Friday marks the start of the Israeli weekend, the perfect time for day trips out of Tel Aviv as there's no traffic to snarl up the roads. Having been picked up at 7.15am by Beim Harim tours from outside the Embassy Hotel and then transferred onto another coach a short while later, we're speeding along Highway 20 in a coach towards Jerusalem, with our tour guide Yoev filling us in on a lot of the history behind the creation of Tel Aviv.
Established in 1909 it variously translates as Old & New, or Spring Hill, depending on how you want to interpret it, but essentially means that this is a town deliberately created to rise like a phoenix out of old land and to be a new dawn of secular modernism in the Middle East. With a population of 500,000, many of them young and not tied to religion, it's a liberal, forward thinking, coastal party town and the perfect counterpoint to ancient, complicated, hilltop Jerusalem.
Abu Ghosh
After an hour we stop at a bizarre coffee shop and gas station, the Elvis Diner, devoted to the King of Rock'n'Roll rather than the King of the Jews. Outside are statues of the golden one and every coffee comes with a free mug featuring his overrated face. I leave mine behind.
Far more interesting is the town of Abu Ghosh that we pass close by, which is known as the hummus capital of Israel. Home to a brand new mosque, built by Chechens and the only one in the whole of the country to feature four minarets, the town is apparently a place where Israelis of all faiths visit to taste the best hummus in the world. We sail past it twice but don't get the chance to sample its chickpea goodness. Frankly I'd have preferred that to a naff shrine to a dated crooner.
We pass through the north side of Jerusalem and cross the Mount of Olives after which we begin a steep descent from about 800 metres about sea level, which is where Jerusalem sits, to 430 metres below - a huge difference in air pressure which in retrospect may have had an impact on the dramas to follow. But at this stage, I'm oblivious to the effects of ever-changing altitude on ears fighting an infection, yawning as they pop every so often.
The Wall between Israel & Palestine
I'm more intrigued by the stark dividing lines, both natural and man made, for the Mount of Olives is where the arable part of Israel dramatically ends and the Judean desert instantly begins. The geography of the region means that rain clouds evaporate swiftly once past Jerusalem and the landscape becomes arid and barren almost as though a line has been drawn in the sand.
And that's exactly what has happened with the Wall that has been erected between Israel and Palestine and which we see before us in various guises; concrete barriers, solid wall , electrified fences and rolls of barbed wire. It didn't exist 19 years ago on my last visit here, but now this zone is militarised to the hilt and the subject of intense fear, aggression, hatred and polarised opinion on both sides of the debate.
We cross through a checkpoint into the West Bank, with seemingly no checks carried out at all, and continue on our way with Yoev explaining the nuances and complexities of Israeli and Palestinians living in Areas A, B & C in Palestine, involving car registrations, access to social care, land and much more. It's somewhat head spinning.
Date palm orchards
As we drive on towards the Dead Sea we pass the Biblical places associated with Lazarus, John The Baptist, Jeremiah, the Good Samaritan and more, past Bedouin settlements which look like shanty towns and rounding a bend enter the plains of the Great Rift Valley, which stretches south for thousands of miles from Israel to Mozambique. In the distance we see Jericho, considered potentially the oldest continually inhabited settlement in the world, and pass through areas where the majority of Israel’s kibbutz establishments are based.
Vast groves of palm trees bearing dates are laid out in symmetrically parallel lines, miraculously drawing water from irrigation channels in use for millennia, their health-giving properties expounded upon by Yoav who suggests they could cure the world’s ills. However they can’t cure what’s happening to the body of water that appears before us; the Dead Sea, somewhere I’ve wanted to see – and float in – ever since I heard of it as a young boy, more than forty years ago.
Wadi Qumran
Cut off from its access to the sea thousands of years ago, and sitting hundreds of metres below sea level – making it the lowest place on earth – it has a high rate of evaporation due to the intense heat, meaning that its mineral content is 35%, more than ten times that of the oceans. As a result, nothing can live in it, hence its name.
But whilst that has been a constant for many, many years, the Dead Sea is itself now dying due to its water level going down by a meter and a half every year for the past fifty years; the result of a huge dam project restricting the fresh water flowing into it, to preserve clean drinking water for the populations of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. Yet the rate of evaporation from the fierce sun continues undimmed, and so three black lines on rocks by the side of the road demonstrate how high the coastline used to be before the dam was built. It’s well above where we are driving along now .
The Dead Sea
Yoev directs us to look to our right and points out a cave set back from the road. It’s in an area called Wadi Qu’mran and is now famous for the discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a supposedly contemporaneous set of Gospels that include more books than currently comprise the Bible, some of which contain contradictory stories of Christ. Over to our left, through the sun’s haze we can see the far coastline of the Dead Sea – the land now called Jordan, which my phone shortly starts believing we are in, and trying to connect to its network. I swiftly turn my roaming off!
As we pull up at a roadside cafe Yoev warns us that it is extremely hot outside today and to wear hats and sun cream. He’s not joking. The minute we step out of the air-conditioned bus the temperature hits us, a ludicrously super-heated wall of hot air, possibly the hottest place I’ve ever experienced. Thankfully I am dressed head to toe in the safari gear we bought for Africa a couple of years ago, including a huge bush-ranger hat, so am fully protected from the beating sun. I look a little ridiculous compared to my less-than-prepared fellow travellers but couldn’t care less as I buy Coman a gift set of Dead Sea mineral face masks and body scrubs from the Ahava outlet to make up for the fact I’m doing this trip without him.
