Day 21 - Lehava - Lara Lever
After a long free weekend of relaxing everyone was re-charged and was ready for the next half of the IST adventure. We started in Netanya at 8.45am and had an extremely long bus journey through Tel Aviv and finally reached our destination at Ein Gedi at 12:00pm. We had a delicious lunch of chicken kebabs and pita.
We met our tour guide, Brian, who told us about Ein Gedi, a nature reserve near the Dead Sea. We were told it is an oasis. An oasis is an area in the desert which is isolated and is surrounded by water springs, it also provides a habitat for animals. We started walking and saw the springs. The springs were spectacular, it was so picturesque. The water was so clear and peaceful, was drinkable and refreshing; but it was not recommended to drink as people go swim in it and have dirty feet! We took photos and put our feet in the water which cooled us all down.
We then we went to the Dead Sea. Everyone was thrilled. We were told the “Dead Sea rules”.
1. No weeing in the water (it would burn in places we didn’t want it to!)
2. No splashing as water in eyes is not good!
3. Don’t put your face in the water - you’ll not be able to see afterwards
4. Don’t wear jewellery in the water as the salt will erode the metal
The girls and boys swam on seperate beaches but best to one another. Foot by foot we went in and every cut we had stung because of the high concentration of salt. As we got deeper we started to float. It was an incredible experience as it was very unique. We were all laughing, playing in the water and enjoying ourselves. Ms Klevansky waded into the water in her leggings, and took lots of pictures of us all having a great time in the water. I believe she threw those leggings in the bin on her way back to the bus!
After a tiring day, after we checked into our hostel accomodation and had dinner, we headed out to an incredible star gazing educational program. We all switched our phones off to connect with the nature and the stars. We lay around a camp fire, star gazing and our educator, Ori, talked to us about the story of one of the constellations (a group of stars forming a recognisable pattern that is traditionally named after a mythological figure). Its the story of Perseus and Andromeda. In the story Andromeda’s mother goes around saying her daughters are more beautiful then Poseidon’s. This angers Poseidon and so he sets a sea monster on the port of the family’s city. In order to stop the sea monster the parents are told to sacrifice their daughter Andromeda. So they chain her to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster. When the sea monster is about to eat her Perseus flies in on his winged horse Pegasus. He slays the monster saving Andromeda and ultimately gets married. After Ori told us more about the stars and we got the opportunity to look into telescopes. We saw stars close up and I even saw Mars. Towards the end of the session, we had tea and roasted marshmallows to warm us up.
Overall it is evident that today was an amazing fun filled day with lots of activities and it’s hard to believe that this amazing journey is nearly over. We are officially half way through the program and I can’t wait for what is next to come.
Lara Lever
