WWW Part Two: Southern Trip to Massada

What follows is a CliffsNotes account of our WWW southern trip to Massada. Lots of hiking, bonding, and beautiful high school drama occurred in these three short days. I'd write a better entry, but it was just so damn long ago.

Immediately after returning to school on the second day of community service, the high school split into our 4 separate field groups and headed south. Each group was approximately 40 kids-- but with last-minute cancellations my group only had 32. It was mostly 9th and 10th graders, which I was apprehensive about, but they were really well behaved.

Driving south on the bus.

After spending the night in a hostel, our first activity was a hike near Ein Boqeq, near the Dead Sea.

View from the Ein Boqeq resort area.

Our tour guide, Elad, tried to shove tons of history and environmental awareness into the kids' resistent heads. He was occasionally successful.

In Israel, every single school group and organized tour is required to have two armed guards escorting the group. Here are our lovely guards. They were cool girls-- both my age.

View of the ruined fortress.

View of Ein Boqeq as we hiked up the mountain.

More forced learning.

Ein Boqeq is actually not the Dead Sea proper, although it is equally salty and saturated with minerals. It used to be a part of the Dead Sea, but the Dead Sea shrank because of damming of the Jordan River (I think-- I can't remember. It's hard to listen when 30 kids are complaining about the heat and their fatigued legs.)

Happy hikers (kind of).

We took a break at this semi-artificial spring.

Hiking out of the mountains along a creek.

View of Ein Boqeq from the road.

The supersaturated salty water where we bobbed happily (if your body was abrasion-free) and painfully (if it was not).

Entrance of the Bedouin camp where we spent one night.

Mobilizing for our camel and donkey trek.

Bedouin camp.

Crabby camels.

This one had the breath of a 56-year-old nicotine addict.

Some of the senior boys were a bit too tall for the donkeys...

Trekking in the desert.

You can't just stand by and supervise.

Our little oasis of a Bedouin camp.

Learning about Bedouin culture.

The kids in their communal tent.

Dusk in the camp.

Bonfire.
(One of my kids was rockin a flaming orange KASY T-shirt that her Yale grad brother gave her.)

Bwungalows for the teachers.

We woke up at 03:30 the next morning to hike up Massada (in Hebrew: Metzadah) at sunrise. This is what it looked like when we arrived.

At the top.

Sunrise over Jordan.

The kids were unimpressed.

Ruins of Massada.

The black line distinguishes the original ruins from the partial reconstruction.

Model of Massada.

BFF.

The history behind Massada is fabulous. A great Judean fortress sacrificed to Roman siegers, ending in a mass suicide.

Hiking down the snake path.

Nicest youth hostel I've ever stayed in.

The next day: more hiking.

This hike required climbing ladders...

and rappelling!

That night, we were dropped off in an isolated part of the desert, where the kids did a field cooking exercise.

Our guards working hard.

Kids cooking.

Lindsey (PE teacher) ran around with her antibacterial liquid: "Did you wash your hands?? Are you sure you washed your hands??"