Hope you guys have some time to kill, cause here's the next installment
So the last time I finished writing we were headed to the oceanarium. We drove down and first took in an interactive movie, the kind with the moving seats so that you feel right in the middle of all the action. The movie was in Hebrew, but you could get headphones and plug them in to either the english or russian translation. We all did the english, but for some reason russian sentances could be heard in the background. They were always very satanic and funny. The movie was a little cheesy, but overall very informative and educational. We learned about all sorts of marine life around eilat. After the movie we went on a boat ride with a glass bottom. This was really amazing. Apparently Eilat has an amazing variety of coral and you see all different types growing in the same area. We also saw needle fish and parrot fish and even goldfish. An interesinting little tidbit, in a group of goldfish and parrot fish if there is only one male and he dies the strongest female changes sex to become the alpha male. Weird right? We also checked out the underwater observatory which was very similar to the glass bottom boat but pretty cool overall. I was hurting with the foot so i didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. The guys also went to check out the shark tank, but I stayed back since I was in some pain.
After we came home, everyone slept for a bit and then most people went shopping. Again I slept and rested in my room so that the healing process can begin. The others bought some nice stuff though. I was kind of jealous. The next day we headed to Ein GEdi.
We headed out at about 12:30 or so through the desert in our newly rented Kia. It actually fit us all and our bags pretty comfortably. I think we were all surprised by that fact. On our way to Ein Gedi we stopped by this huge crater that spans something along the lines of 40 km. It was naturally formed, not due to any meteors or anything like that. Just due to the lay of the land. The guys decided to go through the little museum with a movie, but I just hung out outside and enjoyed the view. They highly enjoyed the movie though for two reasons. Reason #1 - The movie starts out in the following way... "The earth is 4.5 billion years old. That's 4.5 BILLION years. WE know that 4.5 billion years is a difficult concept to grasp so we will refer to the earth's life span as 1 day but in reality it's 4.5 BILLION!!!! years old. 4.5. Billion." Reason #2 - quote from the movie - "This land was very rich in culture. The nabateans went through here, the romans, etc and the culture flourished. then the arabs came.... [meaningful silence] then after the creation of israel it is starting to flourish again". Pretty impartial movie huh?
Our next order of business was to see the town of Dimona. It seems that durring the 70s a group of black jews came over to israel and established a colony called Dimona. They brought soul food and music. Now their culture is a mix of chicago and israel. The music is a mix of gospel, reggae, and something alltogether new. They are jews in all traditions, but on top of that they pnly dress in natural fabrics and are vegans. They are known in Israel as the Black Hebrews. When we got to Dimona we were very dissapointed though since we saw no black people there, however we saw an overabundance of Russians. I think the Russians took over Dimona and inched out the blacks. It was around 4 pm in Friday when we got there and the place looked deserted. Almost nothing was open. WE saw a kiosk called "KABKA3" but they were closed and watching the world cup. They told us that we had no chance finding anything to eat there, but that there is a cafe on the way out of town. We drove around some more and got pretty lost. Antonov was sent to a grocery store for some info on restaurants and emerged a few minutes later with a challah. It seems that the girl told him we had no place to go to eat, and gave him the challah so that we could at least have that for Shabbat. We devoured the challah in seconds.
WE finally got out of town and cound a little out of the way cafe. It also sold oversized toys and all sorts of weird stuff. The owner made us basically grilled bread with tomatoes and cheese inside. They were very good. While we were eating Sereja talked with the owner who happened to have some very particular views on the black hebrews. He basically said that they were all criminals who came to israel so that they would not be put in jail. He also said that they are polygamists. Apparently they were not even considered Israeli citizens until about 5 years ago and they do not have to serve in the israeli army. The only ones who serve are volunteers. Also no one has a college education and they live in a very close knit community who survives by playing the music i mentioned earlier. There is a following of it and they make money performing and selling CDs. Basically the guy is not a fan. So I don't know how much of what he said was valid. Now you know what I know.
It was pretty late when we made it to Ein Gedi. We just made it to dinner which was incredible. WE ended up staying in a hotel that was run by a kibbutz. The grounds of the hotel are like a botanical Garden. They have an amazing variety of plants and flowers that are in bloom. The smell is just different there. Since a lot of people where still having stomach flu/food oisoning issues, we decided to hold off on Masada untill our last morinig and mainly relax the next day.
We got up at 7am in order to eat breakfast and make the guided hike of the waterfall. Durring the hike we saw a whole giant group of Ibexes which are like mountain goats. There were families of them and just general groups moving from mountain to mountain. At first there was no water in site, but the higher we went the more water we saw. At one point we stopped for 10 minutes and swam in the spring under the waterfall. WE hiked all the way up to the main waterfall where the kibbuttz gets its water supply from. Again the plants that grew there were absolutely amazing. Here we splintered off from the group and took our time splashing in the spring under the waterfall. the water was great and being under the waterfall was a great feeling.
Since we had such a stressfull morning we decided to go to the Ein Gedi Spa next. We made massage appointments as soon as we got in and then relaxed a little bit by swimming in the Dead sea and covering ourselves in the dead sea mud. I put a bag on my leg and it worked for a while, until I really swam away from the shore.. and then ..... AAAAHHHHHHHHHH the pain, the horrible searing pain. Sereja had to tow me to shore. it was not fun, but we have pictures that capture that lovely moment. My massage was a piece of heaven. I didn't even feel fully conscious. Only the part that was being worked on felt alive. 1 hour full body massage fealt awfully nice. We finished off the day by chilling by the pool and waiting for everyone to get their massage. It was wonderful except for the Russians that were there. They were the most uncivilized people i have ever met. If you are standing in line they just invade your personal space and then plainly just push you out of the way. It's lots of fun. But other than that the experience was wonderful.
When we got back to the hotel we went to sleep pretty quickly since we had to get up at 4 am for the masada. Even though that is the time we got up we did not make it out till after 4:30 and did not get to the masada until about 5. The sun rise was at 5:35 and the hike was said to take about 45 minutes. We hauled ass up those stairs. I think we all almost died on our way up. I made it one minute before the sunrise but we made it non the less. That sunrise was absolutely breathtaking. WE also ran into Nir, the soldier that was on mine and Olya's birthright trip 2 years ago. We also saw Varshavsky and some gy who i totally don't remember but who went to Champaign - younger generation of the Makaron group. We tagged along with the russian birthright group for a while and listened to a lecture about the Masada and then tood another 45 mnutes to hike down. We saw people basically not feeling well and turning back on our way down.
We made it to our hotel with just enough time to each breakfast and check out. We were told by our tel aviv guy that he will only be available at 2:30 so we did not have a lot of time to waste. After we passed Jerusalem however we finally stopped at a pharmach and loaded up on PeptoBismo, Aloe and Neosporin. When we got to our Tel aviv appartment we were floored. It's amazing and only a block from the beach. We basically settled in, did laundry and food shopping and then just walked on the beach for a bit.
That's all folks, thanks for your patience and you will be getting more emails soon
love, Katya
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