My First Trip to the Desert

Hey!  So, on my trip to the Dead Sea and Masada, I stayed at another guest-house/hostel wich was pretty similar to the Kinneret guest-house, exept it was much, much larger.  Another thing that was different was that it was in the middle of the desert.  Before we arrived at the guest-house/hostel, we took a small hike. Before, though, we had sandwiches for lunch.  I also bought a hat in a near-by store.  It says Dead Sea on it about a million times.  Let me show you some pictures of us outside before we went on the hike.  Here:

After eating, putting on sun-screen and packing our bags with water, we set off.  We walked out into the sun of the early afternoon and it hit me.  The sun's rays poured down on me.  I sat down on a rock.  I couldn't go any farther even though I'd only taken about three steps.  That's how hot it gets in in the desert.  And hotter.  Even though Jonah and I were tired and already sweating within two minutes, we walked a bit.  It turned out to be kind of fun.  Grammy, Papa, and my dad went ahead of us and Jonah, Mommy and I stopped to sit every time there was a bench.  We saw some animals too.  There was a mini waterfall and we went and put our feet in.  If I had a bathing suit with me, I would have gotten right in and swam.  The cool water felt amazing around my ankles.  We also threw rocks into the water and got sprayed by the waterfall.

 This is an ibex, its a kind of animal.

When we got to the guest-house/hostel, after checking into our room, I was forced to take a freezing cold shower, which I usually hate, because I was so grummpy because of the heat.  I took a freezing, but amazingly comfortable, shower and after I felt great.  I think my grammy and I were the only ones that took showers the whole visit.  Except, after my shower, my mom told me not to dry my hair.  "Let it dry in the wind, and come, we want to show you something."  That's what she said.  I followed my mom to this small balcony over looking the desert.  We could barely see the Dead Sea from there.  It felt really good.  We all sat on lawn chairs placed outside and played 'I'm thinking of a person'.  Then it was time for dinner.  The hostel had 'Kibutz food', as my dad calls it.  A Kibutz is a place where people live.  My mom lived on a Kibutz when she was visiting Israel when she was younger.  Kibutz food is like pasta, salad, rolls and really the basic food, nothing fancy.  Here are some pictures of the little balcony and outside at dinner with cats!:

      As you probably know, the next day we went to the Dead Sea and hiked up Masada.  It was a fun-filled desert adventure! :)