Masada
Another bus takes us along the shoreline-- stopping to pick up several blond backpackers.
Everybody aboard the bus speaks English.
The bus goes up a dry brown hill to the Masada Youth Hostel where we leave our backpacks.
We want to visit the archaeological site of Masada, an old mesa-top fortress high above the hostel, so we hike to the top of the cliff on “Snake Path” to save the ticket price of the aerial tramway.
It’s an extremely hot hike. We envy the cool tourists as they pass overhead with a science-fiction whir in their elegant cable cars.
We are met at the summit by the usual machine-gun toting security guards, except these are uniformed girls. I have noticed that many of the army personnel here are women and I don’t know whether to salute or flirt. One thing for sure, these soldiers and weapons everywhere mean things are not good in this miserable desert.
The ancient fortress of Masada is now a very eroded heap of adobe ruins. The Romans knew a good military site when they found one though and they newly rebuilt most of the present ruins for their outpost. The mosaic floor of the Roman bathhouse has been nicely restored and there are traces of one of the oldest synagogues in the world and of a Christian church supposedly “built by monks in five A.D.”
An excellent and romantic view from the cliff-top is the interesting geological formation: “The Tongue of the Dead Sea”.
Black birds sail far below us as the sun sets.
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