Dead Sea
We’re only a short distance now from Masada, Herod’s ancient mountain top fortress-palace, and as we continue along we pass sinkholes that have started opening up due to the ever-retreating water levels and drive past the oasis of En Gedi, with abandoned buildings now littering its once hospitable edges.
Once at Masada we enter the visitor centre where we are shown a supremely cheesy pseudo-documentary about its history, including clips of Peter O’Toole. Featuring a badly lip-synced presenter, and ridiculously portentous music and pieces to camera, it’s hard not to laugh out loud, but the rest of the coach-party take it seriously. I prefer to remember the TV mini-series from the early 80s dramatizing how the Jewish rebels retreated to the abandoned fort in AD 66, and how they committed mass suicide in AD73 rather than become slaves of the Roman Empire.
Ascending Masada
Next up is a cable car journey to ascend to the mountain top itself, giving magnificent views across the desert to the Dead Sea. After just a few minutes we enter the complex via the Snake Path Gate, the end of a much longer steep trek that Jewish school-children hike to teach them about the heroism of their ancestors. Sheltering wherever we can from the scorching sun, Yoev gives us lessons about the archaeology and history of the vast complex, leading us through what were once bath-houses and bedrooms, gyms and temples, wells and Roman siege camps, bringing to life both Herod’s paranoias and the later dramas of the Jewish martyrs, finishing with the 6th Century monastery and church that was built upon the ruins.
It’s lunchtime by the time we finish and after hitting the visitor centre’s buffet we have a doze as we retrace our drive back towards the Dead Sea and our stop at Kalia Beach, an odd resort for day trippers to take a dip in its saline waters. Approaching it there are blocks of accommodation that look rather like military bunkers, some brightly painted, but all without any allure whatsoever. A big car park leads to a series of shops, showers and lockers, with visitors rather than holidaymakers giving it the feel of a Soviet-style health facility.
Ruins at Masada
Bags stowed in the lockers and factor 50 reapplied, I venture down the wooden walkways to the salty sea, passing various individuals caked in black mud and sit down backwards into the water. The signs around the resort instruct you not to lie on your front, get water into your eyes or mouth, splash around or try swimming… just to float. It’s a strange sensation of bizarre buoyancy, but being here by myself, it’s rather lacking in the joy of a novel shared experience.
I float on my back for a bit and then pad over to the area where there’s mud to smear on my face and body, yet despite the factor 50 and the coating of mud there’s no escaping the burning of the sun. It is amongst the most intense I’ve ever experienced, and being almost naked it beats the heat I’ve endured in places like Australia, Mexico, the Mojave desert and the Sahara.
Dead Sea face mask
My face feels like it’s grilling on a barbecue so after about 10 minutes of being in the water – a life’s ambition fulfilled – I make for the outdoor showers to clean the mud off me and then head for the shade of “The Lowest Bar In The World”, a ‘beachside’ place with daybeds and tunes where I sink a Corona. Switching on my phone it locates me in Jordan once again and starts connecting me to an Arabic network with outrageous data charges. There’ll be no Instagram selfie at the Dead Sea from me!
I head back up to the main showers to clean all the salt from my skin, feeling silky and smooth for the return journey to Tel Aviv, powered on by a passion fruit lolly. It’s about 6pm by the time I’m dropped off at the Embassy Hotel, and feeling somewhat short-changed by my bathing experience I wander down to the beach for a swim.
A bar at 420m below sea level
However the sea is rougher than before and has worked up quite a swell. As I enter the water, lifeguards start whistling for the swimmers to get out of the water, the waves crashing down with considerable force. Not everyone heeds their warnings and being mindful of the surf, but determined to have a little fun, I splash around for a while longer with families and revellers who are used to ignoring the alarms, before returning to the hotel for yet another shower, this time with sachets of Dead Sea minerals to restore that silky sensation.
I have no dinner plans for the evening so contact Rach, a friend of a friend who I’ve been put in touch with, and she recommends I check out a restaurant called Suzana in the funky Shabazi area of the city. The hotel receptionist books me a table for one at 9pm and I walk there in the balmy air, a 30 minute stroll down backstreets and byways, parallel to the seafront, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the solitude.
Dining at Suzana
Suzana is a delight, semi-hidden away but obviously popular, and I’m seated in the garden out front, under a fairy-lit tree with attentive service and great people watching. The food is a winner, further cementing my love affair with Israeli cuisine, dishing up simply boiled Jerusalem artichoke, zingy falafels and tahini, smoked aubergine in yoghurt, dill and feta, and deep-fried cauliflower, along with a punchy glass of Tzora red from the Judean Hills.
It’s all utterly delicious and with sizeable portions I ask for a doggy bag to take what I don’t eat back to the hotel for tomorrow’s breakfast, carrying my brown paper bag back along the promenade, feeling like a Tel Aviv native rather than a tourist… unaware that my familiarity with the city is about to extend further than anticipated.
