Yefe Nof Hotel Arad

... day, I could make out the cave in the distance and reflect on the significance of this place. A quick visit to the shop in the Visitor’s Centre yielded obligatory souvenirs of the Dead Sea (how much skin cream featuring Dead Sea minerals should we bring back??).

5. We returned to the ship via Jerusalem and had one last chance to experience the city at its busiest, rush hour on the eve of the Sabbath. What an amazing modern city, and certainly one where we would love to return ...

... es nichts zu sehen gibt, ab** einige Fled**mäuse aufgescheucht davonflatt**n, als wir eintreten. Weit** als 4 Schritte kann man ab** gar nicht gehen. Neben dem Mini-Tempel ist ein Gelände, wo offensichtlich noch Ausgrabungen stattfinden - alles abgesp**rt. Zurück am Auto frag ich den "Touristenführ**" ob es denn Eintritt kosten würde (im Lonely Planet steht es ist kostenlos). Er sagt 5 JD. Das fand ich üb**trieben. D** arme K**l sitzt sich** den ganzen Tag dort rum ...

... stations of the cross together. The nature of Old Jerusalem, however, stacked the odds against group activities. After thirty minutes of walking, being turned back again at several Muslim-only checkpoints, and walking in four or five different (and wrong) directions, Maurice stopped for a schwarma. Miriam turned around to see why he had stopped. Erik and I assumed she went with him and wandered on. Miriam then turned around, saw us gone, and couldn't find Maurice. Men ...

... i'm sure he is. he has a problem with me keeping my shampoo on a rack in the shower because that would mean he had to, at some point, place his bottle of shampoo on the shower floor. he wears shoes in the shower (probably not a bad idea, really). the real kicker is that he refuses to swim in the dead sea because he's convinced that tons and tons of germs are in there from all the people who come to cure their skin ailments. i tried ...

... we walked to his friend's work. When we got there, they were closing up, and his friend wasn't even there anyway, so we took a cab home.  When we got home, I had to take my first malaria pill. I was so scared cause the pharmacist said that some of the reactions to the medication are hallucinations, bad nightmares, thought of suicide. Yeah.....not fun. So I sat down, ate the rest of my toast, and took the pill. I went to bed with a bag just in case i had ...

... there we hiked all the way down the snake path (45min) to get warm:) after that we took our bus down to the dead sea [31.460854,35.404473]; a nice feeling standing on the lowest spot on earth (-400m). But in my opinion it is not as nice as everyboy says....it was very smelly...stupid sulfur and the water is like oil...i can not understand what everybody likes about that place...ok you can take nice fotos but thats all:D From there ...

... point when we got closer to the Dead Sea. It was beautiful and also had a fort (named Zohar Fort) below the lookout, and if you ventured off the "safe zone" you could see car wreckage. However the stench was horrible, people stopped there not only for the views.

Once we got to the Dead Sea, and our ears stopped popping from going so low below sea level, we entered a strip with the beaches and ...

... Jews of two thousand years ago. Before we walked back down the mountain we took one more stop at a perch of the mountain. All of us squeezed onto a long narrow platform on the edge of a cliff. I am particularly scared to the bone by heights which made it difficult, not to mention the ferocious winds that threatened to throw someone off (well at least that's how my irrational mind was thinking at the time). We screamed four words, word by word ...

... in between some rocks and scrapped up my leg pretty good, it hurt the rest of the way, especially when going through the water which in that case it stung; it's looking a lot better now though. We got to play in two very beautiful, relaxing, and quiet springs (because these are the farther ones that a lot of tourists don't go to); once again, one of the best days yet. Monday: Same morning routine, don't think I really need to go over this one again. Today was different ...

... trip employee, and three soldiers matched up with the group to spend time with us and hang out for the week) but we hadn't witnessed any conflict or problems. And they kept trying to tell us that as long as we stayed away from the Territories, we were perfectly safe. But then, eight people are dead, near Tel Aviv where it's supposed to be safe, and it really made everyone wonder, how false was this sense of security? (Keep in mind that this trip ...