My Israel Adventure: Days Seven and Eight

Wednesday 23rd February

Today was the Dead Sea – the lowest point on earth, too salty to sustain any life other than 15 types of bacteria, and thus very buoyant. Longish walk along busy roads to the central bus station, to get the bus to Ein Gedi. Bus more like a coach, with blinds and seatbelts and fans. Really good value too.


Amazing scenery of the desert and its hills, and then of the sea – sparking like bright blue glass. A very warm and sunny day.


Oversized and overpriced lunch at the only restaurant at the public beach, then hobbled down to a spot underneath one of the large red umbrellas.




After getting into my swimming costume, feeling wobbly and white, I took my book down to the sea. Not as easy as I thought! Stones and rocks on the seabed covered in salt crystals, which were very sharp and so I cut my feet and hands quite a few times. Getting into a reclining, floating position wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be either – not supposed to ‘swim’ at all, but stay on one’s back, near the shore, or else the coastguard with a loudspeaker will reprimand you.



Once I did managed to sit back and float, it was fun – absolutely glorious views. Afterwards my skin felt all slimy and the cuts were really sore – rinsed off beneath a shower on one of the umbrellas.

The sea is getting a lot lower, and there are sections where it’s no longer accessible from the beach – so there are ‘skeletons’ of umbrellas no longer in use.


Long wait at the bus stop – but what a setting!


The journey back in the lowering sun was amazing. I could imagine biblical characters hiding in desert caves. Had a lovely meal in the evening. Sad to be going.



Thursday 24th February

Checked out the Jerusalem Hostel – which I heartily recommend as a place to stay.


Went to the Mahane Yehuda market – loads of stalls selling fruit, pastries, nuts, bread, vegetables. I was a bit fazed by it all and probably got in people's way with all my looking round and staring!


Went to Armenian ceramics shop, which was beautiful, and so welcoming. ‘Leisurely brunch’ at T’mol Shilshom, the bookish cafe, and then goodbyes* and my sherut – a shared taxi/mini bus that you book in advance. Driver was crazy – arriving early everywhere and honking his horn. Went to the areas of Jerusalem dominated by ultra-orthodox Jews. I was the only person in the taxi who wasn’t an orthodox Jew, I think (which was interesting as someone who spends most of my life as a member of the ethnic/religious majority). Pair of young woman with Brooklyn accents dressed in black, holding babies on their laps; a British rabbi and his son; two teenage English girls talking excitedly about one of them getting engaged to an Israeli lad the previous evening. A hasidic young man got on, and didn’t take a seat, and then the rabbi asked me if I would move and sit next to one of the girls, because ‘they don’t like to sit next to women. Don’t like it spiritually, I mean!’

I’d had a truly wonderful and amazing time in Israel – but after the experience of leaving the country, I wondered if they’re trying to put people off coming back. You get there three hours in advance, which I thought was a formality – but no, I was queueing, having things scanned, queueing again, having more things scanned, rinse and repeat, for 2.5 hours! Shattered by the time I got on the plane.

On the flight home I read Jim Crace’s Quarantine. Whilst I was in Israel, I’d thought that I hadn’t found it very spiritual – but reading Crace’s evocation of the Judean desert, where I’d been the previous day (and strangely he never has!) I realised that the landscape had affected me deeply; as had the churches and the museums etc, and although it wasn’t ‘spiritual’ in my usual understanding of that word- it was powerful, and will forever shape my religious imagination, I think.

*spending time with my dear friends was a big reason why I went to Israel in the first place, and huge part of why I had such a wonderful time. I've not written of them for reasons of public/private boundaries etc, not because they're not important.