My journey to the Dead Sea!

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TRY #1

I came back from Jordan and I had in mind to walk to the highway and hitch hike to the intersection of the Dead Sea so I wouldn't have to come back all the way near to the Dead Sea once again. Well, it turned out that I couldn't walk out, I tried to get a ride but the security told me I couldn't go with the two guys who said yes and directed me to the taxi stand.

I tried to get a taxi for the 3km to the highway but there is such a taxi monopoly that the guy said I would have to pay 42 shekels ($12) to go the 3km, which was the same price as going all the way to Jerusalem! OR I could pay 350 shekels (almost $100) for a taxi to the Dead Sea! With those options I opted to go all the way to Jerusalem and go back another day to the Dead Sea. While walking in the old town I met a guy who told me I could get a bus direct to the Dead Sea from the central station so then I had a new plan!

TRY #2

I got back to Palestine and while talking to Fray Oscar and Salem about wanting to go to the Dead Sea Salem offered to take me the next day. The following day we agreed on going after lunch so we got into the car and drove to the border with Israel. At the border we were stopped and they refused my entrance to Israel and said I needed to go through the other border so that pretty much killed the whole plan and we went back to the monastery.

TRY #3

After returning from my failed attempt I went online and found out exactly the bus that would take me to the dead sea. Since it was Friday I had to be very careful about my timing because it was the Muslim weekend and around 4pm is the beginning of sabbat and public transportation stops in Israel until Saturday in the late afternoon.

That morning I left the monastery at 6am and found no busses on the empty streets of Palestine so instead of waiting I decided to walk up the hill where my possibilities of getting a bus to Ramallah were much higher! I walked up the street for 15 mins and found the yellow busses that go to Ramallah but it was all empty and here in Palestine busses only go when full so I knew I would have to wait but I was despertare to go since I really needed to get to the bus station in Jerusalem.

After about 15 minutes only one more person had joined me but the bus left. We drove for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden the driver turned around and got back to where I picked up the bus. I was so frustrated! Didn't they know I was on kind of a hurry?!?!?

We went back and filled up the bus with people and left to Ramallah. Thankfully since it was the weekend there were zero cars on the street and we made it to Ramallah in no time!

Once in Ramallah I walked the empty streets to the next bus station to catch a bus to Jerusalem. As I walked I got more and more worried that I wouldn't get a bus, the streets were absolutely empty and it seemed as if the bus station had no busses. I arrived to the station and there was only one bus, 219 (and I usually get 218.) I asked the driver "Jerusalem?" and he responded "border" so I went in and had to wait another 15 minutes for the bus to get full.

Once at the border I was surprised that the bus stopped and we all had to get out, usually some people get out but I stay in and cross the border inside the bus. This time I had to go with everybody to do the crossing by foot! I followed the people and it felt like we were entering a jail! There were several entrances and each of them had around 50 people waiting to walk through, it was a disaster, people screaming and pushing! I felt so many emotions, I wanted to cry! It was horrible, how is a country this divided? I couldn’t believe that everyday 50,000 Palestians have to go through this to get to work on the other side of the border!

The entrances were all metal barriers with metal turning doors and there was no queue, only a lot of people pushing to get through. I got on the one that seemed the emptiest and had the most women. I started noticing that not everybody was walking through and some women started screaming and opened the way for me to pass so it didn’t take me that long. The israeli on the other side would lock and unlock the huge metal turntable, just letting 2 or 3 people go at the time. All the people were holding their permit and would show it on the other side. I do not know if many were trying to illegally cross but so many of them were sent back and not let into Israel!

When it was my turn I was nervous although there was nothing to be worried about; I really think I picked up other people’s emotions! The two young Israelis on the booth seemed so uninterested in doing their job, I had to wait a good 15 seconds until the girl noticed me in front of the window! It really felt like the Palestinians were treated as second class citizens by these 20 year old Israelis, they had this attitude of “You don’t matter so I won’t even pay attention to you”… It was horrible!

I finally crossed and went into the bus that I always change to and was surprised to not see that many cars anywhere, the ride was very fast. I got off the bus and took the tram to the central station. When I arrived I went to the ticket booth to get a ticket for “Ein Gedi” (the public beach in the Dead Sea) but the guy selling ticket said “Ein Gedi” is closed!!! Really?!?! Am I not meant to go to the Dead sea? Was he kidding me?

A random guy came to me and said “Ein Gedi closed because of tsunami” haha a tsunami in the Dead sea? That just sounded odd!

I had heard that Ein Gedi was closed before but all the people I asked said no so I already had a 2nd thought which was to go to Kalia Beach which was 30-40 mins before Ein Gedi but had a 50Shekel entrance fee.

Got on the bus and it dropped me off in the middle of the highway and then I had to walk 15-20 minutes to Kalia beach.

I paid for the entrance and went to the changing room. There were no lockers or place to put my belongings so I just walked with everything and walked around the place people watching.

There were so many people putting mud on their face and body, apparently the mud from the dead sea had amazing minerals and God knows what else. As I walked I found 4 guys covered in mud head to toe and they immediately started talking to me and wanted pictures.

It was amazing to see the difference between men and women. Most of the people at Kalia beach were muslims or tourists, the muslim men were allowed to be in their swim suits but the muslim women were swimming in head to toe clothes! hijab and all!!!!

I walked along the water and found a place where I could bring a chair and get in the water. I am not a fan of the beach but when in the Dead Sea I just had to swim, well… float!

Getting into the sea was super tricky because the bottom is slippery mud!!! and the surface is uneven and at times there were holes and the one thing you don’t want to do in the dead sea is fall and put your face in because your eyes would burn like hell!!!!

I went in and it didn’t feel as cool as I thought it would be! I relaxed and floated for a little bit but after 3 minutes I was so done with the hole dead sea thing but still had to put on some mud. I have very sensitive skin so I thought it would be perfect, it would refresh me, and make my skin glow! haha Well, not quite! My face started burning just after a couple of minutes so I just ran to wash off the mud.

My best attempt at a picture putting on mud

I came back from washing the mud and it had been probably like 10 minutes and decided that maybe I should give it a try again so I went back in and floated, a guy kept bumping into me so I decided to leave. To be honest my favorite part of the dead sea were the two times when I washed the mud and salty water off my body! but at least I can say that I tried it!

After getting ready I dreaded the hot walk back to the highway. This time I not only had to walk back to the highway by the dead sea but needed to try to get 5km away to the main highway to Jerusalem since the bus doesn’t go by that often from the beach. I started walking and I decided to hitchhike! Very quickly a car with 3 guys stopped and while we were talking they said that they were Palestinians and that they wanted to go to the beach but the public ones are closed for Palestinians, that they need a special permit to enter them!… Israel sucks!

I was able to quickly get a bus back to Jerusalem and waited for Fray Oscar and Salem to take me to Ein Karem, the first placement Fray Oscar had when he arrived in Israel.

Now off to Tel Aviv!

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!