Travel Tales: Dead Sea/Masada

Enjoying that sun, sure glad we took the cable car up with the two wee ones.

 We knew that we wanted to get to the Dead Sea, so decided to drive there on our first full day staying in Jerusalem.  We kept wanting to stop at places, but the kids had zonked out on the way and it was nice to just drive a talk to each other.  We hadn't done much pre-trip research and were using Lonely Planet to guide us day by day. To our delight, we kind of just stumbled upon Masada our original destination had been the Nature Reserve at Ein Gedi.   That's about the time when Ken realized that he didn't have his wallet with him, we decided to press on to Masada instead, it's also about the time when Rawly was playing with the change in the center console and the 20 shekels turned up missing--hope it made someone's day!

Blue skies

Once we arrived at Masada, I went to purchase entrance tickets.  The journey up was supposed to take 45 minutes.  We had kind of abandoned Ein Gedi due to the easy, but somewhat long with children hike.  I completely misunderstood Ken and thought that he wanted to do the hike.   So I mentally prepared myself and bought the tickets.  It wasn't until we had exited the intro-video and were looking at the cable car that we realized the major mis-communication, luckily they were able to sell us the difference and we took the high (cable) road--what a relief!

Just like his pops

 

inside the church at Masada

dirt=sheer contentment

the descent

Turkey crossing or STOP sign?

 Elat will have to wait for our return 

More roadside attractions 

There's not much life around the Dead Sea--go figure, but we had been silly and hadn't thought of how to get milk for Zoya.   We endeavored to pull into one of the little villages or spa spots; there was a guard and gate and we tried to explain (at first in English, then with gestures) that we need to get some baby milk.  He said something that we understood as, "Just a minute," and returned to our car carrying a very cold bag of what we assumed to be milk. He told us to take the whole thing and wouldn't take money.  What a sweet man.

Zoya found joy in neither the mud nor the salty water

A real beauty

Soothing Zoya...apparently, this was one of the nicest beaches, Ken's feet thought otherwise, Rawly like Zoya was less than entrawled with actually entering the Sea, though he found it hilarious watching others do so.

Her hair is a bit shorter than Rawly's was at this age, but it's starting to curl, though snow caps in Kyiv cancel out all curl factor.

The belly flop float

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Absolutely stunning! Dead Sea at sunset

Good thing we turned around!

The Good Samaritan Inn was closed.

All tuckered out after a full day of sun, salt, and sand.

Mom wasn't hungry, but opted for three scoops--too many choices!

These weary travelers were thankful for such good dinner.  Yippee, yippee yea-yea!  WE LOVED dinner at La Boca and icecream at Aldo (gracias Lonely Planet!)  La Boca is a Latin Restaurant with the best represented menu I've seen.  Plus we discovered our favorite combo--hummus and salsa!