Needing a trip out of town, Rosa chose an outing to the Dead Sea -- eight years ago she had a very brief encounter with this national treasure: and the treasure kicked her butt. Salt water splashed in her face, screaming ensued, and she refused to go near the Sea again."I don't want to have just bad memories," she declared yesterday and so we shoved our way onto the #486 Egged bus (A young, very good-humored Chasidic woman visiting from New York amusedly posed the question: "A line -- why can't there be one line? Why six lines?" "Because we're in Israel," I responded, causing a small smile to form on her squashed husband's face.) and rode the 40 minutes due East to Kaliya Beach.
The driver and passengers around us (mostly teenaged soldiers: talking, eating and answering cell phones with ringtones entirely comprised of American pop songs) were very nice and accommodating and helped us get off at the right place which was on a barren desert road.
We walked past long-abandoned Jordanian bunkers until we spotted the entrance to the Beach's parking lot. Many beachgoers were Israeli (predominantly Russians), but most of the cars speeding past us into the lot bore Palestinian Territory license plates (And although we were in the West Bank, our bus carried no Arabs). Otherwise, various ethnic groups with matching hats and neck badges flowed from tour buses (Beach fun: The Identify-the-tour-groups'-country-of-origin Game).
Rosa did triumph over the Sea this go around. She floated without incident and did the requisite "cover your body with mud" deal (see photos). I had no desire to engulf myself in oily salt water, but I did, at Rosa's urging, do a little wading around in the magical, healing, mineral-dense mud (Today I can tell that my legs, from the calves down, are healthier than they have ever been!!!). A couple of times I took a step and my leg fell in up to my knee before I maneuvered my way out (today I read online that sinkholes around the retreating sea shore have swallowed some people up and thank God I had not read that earlier!!!).
Mainly we just lay by the beach on lounge chairs, happily surveying the sand, the blue sea, the Jordan coastline on the other side and the haze of uncontrolled air pollution. It was a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon.
Of course there was also the persistent sound of digging/construction right behind us. Half the Arab workers' time was spent attempting to drag one of two large earth-mover trucks out of the muddy hole into which it had sunk. Rosa couldn't decide where she should look for entertainment: the repeated futile attempts to free the sunken construction equipment behind us? Or the Asian women's tour group that had timidly and anxiously entered the water, sending into a panic a handful of the group's squealing members? It was one of life's truly confounding dilemmas.
An extremely nice family from Los Angeles, the Gleichers, shared our little shady beach tarp and we became acquainted. They have an apartment in Jerusalem as their older son lives here with their two very young grandchildren. Their younger son was at the beach with them - he lives in California but owns/manages the crocs (TM) airport stores around the world, including the one at Ben Gurion (I was extremely glad neither of us was wearing the knock-off Payless Airwalks.). They very generously offered to drive us back to our apartment and we had an enjoyable ride.
On the way back we passed the "other Wall" -- the one they're building to shield Israel from Palestinian infiltration. If I hadn't been on the wrong side of a moving car with my camera in my purse in the trunk I would have taken a picture for you! (well -- it's the thought that counts) Let's just say it looks like a concrete wall. Like the ones they put along the highway as noise blockage. And it's worked tremendously. The weekly bombings that characterized our last visit have all but ceased (not to do a "k'ayinhara" on myself or anything), although apparently an Arab man axed a teenage Israeli boy to death the other day (according to our automobile hosts).
Well -- that same thing happened to a Philadelphia bus passenger while I was at Penn so I suppose we have our non-political crazies (this explains why, throughout my 20's, I would never sit totally facing forward on city transportation -- always had one eye scouting out the person behind me, ready to leap into the aisle if any sudden move around a large bag might indicate axe-removal).
And, just so we didn't feel too removed from Israeli society during our beach trip: there were only two moving vehicles on the beach - the two earth-movers - a situation which still necessitated very frequent horn-honking. Would one vehicle alone require honking as well?? A philisophical question that will have to be addressed another day.
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