The last week has been so busy this is my first opportunity to update the blog. We are now on the long bus ride through the desert back to Tel Aviv from Israel’s southern most town of Eilat .. a resort town on the edge of the Red Sea. Beautiful spot and with all the gorgeous food I’ve been eating I could rival Moses & part the Red Sea by just lying back in the water ! ( Les Mils membership to be reactivated as soon as I get back !) The tour ends tonight and then Mum & I are on our own in Jerusalem staying at an air bnb for the next 5 nights inside the old city walls…and I wont be able to have dessert for breakfast anymore !
17/3/2019:
The caves at Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found were the first stop of the day. Stunning landscape and how they got up to those caves I don’t know. No wonder they remained undiscovered for several thousand years. We saw the real Dead Sea scrolls on display a few days later at the Shrine of the Book.
Masada was next and a highlight for me. King Herod sure had an amazing architect to build his holiday house in the desert and the builders must have had nerves of steel hanging off the cliffs to build it……..whoops there goes Jacob… one less for dinner tonight Martha !! 
The cable car ride up was the easy way but we were very grateful for it when we saw the sheer scale of the Masada slopes. The view at the top was unrivaled and at the summit I wasn’t expecting it to be so big, but it’s huge. An entire little town up there! And when it was used by the Jewish rebels to hide from the Romans, only 2 women and 5 children were found alive. The rest had a pact and had been killed or committed suicide rather than be captured as slaves. I reckon the last guy standing who had been picked to fall on his sword when everyone else was dead had done ‘a boy look’ & missed the 7 people that survived to tell the tale!
The Dead Sea swim later in the day turned out to be a very tricky affair as the water has receded so much that to get in you had to hold onto a guide rope and walk over very slippery rocks. The winds were strong so waves were throwing people off balance and in the end Mum sat it out ( she did it 20 years ago with Dad when the sea level was higher and it was a sandy walk in). I managed to get in and out but it was a mission and I had to help one of our group who slipped over and got the very salty water in his eyes. Ouch, not good ! I will not be providing photos of me in my togs as proof that I did it due to previously mentioned food consumption & lack of gym time ! But if you enlarge the photo I’ll eventually add to this post, that’s me in the distance on the left with a cap on and water shoes next to Brad from our group in a white T-shirt.
Dead Sea scrolls caves at Qumran
Cable Car up to Masada
View from the top of Masada