Last night, while sampling the delights of Chakra, recommended by Tato Bigio of UBQ and booked by Chris, we drank a bottle of Oded Shoseyov’s Bravdo wine, mentioned in the previous entry. And that encouraged us to switch plans and decide on the Dead Sea in the morning.
(My main memory of the Dead Sea from 1959 was flying over it in a Dakota – and, if memory serves, being invited into the cockpit by the pilot to help steer.)
We went the whole hog this time, swimming in blistering sunshine (though the water was surprisingly cold) and enjoying the smooth sandpapering of the black mud. God only knows how many skins the mud I used had helped abrade over the millennia. But a cold beer tasted surprisingly wonderful afterwards.
As we were about to leave, we were asked for a lift by a young Dutch couple, Erik and Kim (who was suffering from early heat stroke), and took them as far as Ben Gurion airport in the rented, air-conditioned Mercedes. Seeing the West Bank wall – or barrier – was a painful reminder of the ongoing tensions that continue to roil this extraordinary land.
Am determined to finish off Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land on flights to and from Delhi next week.
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