Gedi Field School. It was basically a camp-style place with dorm rooms and bunk beds, but it was really close to the nature preserve. The photo below is of a drawing of an ibex with information about the nature preserve and field school. It looked really eerie in the darkness, and even spookier when photographed with the flash.
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This was sunrise from the field school, looking across the Dead Sea toward the Edom Mountains in Jordan.
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Our main activity on March 23 was hiking the nature preserve and environs. Here is a picture of Adam on the hike (in the beginning, before we were exhausted).
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We hiked toward Shulamit Falls...
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Still hiking...
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...and at Ein Shulamit (Shulamit Lake, I guess), there were several kids and a few adults playing by the falls.
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We continued hiking because Adam remembered that further up there was a better lake where we could swim (we were wearing our suits).
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(Adam finally got a picture of me hiking, to prove that I went along.)
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When we finally got to that lake, though, they had a sign up that said "no swimming." Adam was bummed. But it was a pretty waterfall.
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Adam then coaxed me into hiking further uphill (I again wanted proof of my trek).
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It was a pretty view, and we saw a few ruins, but we couldn't exactly figure out where we were, based on the map they provided. So after the picture below, we turned back; apparently not 20 meters later the trail evened out and started going downhill toward another (swimmable) lake. Oh well.
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On our walk back at (Dead) Sea level, we encountered our first furry wildlife (other than Adam, who has been growing a beard, in case anyone reading along has noticed). The first was an ibex...
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Then we saw another ibex and her baby (it was sooo cute!).
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After we left the main part of the park, we decided to walk toward other ruins, first of Roman baths and then of a synagogue. On the way we passed a grove or two of trees, and hundreds more ibex--this time the daddies, apparently. (Talk about big horns!)
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The Roman bath ruins were cool, but then I remembered that England also has Roman baths (in Bath, of course) that are much more spectacular, and pretty much from the same era. But the find just down the road, of a Second Temple-era synagogue, was amazing. I think both Adam and I have a respect for the kind of workmanship that goes into making mosaics that can last for 2000 years and then some.
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This mosaic is of Hebrew text of the biblical forefathers (I took it in particular to get Adam's name in print (in Hebrew).
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After passing the synagogue we headed to the Dead Sea so I could take a dip...
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...whereas Adam was a dip, and merely stuck his toes in.
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Then we were just in time (OK, we waited a little bit) for the Egged bus to Eilat, from which I took this lovely sunset photo of the purple mountains in Jordan (they're just across the border, after all).
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So, that's it for our Ein Gedi experience. Sorry to say we didn't have time to get to Masada (so much for that button and link), but we plan to go next time. We did see it from a distance (the bus stopped there), but not well enough to take a picture.
If you're lucky, by the time you read this we will have already uploaded the text and photos for the Eilat page. Click here to see if we did (it will take you to the page, regardless of whether it's updated).
Or, click below to see what we did in the following places ...
Last updated March 28, 1999.