FRIDAY MARCH 15

Early day today. We went with Egged tour group and went to Masada and the Dead Sea. Egged Tours.
This is the cave that 15,000 scrolls were found in the 1940s by a Bedouin shepherd boy. Cave #4 it's called.

At Masada (a complex built by Herod but destroyed by the Romans in 73 AD).

Yes, grandchildren, your grandma actually rode in that cable car to get to the top!

Ruins of Masada. It was huge!

Part of the baths.

Hot, hot, hot. 90 minutes of walking up and down steps in the sun.

Cistern to store water.

Then we ate lunch in Masada, then boarded the bus for the Dead Sea.

Our first glimpse of the beach.

Emily in the Dead Sea.

The water was cold.

It's so salty that it makes one very buoyant. It's difficult to get one's feet under oneself to stand up.

After getting out, we did a mud bath. Very good for the skin. Then we walked up to the spa and rinsed off.

Then we went into a mineral spa. Hot! And salty.

Our skin was so soft! Then we bussed back to the hotel, exhausted after a day in the sun.