Our family trip to Israel took us to Masada, the famous fortress of
King Herod. Then we drove south to swim in the Dead Sea. Well, one
doesn't actually swim IN the Dead Sea, more like ON it. While the
kids bobbed up and down in the saltiest water on earth, I drove
down the shore a bit further to hide only the sixth geocache ever
in this beautiful country. (This is the meaning of the name:
"Shishi" is Hebrew for "Sixth." I now know this may actually be the
seventh cache, not the sixth, but I believed it was #6 at the time,
and I am not inclined to change it now.)
This is a fairly straightforward find, except that it's well
over a hundred degrees every day in the Summer. You're in the
lowest spot on Earth, 1700 feet below sea level in places. The
hiding spot is at 1231 feet below, about 2.7 miles south of a spa
called Nirvana (one of several nice places in the area to spend the
day after finding the cache, I might add!)
The cache is about halfway up the slope of Har S'dom, "Mount
Sodom." Unlike most of the mountains in this region, it is made
entirely of salt (even though it looks like dirt). You can
practically drive to the foot of the mountain, but it's an
all-fours scramble up the hill to the cache.
When it was first placed, the cache contained the following:
The Magical Key #3 TB
a red plastic snake
an origami balloon
a black stone
50 Colones (Costa Rican currency)
a Canadian dollar coin (aka a "Looney")
a Toronto Transit Authority subway token
a token for a free ride on the Watch Hill, Rhode Island
carousel
A log page
a small pencil
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