A place you never thought you would go.
It’s not like you didn’t want to go there, but you just hadn’t thought of going. We all have one. Well, I used to, anyways.
Let’s step back a bit. I’ve said before how easy Tel Aviv was to manage. Almost everyone speaks English, and the city generally has a friendly manageable feel to it. Renting a car is a relatively easy thing, too. Especially if you have a friend like Vered who can give you the lowdown.
I grabbed a car from Budget, one of the many car rental agencies in the city, since they had a return option to drop the car off at Ben-Gurion airport, and blazed a trail for Vered’s apartment. I managed to weave through the spaghetti track of streets surrounding her flat and only anger one carload of people in the process of picking her up. Apparently, I have hutzpah.
We got out of the city as quick as possible to grab the ever-dazzling Dana before we made for our true objective; the Dead Sea!
The drive was easy peezy and the landscape across Israel is as varied as any I have seen; mountains, farms, dense near-jungle, and expansive desert. We hit a convenience store on the way to pick up some snacks and cats.
Before too long we were pulling up at the souther beachhead of the famed Dead SEA! I was about to find out what all the fuss was about… and there had been a fuss. Since my arrival, everyone I met asked me if I had been to the Dead Sea yet. When I said no, I was often met with surprise or mock outrage. It’s kind of a big deal.
This place was a blast.
You simply cannot sink! Unfortunately for our camera shenanigans, my Olympus camera didn’t agree with the high salt content of the water and promptly stopped working until we could get out of the water and clean it up. Then we promptly began misbehaving.
One thing to note; this is a touristy destination. As such, things are tourist prices. If you can, bring your own water and snacks, because if you buy them at the shore, you’ll be paying more than you bargained for.
The beach was peppered with visitors. At least half of them were local Arabs. I was able to discern this because the women were covered head to toe; they even wore their shoes. While I and most of the beach were running around, jumping in the water, and rolling in the mud, these women were squatting on the shore, dipping their hands in the water and rubbing the mud between their fingers. It was a little surreal.
This much salt and heat and fun and sun can get exhausting. It’s hard having this much playtime. Eventually, we just sat in our sun chairs and made less sense and more faces as the day wore on.
Finally, after the 100th attempt at conversation by the strangely androgynous boys wandering around the beach, we decided we had had enough heat stroke and packed up the car to head back to something like reality.
It was Friday. In Israel, that means Shabat. And as this was the first weekend of Hanukah, it meant just a little more. Further proof that I am indeed one of the luckiest humans ever to walk this planet; I was invited to spend the evening with Dana and her family.
I am not Jewish. I have had little to no exposure to the religion, other than reading a couple (mostly historical) books about the religion. I haven’t even read the Bible all the way through. That doesn’t mean that any of the magic of the night was lost on this non-believer.
At that time, there was a huge fire running through the forests of Israel. Dana’s family was truly concerned and kept watching the television for updates throughout the night. One of Dana’s coworkers was already killed in the fire. Dana and her cousin, Noar, had to relay all this to me because her parents spoke no English at all.
That doesn’t mean her parents and I didn’t communicate; it just means there was more sign language and smiling than actual nouns and verbs.
The weight of the day added something of a reverence and sincerity to the evening. The table was covered with food. The food was covered with prayer. The family took turns reading from the Torah. There was even singing, though I couldn’t understand a word. It was beautiful.
At the close of the evening, I still had many miles to go before I reached the little town of Tel Aviv. Dana gave me her best directions and I made it part way before I had to stop and ask Vered for more help.
Driving through a foreign country at night by yourself is pretty cool if you don’t care where you are going. If you actually have to make it somewhere, it becomes a bit more of a mission. Finally, with the ceaseless help of my two companions and a few street signs, I made it back to Tel Aviv and my hotel.
I was wrung out. After a huge day of hundreds of kilometers and endless adventure I made it to bed and slept like I’d been blackjacked.
Every day of this trip has been different. So many mornings I awake with no idea what the day will bring. This was a day unlike any other.
When I tried to sink, I was buoyed up. When I got lost, friends old and new were there to help. When I was hungry I was taken in, fed, and treated like I belonged there.
There are places we never thought we would go. There are things we never thought of doing. This doesn’t mean we have to do it, but if we do, the people we do it with will make all the difference.
Wrap Up:
You can visit the Dead Sea quite simply with a tour group. Just ask your hotel.
If you want to rent a car, there are plenty of agencies, but you can’t return the car on Saturday unless it is at the airport.
For less than 3 days rental, you are limited to how many kilometers you can drive. Be sure you know.
Life is better with friends; make some.