ISRAEL - Chapter 3: Arad, Desert, Masada cont...

In the afternoon, we got a ride out to the ancient Herodian fortress of Masada and several camels greated us on the side of the road :o)




A bedouin shepherd tending his flocks of sheep and goats on the barren plain just outside Arad




Here you can see a bedouin settlement that periodically dot the wilderness landscape







We weren't sure if this guy was gonna be friendly or not as we were told that they may get a little angry when it comes to taking photos, but we waved and then he waved, so it was all good ;o)




We arrived at the backside of Masada which has quite the story that goes with it. In 70 AD when Jerualem and the Second Temple was destroyed, a remant of Jewish Zealots escaped to this fortress that rises up an impregnable force on the top of a enormous isolated desert mountain above the Dead Sea. The Romans cornered them there, setting up forces around the mountain and began the building of a massive ramp to reach up to the top in order to breach it. This is that very Roman ramp.




Jacob took a side path around the ramp to find some incredibly huge cisterns Herod had carved out of the mountain, as this was one of the palaces that he had built but he never actually used it.




The story takes a very sad turn at the end. While the Jews held out for 3 years, the Romans worked hard at making battering rams and weapons and building the ramp. When the impending Roman seige was imminent, the Zealot leaders decided to committ mass suicide rather than to give themselves and their families to the fate of slaves and prostitutes. All 960 of them.




The long climb to the top on the snake path was made very difficult by the ferrocious winds that day. From the top you can still make out the remnants of the Roman encampment walls far below.




Ruins..




Too bad it was a cloudy and horrendously windy day, as this view over the Dead Sea is usually much nicer with a clear view of the Jordan shore.




Jacob looking over a model of Masada




A quick portrait while we were threatened to blow away! You think I joke, but seriously I sometimes had to walk at an angle to make any headway! But the upside is that we had the whole mountain nearly to ourselves! :o)







This is about all the green you'd ever find out there...




This poor bird was cowering in a nook in the wall. We walked all the way up to it and it couldn't fly away because the wind was too strong!





Upon our descent and waiting at the bottom for our ride to come, a very nice bedouin man that ran the park entrance beckoned us in for some tea. He served us some wonderful hot tea, and through his broken English we found out more about him - like that he had 15 children and 3 wives! In the bedouin culture you can have as many wives as you can afford. :o) He was so proud. :o)
















The next day we were able to hitch an impromtu ride from Arad to Omer with group going to a small worship service with Messianic believers held in a home. After that lovely experience, we hitched another ride from Omer to Beersheva, where we caught the the long several hour bus ride back to Jerusalem.




It was sooooo great to get back to Jerusalem to hang out with some of our new friends. What better way to do that than go bowling! :o) Our hangouts always ended up being international. Here are me and Nicolene, a sweet South African. (Now I have an even bigger reason so go back to SA to visit someday)




Mary and Me :o)




Jacob in all his coolness hanging out with Shanon, from Australia, and Mary's brother Malcolm, from good old Virginia :o)




This is dear Liesel who I knew back from my first trip to Israel in 03, and her Fiance Braham who I think is from the Netherlands. I lose track of where everybody's from. Jerusalem is such an International city, that if you are there long enough you will then have contacts all over the world! :o) I love it!