Qumran Snapple!

"כל חוויה זה סויט שנגמר"

~ביטוי ישראלי

"Every experience is an end to a nightmare"  ~Israeli expression

Not exactly a nightmare, but lots of experiences.

Snappling is the Hebrew word for rappelling, and that's exactly what I set out to do Friday morning in the Judean Desert, at the top of the Dead Sea, in a wadi that flows into the famous settlement of Qumran.

Our group left the Student Village at 6:30 knowing that there was a slight chance the rappelling would be canceled when we got there because there's always a danger of flash flooding at this time of season, and there was rain in the forecast for Jerusalem. We wouldn't know until 8, which is when we arrived. Thankfully, we got the go ahead, and go ahead we did.



A little on the location of the Qumran area: It lies in the Judean Desert, which is part of a rift whose plates are moving west very slowly. Across the Dead Sea, The mountains in Jordan are moving northeast quickly. This led to the wide-open space known in Hebrew as the Arava, where the Dead Sea is located. Historically, there were many cult communities and monasteries, because the area was right next to the road to Jerusalem, and there was great protection. The food may have been a problem, but the people who lived here often set out to create a new and more aesthetic life, meaning fasting...

We climbed up a mountain so as to get towards the top of a wadi. Remember wadis are paths in the rock where there are occasional water falls, and all the water from the desert flows into the Dead Sea. On the way up, we found the occasional pool of water, with the color of berry blue Jelly Bellys and the intense smell of sulfur. This was all that remained from the floods my bus drove over just two weeks before.

When we finally reached the top the rappelling leader informed us of some "good news" and some "very good news." The good news was that we were indeed going Snappling today. The very good news was that we would be landing in a big pool of water! Everybody put their cameras, wallets, and cell phones in one shared backpack, and then we got going. The process was pretty simple: Keep your feet spread while you walk vertically down the mountain, hold on to the rope in one hand, and don't look up in case rocks fall. The harder part was that this 35 meter first drop included an area where the rock moves in (it's called negative something). This meant that you had to just drop for a little bit, without holding onto anything! Tom Petty anyone? The other problem I had was that my harness was digging into my skinny hips the whole time. Eventually I got used to it.



The process, as you learned when you made it to the bottom, was to take off your shoes and socks and throw them as far as you could, so they wouldn't land in the mineral sulfur mud, or the pool of water. Then, you can either try real hard to climb around the pool, or just jump in and feel the smooth rich mud squelch between your toes, and then pull you in deeper like quicksand. When I got out, I dug a big hole in the mud to find the dark stuff, and rubbed it all over my arms and legs for a while. Being one of the first to go, I had a long time to eat lunch and dry my clothes.

The next drop was the shortest of the three, around 12 meters. The problem with this one was that there was very little room to sit after you did it. You were surrounded on both sides my water, and couldn't continue until the Snapple leaders took down the ropes and set up the next station.



This left the final station: about 50 meters down. Ay karamba. It was during this drop that the counselors realized we were not going to get back to campus by 3, like they had planned. We were going to be at least an hour late, thus fighting the Shabbat clock all the way home. People started to complain of cold and the sun was disappearing rapidly, so the rocks were losing their warmth. Again, I was one of the first down, and it was lucky I was, because I got a little more time to take pictures while I rappelled, and then explore the terrain at the bottom. While exploring, I found a long cave that went around the mountain, as well as seashells at the top of the slope. All the while, people were sleeping and sunbathing, trying to dry off, but while I climbed in my sneaker-turned puddle shoes, I could hear the rope leaders calling to the climbers as they dropped.







Six hours of hiking after we started, we arrived at the ruins off Qumran, where I grabbed some quick snapshots, and helped the counselors collect harnesses and helmets.

We got back two hours late, which meant that after my five minute shower, I would have to take a taxi to the City to meet my Dad for Shabbat Dinner. Dinner happened, as was fantastic with a sampling of steaks, beef cigars, sweet/sour chicken, apple-pomegranate juice, and family. I then slept nearly twelve hours, went to services as the Italian Synagogue, where they continue traditions based in Italy and nowhere else, and read out of the official Siddur of Rome, where everything was in Hebrew and Italian. More chilling out after that, and then a soup dinner at T'mol Shilshom, a bookstore restaurant based on the book by Shai Agnon, an Israeli Nobel Peace Prize winner.

That's all for now, but if you want a wrapped up review, stay tuned.