Leah Climbs a Wall; Ein Gedi

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

The pastry shop nearby is dangerous; once again we had wonderful chocolate stuffed pastries and rugalach for breakfast.  We met our guide for the day, Nafthali, in front of our building at 9 AM, and drove about 40 minutes to a beautiful nature preserve northeast of Jerusalem named En Prat.  Leah’s climbing guide, Itamar, and his assistant had already been here an hour, climbing to the top of the cliff wall and dropping three lines for three climbs, each more difficult than the last.  We walked into a canyon formed by a stream:

The path was lovely:

High above us, in a crevice in the cliff opposite the one Leah would climb was a monastery:

Leah got into her harness, special climbing shoes and helmet, and started up:

She was like a spider on the side of the cliff:

Here’s a video which shows the pace of the climb:

Almost there:

Made it:

She rappelled down, rested, and started on the second, and then the third climb.  By the end of the morning she was exhausted and exhilarated.  We were relieved she was still in one piece!

We began a drive toward the Dead Sea for the second half of our day, and stopped for lunch.  We then drove down the west side of the Dead Sea as far as Ein Gedi, a wonderful oasis, park and ancient ruin which we have visited before.  We concentrated today on the ancient city of Ein Gedi which has been excavated.  Here’s what you can see now:

The synagogue had a mosaic floor which is now protected by a huge tent-like canvas.  Here’s the floor and a detail:

Our guide was a trained archeologist and really lit up talking with us about the history of the city which was located here.  We had a wide-ranging discussion of archeological findings versus biblical history.  He was quite passionate.

Driving back north towards Jerusalem, Nafthali pointed out a relatively new (ten years) phenomenon, the development of giant sink holes at the edge of the sea.

It turns out that fresh water is newly running under the mountainside, dissolving huge salt deposits which leads to collapse of the surface and development of the sink holes.  This has ruined some of the resort hotels along the edge of the Dead Sea.  Fascinating.

Leah was exhausted on our return and is taking a nap as I write this.  We’ll go out to dinner in an hour or so.  More tomorrow.