O SEGREDO DE SODOMA! Israel com Aline

Shalom and welcome back to ‘Israel with Aline!’ Today we’re back at Mount Sodom and we’re going to go inside and discover one of the most different and terrible places that exist here in Israel. So if you’re ready, let’s get started! And to visit such an extreme place I can’t go by myself and so I have invited an expert to meet me up there and that is Shlomi Lobaton, so come with me and let’s meet him to start this day which is really going to be an adventure! We are now going up Mount Sodom; where the city of Sodom was destroyed by God with fire, brimstone and salt. And today this place is made almost entirely of salt. And we saw a few weeks ago that the place has no life at all and you can see even today here the brimstone and the fire. And the link to the previous video is up here now and will also be at the end of this video. But the most important part of Sodom we are going to see today, which is the inside of it. And the place is a real secret, I have never even been inside Sodom until today. Guys, we are just finishing this climb, which is super steep, but look how wonderful the view is from here! We are now seeing the Dead Sea and it is also very warm. Here, people are passing 104 degrees and in high summer it can reach 113, if not 122 degrees. But finally we are arriving, because we are going to meet Shlomi, shalom Shlomi! [Shlomi] Good afternoon and it is a pleasure to be with you today! Tell us where we are going now?! [Shlomi] We arrive at Mount Sodom and enter a salt cave with the help of ropes. We will rappel twice and descend 80 meters into the earth. In Sodom there are 263 caves, only 7 of them have an exit. And almost 200 of them have water and underground lakes, which is something very special and unique. Are there caves here filled with water? [Shlomi] Yes. I didn’t know that, but the one we are going into today is dry? [Shlomi] It is dry, dry. Guys and as he said we are going to enter “ba’ beten”, we are going to enter inside the “stomach”, inside the entrails now of Sodom [Shlomi] In the “belly”. and for me as I told you it is the first time that I will enter inside the “belly” of Sodom, so let’s start this adventure! Shlomi brought me the safety equipment, so I’m going to carry it now and we’re going to enter the mountain in a few minutes, let’s go! [Shlomi] Let’s go! And an interesting thing is that salt caves only exist in two places in the world: one is here in Israel on Mount Sodom and the second one is in Iran which today is the great enemy of Israel. [Shlomi] That looks like chocolate, but it is clay, leaves, and leaves of clay. When you look closely, you see layers of salt between the clay. Every time I come here to Mount Sodom I discover new things, I mean, it looks like paper, it looks like a sushi sheet and it’s natural here on the mountain so there’s really no place in the world like Sodom! And the closer we get to the cave the more excited I get and the more adrenaline I get, and the more I want to go in. So, I’ll take a little piece as a souvenir, [Shlomi] It looks like chocolate, but it is not for eating. no, not to eat, I’ll take this as a souvenir, but let’s go! Wow, from here we can already see the entrance to our cave! In the previous video when I asked you if you wanted me to go into one of the caves, I mean, to go inside Sodom, many of you said: “Aline, don’t go, it is dangerous and so on.” I first thank you for your concern and I will never do anything that puts my life or anyone of my team at risk, and really there are caves that are collapsing, there are dangerous caves, and so to enter we need to enter with someone who knows the place and that’s why I called Shlomi who is an expert here, and I wanted to ask you: how many times have you entered a cave like this? [Shlomi] I have done this cave approximately 1200-1300 times. So guys, as you’ve seen, he has entered here literally more than a thousand times! How many years have you been working with caves here? [Shlomi] Twelve years. Twelve years, so it’s been a long time. and we can go into this cave by ourself, must have the equipment, how does it work? [Shlomi] You can’t go by yourself because it’s dangerous, you can’t do the rappelling by yourself. and also you need a guide who knows the cave, because it has many branches and paths and without someone who knows the cave and has a map you can get lost; the cave that we are going to do today is 2.9 miles long, it’s very big. So guys, you have to have someone who knows for two reasons: firstly for all the equipment and the safety issue and secondly it’s literally a maze! There are labyrinths inside Sodom and that is why I brought the best from Israel to come with me. what equipment do we have today to enter? [Shlomi] We have special ropes, we have strong flashlights to see inside the cave. Because the cave guys is totally pitch-black, it is 100% dark so we are going to need a lot of lighting. [Shlomi] And we have more ropes here. How many meters of ropes are there? [Shlomi] 100 meters. 