After a night in the Bedouin tents, we had an early start, waking up at 6am. All eager for an exciting and adventurous day ahead, we had breakfast and then went straight off to our first activity of the day - camel riding!
For many people, it was their first ride on a camel, and the boys surprisingly screamed louder than the girls while going up and down. The rides took place metres from where we had slept overnight, with some rather amusing imitations of the camel noises in addition to the actual sounds themselves. After the short and enjoyable bumpy camel ride, we drove to Mount Masada where we hiked up to the top via the ramp that the Romans had Jewish slaves build. Once at the top, we had Shacharit (morning prayers) in the 2000-year-old stone synagogue, and then began our tour of Masada. Walking through the rooms and seeing the original colourful mosaics on the floors and walls of Herod’s bathroom that was left behind was beautiful. After our mesmerising tour, some braved the challenge of walking down the other side of Masada on the snake trail, while majority caught the cable car. We eagerly awaited our lunch at the bottom of Masada, and soon after departed for the Dead Sea.
After leaving Mount Masada, we got split into girls and boys then travelled to the Dead Sea. Of course as we arrived, we ran straight to the shop and bought out all the mud. It costed 20 shekel, which some believed to be a rip-off for a one time use. Everyone then walked into the cold salty water where we floated on our backs and once again listened to some boys yelling in pain. After all the boys went back on the bus, we heard the news that some people didn’t have great reactions to the very salty Dead Sea water, and were in pain and complaining - which we all had to listen to on the bus ride back to Jerusalem.
On our way back, looking out the window and seeing the amazing pink sunset, we were all excited to get into some comfortable beds after sleeping on thin mattresses in temperature-obscure tents the night before. However, the bus soon broke down and began crawling at 15km/h on the Israeli highway to our destination - just imagine what we Moriah and Masada kids were like on the bus. Once we finally arrived at the hotel we ate jam donuts and lit the first candle for Chanukah. After a tiring day and delicious dinner, we had small optional activities, and then went back to our rooms for a well deserved sleep excited for the next day.