We decided to rent a car and do a road-trip through Israel. We started in the Southern beach town of Eilat, and made our way up to the Golan Heights in the North. It sounds like a lot of driving, but Israel is only around 424km North to South and 114km between the widest East to West borders.
The first part of our trip was through the Negev Desert, which encompasses most of South Israel. We stopped in Mitzpe Ramon, a town overlooking the Ramon Crater. Although referred to as a crater, the formation was not actually caused by a meteor impact or volcanic eruption. The 500 meters deep, 40 km long and 10 km wide formation is a result of natural erosion.
The area has several hiking trails, so we checked out a couple and got to see some unique formations like the Ammonite Wall (a wall with many ammonite fossils), and the Sawmill (an area where the rock formations look like a big pile of wooden planks).
Continuing North, our next stop was Masada - an ancient fortification built on top of a mountain, overlooking the Dead Sea. The Roman emperor, Herod, fortified the area and built himself a palace. A group of Jewish people later overtook the fortification and turned it into a Jewish settlement... what made Masada famous came several years later.
Toward the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, the Romans succeeded in taking Jerusalem, where they ransacked and torched the entire city and survivors were taken into slavery. The last group of Jewish rebels retreated to Masada where they would make their last stand.
The Romans held Masada under siege and built a ramp to reach the summit. After finally breaching the gate, they rested for the night.
Knowing that the situation was hopeless, and determined to never again become slaves, the Jewish people decided to commit mass suicide. They used a lottery system to select 10 men to kill all of the others. Then 1 man was chosen to kill the remaining 9. Finally, the remaining man killed himself. When the Romans entered the city the next morning, they found 960 dead bodies. Only 2 women and 5 children (who had gone into hiding) had survived.
This is an important event in Jewish history, as it was the last time that the Jewish people lost political control of the promised land. It is so important that it is now part of their military's basic training swearing-in ceremony. The ceremony ends with the declaration: "Masada shall not fall again".
In order to reach the site you can walk up the snake-trail, or, like we did, save time by taking a gondola. There's not much left but ruins, but it's enough to allow you to appreciate the grandeur of the city and the amazing story hidden in the walls. Not to mention the view from the top is quite stunning. Since we took the gondola up, we decided to walk back down using the snake path.
We also made a quick stop at the Dead Sea for a second time (http://beyondthemapletree.com/dead-sea), before heading to our hotel in the North.
Driving through the Negev desert was pretty cool with its lunar-like scenery. If you're lucky, you might even see a tank ;)