100 meters, not bad! As you can see guys, we came really prepared for this adventure. Well, while he is doing all the things here, I want to ask him a few more questions: the first one is how did you get into this world of caves, what do you study to work in caves? [Shlomi] I read a book and I really liked the main character who had a hobby of going into caves, And that really caught my attention and so I got into the world of caves. And today I lead researchers from all over the world in cave studies and look for still unknown species of scorpions, crabs and spiders. And here on Mount Sodom? [Shlomi] There is no life here. Only in winter do bats come, and they hibernate here for two months. What I knew is that there is no life inside Mount Sodom and he is confirming it. I mean, an expert is saying that there really is no life here, the only thing that happens here s two months a year there are bats that come here to hibernate, but no life. I mean, in other caves there is? [Shlomi] In Israel there are 5,060 caves, all over Israel and there are many animals in the caves, but here on Mount Sodom there is nothing, no spider, nothing, nothing. And if you have seen people, he speaks a little bit of Portuguese, how do you speak Portuguese? [Shlomi] Because my wife is from Rio de Janeiro. So not only does he know everything about the caves here in Mount Sodom, he knows a little bit of Portuguese. It’s perfect. [Shlomi] That’s great, thank you. Then you can continue and when you are ready we will come down. Guys, I’m a little afraid of heights, but I’m sure it will be worth it! Now Shlomi is coming down too. Now is the hardest part; we have made a little descent here but now we are going down 80 meters inside Sodom and in total darkness and that is why I am also here now with a “little light” on top which I will turn on when I get inside. Oh, guys. Do you see this little dot up there? That’s me. We are literally entering Sodom! Guys, I feel like I’ve walked on the moon I knew that this place was beautiful but I had no idea it was so different! Now it’s Shlomi’s turn to come down, I am so nervous to be here that I am sweating all over, you have no idea. But look at this, the walls are made of salt, there is a little layer of sand but you can clearly see that it is salt. Wow, look at this, There’s water! Can you see my wet finger? There is water dripping here, how can there be water here in the middle of the desert? Look here. It’s a tube and from this tube, my hand is all wet, salt water is coming out! [Shlomi] (Psalm 121) I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains, from where my help comes. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth; He will not let your foot waver He who keeps you will not be shaken. Behold, the keeper of Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord will keep thee from all evil; he will guard your soul, The Lord will guard your coming and your going from this time forth and for evermore. A song for the heights. Shlomi came down singing the Psalms, and I think it’s a good idea because now he has just taken down the ropes, which means that we can’t get out this way, but we will cross the cave, cross the mountain until we come out in front of the Dead Sea. Then we’ll make a huge path, he said, we’ll even have to drag ourselves on the ground And if you don’t hear the sound very well, I apologize, but the moment we entered here in the cave the sound started giving a little bit of trouble, the camera too, so I don’t know what is going on, but the moment we entered Sodom everything started giving trouble, but we want to film it the same way we want to show you this place. So, if you have a little bit of problem with the image, with the sound or whatever, don’t notice, because our equipment is not liking Sodom very much. Here there is a waterfall, I mean, not now at this moment but some days during the winter when there is heavy rainfall mainly in the Judean Mountains region Near Jerusalem a river flows here, the river falls. This here where we are is the dry waterfall, and it flows through here so in reality it flows, it flows and it ends at the Dead Sea?! [Shlomi] Correct, in 900 meters. 900 meteres so almost 1 km now we will follow the path of this river, and this phenomenon of rivers that appear out of nowhere exists here, we call it in Hebrew “Chitafon” they are storms and they are very dangerous! I asked him if he had ever been here when this was happening, he said: [Shlomi] I have been here in a storm, but outside. He said he saw it one day only from the outside, because it is very dangerous to enter here when there is water, when water is falling. Imagine a waterfall, besides all that, a waterfall falling here?! [Shlomi] It closes the road with mud for three days, no car or anyone can cross. So when water falls here the road is closed for three days? [Shlomi] Yes, three days. So imagine, and it’s Route 90 which is a super main