Amateur Adventures # 60: Wandering in the Desert

Hey Steemians

Time for another travel adventure. But we are going to leave China briefly (mostly because there are several hundred photos between Xian and Huangshan that I can't quite locate at this moment - I truly hope that's a temporary state!)

So in the mean time I thought I'd revisit some of our adventures in Israel. A place I haven't shared too much of just yet.

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Israel was difficult for me for a number of reasons - arising partly from being raised with strict catholic doctrine and partly from my own views and feelings about that general part of the world, the political climate and the social structure of the country.

At this point my mother who was the driver of the Catholic faith in our family was already very sick. She never traveled out of Australia but had always dreamed of visiting the Holy Lands. I was by 2012, when we visited Israel more of a non-practicing catholic and actually was not that keen to go. Ironically @cryptoandzen - much less religious (though very much spiritual) had it near the top of his travel list. I got Morocco so it was only fair he got Israel.

So naturally our trip involved a lot of seeing the places I'd read about as a child in the very first book I remember owning. A very big, very heavy hard cover picture book of the Bible. (Actually they did a pretty good job turning it into a story book.

I recall standing on Mt Nebo - where Moses was shown the promised land - looking at the vast desert and thinking I hoped it was a hell of a lot greener all those thousands of years ago. You very much feel like you are wandering the desert once you get to exploring the interior of Israel.

Once such deserty place is Herod's Fortress - the famous Masada.

Sitting on the edge of the Judaean desert it towers above the Dead Sea. Herod (yep the one in the stories who was concerned about losing his earthly kingdom to Jesus of the babies and ordered them slain) built his palace on top of the mountain turning it into a great fortress.

The fortress was built around 35 years before Jesus was said to have been born. It is on a large plates that rises 14000 ft high. Not only was it rich and luxurious with Roman bath houses and luxurious living quarters, but the fortress could store vast amounts of drinking water and food and combined with it's height was almost impenetrable against a siege.

In it's time the fortress would have been an amazing architectural feat. There were large cisterns built into the mountain, and an intricate system of waterways connecting the valleys which flooded annually, to the cisterns. When the waters came once a year, the constructed waterways would catch as much of the water as possible, and channel it into the mountain, filling the many cisterns. This supply of water was enough to provide clean drinking water for the entire year until the next rainy season.

There are two ways up the mountain to the fortress - based on the time you have available and you level of fitness! You can make the long climb up the snake path (we didn't have time and I'm sticking to that story) or you can catch the cable car) As the cable car slowly rises the female Ibex (mountain goats) stop to watch them passing. The ibex graze the side of the mountain looking for what little grass there is. A tough way to get a feed!

The snake path - which rises 400 meters takes up to 1 and a half hours to hike - though much quicker on the way down! During the Jewish occupation of Masada in 70AD this of course was the only way up or down.

The siege of Masada, which happened during the first Jewish Roman War (73-74 AD) was one of the most significant and controversial events in Jewish history where almost 1000 rebels committed suicide rather than surrender to the Romans, and the Jewish people see this as a place of reverence.

We visited Masada during the day - in late April early May and temperatures were already soaring (in fact the snake path closes at 10am due to the heat) While we didn't get to see Sunrise, I've been told it is an amazing sight. There is no doubt that this is a must see on a trip to Israel.

I hope you enjoyed todays advneture and it inspires you to get out andsee this wondrous rock we live on!

Til next time Steem on in Love and Light

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!steemitworldmap 31.3157599 lat 35.3466682 long Masada Israel - D3SCR