Day 22

Now I'm currently sitting in our Masada hostel room and there is absolutely nothing to do. The pool here is closed, there is nowhere to go without a car, no public transport, no restaurants and nothing on tv. As such, this will probably be my longest and hopefully most entertaining blog ever.

This morning started with a 7am wake up in Tel Aviv and a quick pack o clothes into my day bag for the next 2 days. A quick breakfast of מילקי״" a chocolate yoghurt with cream on top kickstarted me into action, being the best yoghurt I have ever had.

By 8 I was out the door catching a bus to the central bus station and then the three of us onto another down to Ein Gedi. Whilst our bus had about 10 people on at the start and we could sleep anywhere we wanted, after our Jerusalem stop the bus was packed and I had to settle with 2 seats instead of my preferred 5.

Steve replaced his sunglasses at the second pit stop, going a bit upperclass compared to his last with a 60₪ pair.

Finally at about 11, we arrived at the Ein Gedi and started our walk. We walked in between the small pools and waterfalls on the Wadi David side making it up to the waterfall at the end. After reaching there we heard of some springs right near the top of the mountain. As we had already lost our map and had no idea how far away they were, we of course headed up.

The trek was quite hard, climbing up about 400m by the end and having a few spills along the way. However knowing what would be at the end, got us through it.

Much to our surprise once we did reach our destination the spring was tiny and it took a bit of looking around before we believed we were at the right place. After such a disappointment we asked around if there was anywhere better to go and were told to hike back past where we had come from. Another long hike but this time there was a reward. Nice cold pools to finally relax and jump in.

Once we decided to go we swung past the first pools once more and then headed down the mountain. We walked over to Ein Gedi beach and had the big lunch we had been craving the whole day. Once we were done we went down to the beach and finally after 3 weeks in Israel swam in the Dead Sea. It was amazing! Much better than I remember it. That could have been because this time it was summer and instead of 15 degrees, it was 40.

Hearing that the bus going to our hostel left in 20 minutes we had to race in the water and race out. After literally sprinting after the bus to catch it we made it to our hostel after a bit of loomig around. Now whilst this was our most expensive hostel so far, it was definitely a step up from the others. A swimming pool, tv and only one other person in our room this place was quite well. After one look at the pool, we raced upstairs put our stuff down and dived straight in.

Once the pool closed we had a chill in our room, shower and went down for a bite to eat. Hearing that they no longer served dinner here meant we were eating food from a canteen for supper. Bizzli, noodles in a cup and a ice cream sufficed for dinner and then we headed back up to our room.

So here I am, in our room, attempting to kill time. Tomorrow we wake up early to catch sunrise on top of the mountain and maybe take another trip to Ein Bokek. That's all for now.