Day 3
– Jordan River
Our first stop for the day was the Jordan River. Driving here was a little unnerving as we had to drive through a heavily mined area – there were signs all over warning of the danger! Then scout vehicles going back and forth sweeping for tracks.
Once we got to the Jordan River, it was neat to sit down to read the scriptures from the Savior’s baptism by John the Baptist.
Then we walked down to the river to dip our hands in – others were bottling up this ‘holy water’ to take home or going even further, to swim in it.
I was surprised at how brown it is.
At this point, our bus started to have problems. We had to wait a short time for a new bus to arrive, but while we were on the side of the road (outside of the mining area), we spied some ibex.
It was quite neat to see them in their natural habitat. Then the bus arrived and we continued on with our scheduled tour.
– Qumran
Qumran is an area of ruins now, where many believe many of the ‘Sons of Light’ (Luke 16:8) lived. The Dead Sea Scrolls were actually found by accident by some Bedouin boys playing in the holes and caves here.
– Masada
This was, by far, our biggest stop. Masada is where Herod the Great chose to build his palace. We took a cable-car up to the plateau where it was built.
It was amazing to see the ‘nothingness’ where Herod chose to have his palace. There is absolutely nothing around it – he had to bring in everything in order to survive here. It was quite interesting to learn how Masada functioned as a fortress.
An added input from our time here was learning that Ezekiel chapter 37 was found here, where many old scriptures had been buried.
– Dead Sea
We had been scheduled to go float in the Dead Sea, but with our bus breaking down and lots of time being spent at Masada, we didn’t have enough time for what Steven had planned. The private beach he was going to take us to was closing so we convinced him to take us to the public beach. We didn’t have towels provided for us there, so we all consented to just putting our feet in. It was a little disheartening as some of us (Emma), had really been looking forward to this part of our trip. But, we were in it!
The water, itself, was quite filmy-feeling from all the salt. All around you could see the salt covering the rocks or other items that had been left close to shore.
It was neat to see how far everyone was, and floating so high on the water. One man put a big rock on his stomach and couldn’t sink his body.
It is said the Dead Sea is quite a therapeutic place. If you can’t make it here to cover yourself in its mud, . . .
. . . they always sell it in the tourist shops!
– Omar
Our last event of the day was actually in the evening after dinner, when we went with Steven’s friend, Omar, to his Olive Wood Shop.
The carvings were beautiful. A lot of items were the standard ‘Jerusalem Olive Wood’ that you see in any tourist shop, but a lot of them were done by Omar and his brother, catering to LDS tourists. We seemed to do the bulk of our souvenir shopping here – it’s a good thing they shipped it all back for us!
As we were preparing to leave, Omar presented Emma with an early wedding gift – a pair of candlesticks. She was slightly embarrassed at the reference but was very appreciative for the gift.
Leave a Comment