The sound of of over 30 exhausted girls cramped into a traditional Bedouin tent echoed through the early hours of the morning. We woke up at 6am to begin our day with camel riding. A huge highlight of our trip that many of us were looking forward too. My unique experience was made even more unique by my riding partner, the one and only Ms Kaissis. At first we had a bit of trouble finding a suitable camel as every one we sat on tried to kill us in a different way, the first through treacherous biting, the second though snotty sneezing. Fair to say we didn’t want any camel diseases so we switched again, and finally found the steady Suzzanah. After an enjoyable and humorous dessert ride where we watched the sun rise from our camels it was time to go and finish our tedious morning routine which today involved packing a tent.
After packing up the tent we all hopped on to the buses for a 2 hour bus ride to Masada. As we parked the bus we looked up at the mountain and could see the extremely long and steep path ahead of us. This made lots of us nervous but also very excited, and although we had butterflies in our stomachs we were still so excited to climb the mountain. We did the snake path whilst Lehava went up the carefully crafted ramp - a big cop out in my opinion. The relief we felt when we reached the top was indescribable as we knew we had worked hard to get there. We did an hour tour of the top of Masada, learning about King Herod and the Jewish rebel forces which I found super informative. We then caught the cable cars down for an incredible lunch - sushi was provided which is always a great start.
All the girls then gathered onto buses 3 and 4. They took us on a 20 minute drive to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea was one of the most awaited parts of the trip for a lot of us and we were so excited to cool off after a long, tiring walk up Masada. When we first arrived we were greeted by one of the women working in the spa - she offered us (more like coerced us in true Israeli style into buying) mud to put on our bodies as there was none at the water. After changing into our swimming clothes and lathering ourselves in mud we slowly and very scaredly walked into the water trying to not get it in our eyes or on our face. Despite the hype of the stinging - the water was extremely refreshing and it was amazing how we immediately floated. After our 1 hour of floating was up we all rushed out of the water, got changed and started piling onto the bus for our 1 hour drive to Jerusalem.
We arrived at the hotel and were given our new rooms, then told to come upstairs to meet for dinner. After dinner we all met in the lobby to celebrate the first night of Chanukah by lighting the menorah and singing lots of songs and of course eating donuts! We were all so excited to go to bed after such a long day and get a good night's rest!