En Gedi is a very beautiful oasis close to the Dead Sea. While everything around is very dry and stony, in these two valleys the springs foster a lot of green and attract many animals.
Even where the water is close, it´s very dry but without the springs there would be no plants at all.
The Dead Sea lies 400m below sea-level while the plateau reaching close to the Dead Sea is at 200m above sea-level.
The little stream of the "Ben David Wadi" is hidden very well between the rocks and bushes on the ground of the valley.
But when you get higher up, you discover the first little pools.
Looking out towards the Dead Sea, you would´t imagine that you are in the middle of a stone desert.
Of course this beautiful place attracts a lot of visitors...
...who enjoy to take a refreshing bath in the water.
This waterfall is the end of the easily accessible part of the valley and seems to be quite unreal under these settings.
Ibex (deutsch: Steinböcke) are one of the many animals attracted by the water.
This is the mountain of Masada, the famous fortification from King Herod´s times 2000 years ago. Read my second letter for an explanation of its history.
From the Masada mountain, 350m above the Dead Sea, one has a wonderful overview of the Dead Sea and into Jordan.
Unfortunately, it was very hazy when we were at the Dead Sea so the visibility is not very good.
Probably due to the rather dry desert climate and the missing vegetation, the Masada complex is in pretty good shape considering it was conquered by the Roman army in 73 AD. Even some wall paintings are still there.
The Masada complex was equipped with a large number of storage rooms to be able to store supplies for many years.
The long storage rooms are very impressive as they must have contained a lot of supplies.
Besides food, also weapons and materials for the production of weapons have been stored in these rooms.
Looking down towards the mountain side, one can still see the remains of the camps of the Roman army and the siege wall they had built all around Masada.
The plateau of Masada has very steep slopes which made it easy to defend the mountain. In the middle of the picture, one can see the lower part of the ramp the Romans built to gain access to the mountain.
The Roman army did not succeed in conquering the mountain despite a long siege because the defenders had their large storages filled with food for years. So they had to build this ramp...
which finally made it possible to conquer the mountain. Here is the description of the last battle and what the Romans found when finally entering the walls.
King Herod installed a system of cisterns with a total volumn of about 40000 cubic metres of water. He did this to be able to live the comfortable Roman life including bath houses and public pools even on this mountain in the desert.
The restorated bath house shows very nicely how the floor and the walls were heated by hot air.
There was a wall and a system of casemates all around the plateau with a big palace on the northern and another one on the western side.
This mosaic is very well preserved. On the wall a black line indicates that everything below was still preserved while the upper part of the wall was reconstructed.
The landscape around Masada resembles a bit the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA, although everything is much drier here.
On our way back, we stopped on the Judean heights to take this picture of the stony plateau...
...nicely illuminated by the evening sun.