road that connects Israel from North to South it just closes the road, because this is really, when I say Sodom is a unique place in the world, it’s a salt cave with a waterfall, some days a year but there’s a waterfall here! And to me it is a mystery why no archaeological excavations are done here, folks Sodom has not been excavated, and besides even tourists don’t come here! In 2019 Israel had more than 4 million tourists and how many people came here and saw the remains of Sodom or Gomorrah, which is close to here? People here you can clearly see that it is salt, I was even wanting to taste the salt and Shlomi said “no, no way”. Because the salt from Sodom and Gomorrah is poisonous because of the amount of minerals and the composition. I didn’t even tell him that I tasted it the other time, but just a little bit. So, guys, when you come to Sodom and Gomorrah, this is biblical history and it is not edible, but what I also wanted to show you is the feeling of walking here, when you walk it feels like you are walking on snow, it is a very strange feeling. Even listen to the sound: [sound of footsteps] And up there I can even see that there is a red arrow crossed out, why? Because this is a labyrinth, people! When I’m following Shlomi here he suddenly enters places, so it is really impressive that if we come here alone the chance of getting lost I think is very big, so I will not stay behind, I will follow him! Shlomi don’t leave me behind! Look here guys, the red arrow, so we are going in the opposite direction of this arrow, I don’t know where it points, there are no further instructions but I follow Shlomi where he says! Shlomi says he wants to show us something with the flashlight: Wow! Look here guys, it’s salt and the rock is transparent since it’s a salt rock you can see the light from the flashlight from below reflecting off everything, how amazing! And here’s more folks, rock doesn’t do that. I mean, what we are seeing I am so eager to try this salt but Shlomi said that I can’ t. And looking at this place so extreme and so destroyed, it’s hard to imagine how green and blooming it once was. The Bible tells us that this was a green and full of life region until the destruction of Sodom and the neighboring cities. But the Bible in Ezekiel 47 tells us that in the future this region will also come back to life! And near here, this prophecy has already begun to be fulfilled and there are fish swimming in the Dead Sea. If you want us to make a video showing this prophecy that is being fulfilled nowadays, please press the like on this video and if we reach 100 thousand likes again we will show you the fishes from the Dead Sea. After such a tiring walk, folks, you can take a rest here too. Look here there is a salt bed ready. So let’s rest here for five minutes and then we will continue. [Shlomi] Look how narrow it is, you can barely move. It’s pretty hard to get out. [Shlomi] Up here we see dark patches of tar, which is an organic material that comes out of the earth and was used in Biblical times for waterproofing, and with this was covered Noah’s ark and Moses’ basket. Wow guys, look how many Biblical stories are connected in this place, not only the story of Sodom, which in itself is already fascinating and terrible we see the truth of the Biblical stories also because we know that these materials exist here in this region and that people already knew how to use them. Wow! He is telling me so much today that I don’t know, I mean, I know a lot about Israel, but there is still so much to know even though I have been living here for 13 years! So one day maybe we’ll see the asphalt, the tar coming out of the Dead Sea! Here you can see that all this part of the cave collapsed and there are landslides here all the time, that is, the mountain is in movement, it is rising higher and higher. Which is a very strange phenomenon in itself, and because the mountain is moving, it collapses so this whole part here has collapsed, and the only way to go is under here. So guys, we are now going to crawl our way out of Sodom because this is really I think the most difficult walk I have done here in Israel or maybe in my life, come on. Guys, even my light is blinking, everything is stopping to work and we are dragging ourselves inside this cave! Guys, it is much harder than it looks. I’ll be right out. As you can see guys, it’s already dark; the ride was 5 hours inside the cave and I want to thank you with all my heart Shlomi, because without you we wouldn’t have been able to get in and even less out of this cave! [Shlomi] Thank you. Thank you, and for those who want to go on adventure tours with you here in Israel how do they find you? So guys, anyone who wants a real adventure tour here in Israel both here in the Sodom region, the Dead Sea, North to South Israel can talk to Shlomi his website, all social media, WhatsApp and all contacts are here on the screen. [Shlomi] Thank you! Thank you very much everybody, and see you next time!