Weekend Trip To The Sinkhole Land

One of the nice things about Israel is that while its a relatively small country, it has a large variety of landscapes and weather conditions, stretching from north to south. So even in the middle of our winter, when the north is cold and rainy, a 2-3 hours drive is all you need for a warm, dry weekend at the Judea desert.

Last weekend, in mid-January I craved some of that desert warmth and with a couple of friends, drove out to the Sinkhole Land of The Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea is shrinking and its level drops at a rate of more than three feet a year - and as a result, its entire receding shoreline has become highly unstable and full of sinkholes.

As the water table recedes, a long-buried ancient layer of rock salt, some 15 to 200 feet below the surface, is exposed to flowing rainwater. As that salt layer dissolves, the surface becomes unstable until collapse is inevitable. According to Dead Sea geologist Eli Raz, the Dead Sea region already has roughly 7,000 sinkholes, and that number is expected to double in the next few years.

This geological phenomena has recently become a highly popular (albeit somewhat risky) tourist attraction, and I couldn't resist the temptation to go and check it out.

We decided to spend the night camping in Metzokei Dragot Travelers Village.

Metzokei Dragot is a cliff, hanging some 900 feet above the northern part of the Dead Sea – with the spectacular landscape of the Dead Sea on one side and the open desert and

Judean Mountains on the other. If you're on a tight budget and choose to bring your own tent, for a small fee you can use all the campsite facilities - hot showers and an outdoor kitchen.

Spending the night under the clear desert sky is always a magical experience. At sunrise, we cooked a pot of Turkish coffee and went down to the most treacherous part of the Dead Sea beach - the Sinkhole Land.

We parked the car on the roadside of Route 90 - The longest road in Israel (some 800 miles from north to south) and hiked the last mile on foot. The ground in this part of the Dead Sea is muddy and slippery and it wasn't too long before we found ourselves stomping, barefoot, in knee-high Dead Sea mud.

Most of the sinkholes were full of underground spring water which was not too salty and not too cold, so we went in for a swim. Followed by a mud bath and yet another dip and finally a long sunbathing on the beach.

With sharp salt rocks and sinkholes aplenty, we had to exercise caution the whole time we were there. And yet, after a full day at this amazing natural desert spa, in the warm weather of the Judea Desert - I felt recharged and was finally ready to head back home - to the cold Galilee mountains.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/7a6b6a_3d1bcd13b3f14991ab7e5292a6b5ba8c/1080p/mp4/file.mp4