Would you Rather...

The title for this blog comes from one of those time-wasting games you play to relieve the boredom of waiting for transport, for New Years Eve fireworks or even Carols in the Domain to begin. For the uninitatied the game involves someone giving you two options and everyone has to decide which one they would prefer – with reasons. Usually it’s between two bad options (ie. Would you rather be killed by snakes or scorpions) or two good options (would you rather be a famous sportstar or actor). It’s a great game to get to know those in your group and often you find out more by the questions people ask rather then that answers given. More on this later...

Masada

I was blown away by this place. Again I was pretty ignorant about it all. We left Jerusalem and headed towards the Dead Sea. When you get there and head south, you have the sea on your left and imposing cliffs on your right. On top of these cliffs is where Herod built an incredible fortress. As we were driving there I wondered how you would attack one of these places. (As an aside – this and some other places we’ve visited would be epic to have capture the flag or even paintball tournaments in... don’t think the tourist authorities would be that impressed)

 

[North side of fortress – perception is skewed here but the Dead sea in background is about 400m below sea level and this is 33m above sea level I think]

So here I was thinking how on earth are you going to take this fortress with ancient technology and then realised I wasn’t thinking big enough. The Romans who had to take attack this fortress once the Jews rebelled and hid here built a ramp up to the citadel. How incredible – for two years they built this massive ramp just to capture this one place.

[Massive Roman ramp – those dots at the bottom are people walking up]

Which brings us to the “Would you rather” question for the day.

Would you rather be captured by the Romans and become a slave or commit suicide?

For those that know the story or have seen the movie could easily answer what the Jews decided. They chose to end their lives (including children) rather then be enslaved. Thinking about it, I don’t know if I would have done the same. I was reminded of the story of the man who told the king he could make a horse talk within a year to save his life. As he told his wife, “the King could die, or I could die naturally within the year. Or the horse could talk.”

If you haven’t guessed it’s been a day of thinking – which is pretty dangerous on a holiday... But the fortress is still pretty impressive – you can walk up the old path (2hrs +), the Roman ramp (30 minutes) or take the cable car (2 mins). Guess which one we took!

Once you return to the base they have a factory store of Ahava products from the Dead Sea. Supposedly its good stuff – recommended by Bronwyn – and was cheap here. Interesting name for the product. I remember the Nooma episode describing all the different types of love in Hebrew. Mum again went on a spending spree; she’s going to need a very friendly flight check-in agent to get her overweight baggage home.

Dead Sea

Our final stop for the day was the Dead Sea. I’ve been looking forward to this! We got changed, headed down to the water (so should have bought sandals... oh my poor and tender feet...) and got in. In the truest sense of the word, it’s an unreal experience! You wade in and slightly lean back and whooska – you feet are out of the water and you’re on your back. While oceans are around 3% salt, the Dead Sea is an amazing 33% salt. It’s also evaporating – they’ve had to rebuild this tourist spot a couple of times cause the water keeps receding.

Again the typical tourist photo – Mum trying to read a Russian newspaper.

One more sightseeing day in Jerusalem. Then off to Jordan which we’ve seen across the River and Sea.