Egypt & Beyond Day 16, Our Lowest Point

By travelerdon on November 25, 2022

Friday, October 28, 2022

This morning we get up and pack up and bring our bags to breakfast with us. While I’m checking out, Elee comes and informs me that our clocks are an hour off and it is time to get on the bus! Crikees! We hustle our bags out the door and get down to the bus. Crazily I manage to get a front seat so I can take photos out of the windshield!

So how many axles is the heaviest truck you have seen? Here in Jordan, 8, 9 and even 10 axle trucks carry goods throughout the country!

Jordan gasoline stations have a fun sign, especially for Americans!

We have a 4 hour drive this morning to the Dead Sea. It is time for this adventure that we have been waiting for. The bus stops for photos at the Sea Level sign. The Dead Sea is 436 Meters (1440 feet) below sea level, the lowest point on earth!

We arrive and lucky for us we have carried our swim trunks separately with us. We are at a large hotel that hosts swims in the Dead Sea. It is quite a downhill walk still to the Sea and we trudge down the boardwalk that leads there. I stop at a set of rest rooms and shower stalls to change into my suit.

My timing is perfect and I meet up with Elee on the Boardwalk and we get to the beach. We find a set of beach chairs to put our stuff on and make our way to the water’s edge. People are smearing themselves with black mud which is said to have healing qualities. Sure. Whatever. I opt not to as it seems disgusting.

We gingerly work our way into the water. It feels weird. Slimy almost. We get deep enough to float and lift our feet off the bottom. Our bodies immediately pop up on top of the water and two-thirds are above water. Weird. Surreal. You can’t sink. I try to but no way, my body stays well out of the water. I go to deeper water and stay vertical. No need to tread water, I stay vertical and my chest and head are out of water. I have to work to keep my feet down. It is easier to just float on my back. My skin feels weird and slimy but very smooth. Several of the ladies play and cavort in the water, lifting their legs effortlessly in the air with no difficulties!

Elee gets the nerve to get some black mud and wipe it on her body. I take some and put it on my arms. No healing happening here, just hard to wash off. After a half hour in the water I call it quits and work my way out. I had brought my camera with me for some fun photos but then had put it back on the beach to play in the water. I retrieve the camera and we work our way back up the beach to the hotel, stopping at the showers to rinse off. The slimy feeling remains and I can’t wait to get to the hotel for a proper shower. I leave my swim trunks behind (I have more) as they are a salty mess.

Lunch is provided for us at the hotel and it is a delicious buffet of Jordanian food. We are not staying in this hotel so we board the bus again and head into downtown Amman. Bilar takes us to the Amman Citadel, another ruin where our cameras are in their happy place again!

Moving on, we make it to our hotel for the night. This tour is over and Bilar parts company with us. Many of our tour friends will leave to go home and other destinations also and we might see them at breakfast but maybe not. Amman is known as the “White City” for most building materials here are white marble and other white stone! Overlooking the city from the Citadel is interesting because of the “White” appearance of everything! Children fly frilly kites for fun!