This weekend I finally got the chance to do some serious traveling. There is another summer intern in the solar energy center (conveniently, also named Sam!) who is visiting from MIT. It turns out there are actually dozens and dozens of MIT interns scattered across the country as part of a certain international program, so they are all networked together and organize trips time to time. I was invited to represent the South and tag along with the Boston crew to the Dead Sea, and it couldn’t have been a greater time.
View of the beach at Ein Gedi.
We managed to find the right bus from Beer Sheva to Ein Gedi — about 2 hours and $10. We settled on a youth hostel that was so affordable (especially with 9 people) and comfortable that it was impossible to refuse.
View from our balcony at the hostel.
After securing our reservation, we walked down to the Ein Gedi beach (less than ten minutes away!) and experienced the famous Dead Sea treatment — complete with a mud bath and all. The water was still and perfect temperature, and it really was impossible not to float!
Toasting with some fruit juice after a mud bath.
The mud is supposed to have some special therapeutic properties for one’s skin. I’m not sure about that, but it was still relaxing and fun smearing on! It is harvested from what looks like an oily sinkhole, and applied liberally in globs.
Because of the shabbat, there were no buses running until Saturday evening, so we had extra time to spend hiking in the Ein Gedi nature reserve. There are a series of waterfalls that one may swim in:
At the base of the head of the waterfalls.
The trails also wind around the rocky hills, some of them taking up to 4 hours to complete. While it was too hot by this time to attempt one of these, we pressed on a bit to get a breathtaking view of the Sea in its (almost) entirety.
View of the lowest place on Earth!
The hostel was generous and let us check out later that afternoon, so there was only a bit of time to kill at the beach before hailing a taxi van to take us back. This is considered a bit above hitch-hiking, although most of th vans are informally operated. We made it from our hostel to the hotel district (about 20 miles away), then did some hard bartering to find another van that would take us to Arad. This was accomplished by ultimately getting four drivers involved, and arguing with each other over who saw us “first.” In the end, we got a great rate to Arad, and then caught a bus back to Beer Sheva to recover our things left from our stay at BGU the night before. It was one last connection for the Sam’s, and after 49 hours of traveling, swimming and hiking we were finally home in Sede Boker.
But there was one more surprise waiting for me in my room: a desert spider so big it was nearly the size of my hand.
The picture to the left on the wall is maybe a foot tall.
We had to shoo him out of my room into the hallway, but were too tired and (honestly) afraid to go anywhere near this sucker. These spiders are non-poisonous, but they are known to bite and could probably withstand a smack with a frying pan.
After over 20 minutes of head-scratching/staring, we decided to just let him be in the hallway and finally go to bed. Apparently, the staff squished him the next morning!
EDIT: it was correctly pointed out that this thing actually has 10 legs, not the typical eight. A bit of research suggests it is still called a camel spider, and that the extra appendages are for eating/intimidation purposes.
Not exactly the ideal "welcome home" token.
So, that basically sums up an awesome weekend at the Dead Sea with a bunch of cool people from MIT! There are plans to take the upcoming shavuot holiday (four day weekend) and go to Petra (Jordan), although this will require substantially more planning than the “show up and hope there are cheap hostels/houses/tents for beach camping we can rent” approach that somehow panned out this time. Stay tuned!