Masada and the Dead Sea

If you drive west from Jerusalem on Route 1, you head into the West Bank and towards Jordan. As soon as you leave the rim of mountains on which the city is built, you begin to descend quickly toward the Judean desert and the Dead Sea. You leave a densely covered landscape of buildings interspersed with cyprus, pine and fruit trees; within a few miles, you're driving through bald, brown hills that house little except for the occasional Bedouin camp. These camps look like they've come from another world, or at least another time, with their temporary structures made of corrugated metal and cloth, and goats wandering the dessicated landscape. When you hit sea level, you'll see a marker on the side of the highway; there, you can pull into a rest stop and pay 5 shekels (about $1.25) to sit on a tired-looking camel. Today we drove this route so we could take a look at the Dead Sea and to make our way to the top of Masada.

Masada is the site of an ancient military fortification; it is exceptional because its location, which is on top of one of the mountains that rises steeply from the western side of the Dead Sea. The top of the mountain is a massive plateau, thus it is an ideal location for a military outpost. Masada was famously rebuilt by Herod the Great, who constructed extravagant palaces and a complex that included residences, storehouses, cisterns and buildings for worship. Many years later, after the destruction of the second temple, Jewish rebels escaped to Masada. The story goes that when the Romans besieged the fortress, eventually building a ramp up which they drove a giant battering ram, they entered Masada to find that all the remaining inhabitants had committed mass suicide.

In the past century, massive archaeological digs have unearthed many of the structures that existed at Masada, including portions of Herod's impressive northern palace, which is perched precariously over the side of the cliff, facing north toward the Dead Sea. Today, Masada is Israel's number one tourist site. In addition, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) holds its nighttime swearing-in ceremonies for new soldiers on the top of Masada.

The traditional way to get to the fortress is to hike up the steep "Snake Trail," but we opted for the other route up: cable car. We'll come back and hike up with the boys when they can carry their own weight! Once up there, we enjoyed the views, and we had a good time checking out the ruins, including a giant cistern and some beautiful tile floors. In the video below, taken from the cliff on which Herod build the northern palace, you can hear jets flying in the background. Several military jets were flying low over the Dead Sea during our visit; they were loud and impressive!

 

 

Just below Masada lies the Dead Sea. At nearly 1400 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth. The salty, mineral-rich waters of the Dead Sea are known for their health benefits; it's a ritual of many tourists to swim, or more accurately, "float" in the salty sea, then wash in the mud on the shores. Eric and I did both of those things on our previous visit to the Dead Sea, but we figured it was a little bit too much of an undertaking with two babies, so we just took in the beauty of the sea from the road.

The unfortunate thing is that the Dead Sea is quickly disappearing. Eric's been to Israel many times now (his first trip here was in high school) and he can clearly remember that the shores of the Sea used to be much higher than they are now. In fact, the Sea has dropped about 70 feet in the past 35 or 40 years. The level is dropping at such an alarming rate because the waters of the Jordan River, which feeds into the Dead Sea, are used heavily for agricultural purposes. So it's pretty simple: because so much water is being diverted up north to provide water to grow food for Israel and Jordan, very little water is trickling down into the Dead Sea. To add to the Sea's troubles, a huge portion of its mass has been converted into a series of dikes, canals and evaporation pans that are used by industrial companies who mine the sea for minerals like potash and magnesium. Because of the high salinity of the Sea, it doesn't support the traditional array of marine and terrestrial life that you might find near such a large body of water; perhaps for that reason some might argue the loss of the Sea is not so important. Still, the loss of the Sea would bring major changes to the region, so conservation efforts are underway in both Israel and Jordan in order to preserve the Dead Sea. However, as far as I know, the Sea's level continues to drop. It will be interesting to see what happens to this unique and beautiful place in the coming years.