Dead Sea – the funnest place ever!!
Being in the Dead Sea is probably one of the most fun things in the world. The salinity of the Dead Sea is 31% which is about 9 times higher than the ocean; as a result everything is very buoyant. I was looking forward to floating around in the water because I could never stay afloat by sitting and extending my legs out like most Europeans you see on the Mediterranean. And Eug planned to take Christine and I to a spa by the Dead Sea, which we found out later wasn’t just any spa, it was the Zara Spa at the Movenpick, justifiably renowned as one of the best in the Middle East. It was quite a treat after a few nights of two star hotel stays and camping out in the desert.
We drove our trusty but not so powerful Toyota Yaris from Aqaba to the Dead Sea in three hours on the Dead Sea highway. The landscape turned from all desert to a body of smooth oily blue water. It kind of resembled the road in Hawaii without the tides, and Israel was just on the opposite shore. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on earth at 408m below sea level, and when we passed by the marker on the highway that indicated we were below sea level I started to get excited. We were ecstatic when we saw the Movenpick sign emerging on the side of the highway. We first went to the private beach at the back of the hotel and self administered a mud wrap by covering ourselves with mud from a big clay pot next to the water. The Dead Sea mud contains high concentrations of minerals including calcium and magnesium, which have health-giving properties. It was funny seeing everyone patting and rubbing mud on themselves. It reminded me of Mystique in X-men but in mud colour. Even Eug got into it. He covered his face with mud too which Christine and I didn’t dare to. Then we all jumped into the Dead Sea. It’s so amusing when you just can’t sink in water! The very first thing I tried was extending my legs out and sitting in the water like the Europeans. I could finally do it! We also tried to stand straight holding a pencil dive pose but it was impossible to hold that position for long. We ended up bouncing awkwardly sideways back to a floating position, kind of like that inflatable toy with a weight in the bottom that keeps reverting to its starting position after you punch it. We also tried sitting crossed legged, which was fairly easy to do. Christine and I tried some synchronized swimming poses, but it turned out Eug was the best at that (jk). I tried the Bikram airplane pose, super fun. I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing the whole time. If you haven’t been to the Dead Sea yet, you must! It is 3 million years old but it has shrunk by 30% in recent years, about half a meter per year which means it’s disappearing. I must give credit to Christine for being a real trooper. She had all kinds of wounds on her body from the days before but she sucked it all up and spent as much time in the salty water as we did and had a blast too. It must’ve stung like hell for her. One of the life guards (not sure why they were there since you couldn’t possibly drown in the Dead Sea) even called her to the side at the end and bandaged up her wounds. We then tried all the spa pools. There were three indoor Dead Sea pools, one aqua-pressure pool, foot-massage pool, and one gorgeous infinity pool with a view of the sunset. We spent about 4 hours in the spa altogether, it was a relaxing haven.
We headed back to Amman after the Dead Sea spa. Christine’s friend hooked us up with a pimp suite at a very reasonable rate, which wrapped up our Jordan journey very nicely. She decided to stay in Amman for one more day to hang out with her friend and meet us in Israel the next day. So Christine’s story continues. Thankfully Eug and I had a very boring border crossing to Israel (we were told we would have trouble since we had Syrian and Lebanese stamps in our passport) compared to Christine’s. The next day, we were waiting for her at our hospice in Jerusalem when we received an email from her saying ‘You guys go ahead and don’t wait around for me; they evacuated the entire border crossing building, it might take awhile’. I thought ‘uh oh… that doesn’t sound good’. Because when we were in Aqaba, a Taiwanese mom restaurant owner told us that three Taiwanese boys were scared out of their minds when they couldn’t tell the custom officer what was in one of the bags their friend asked them to bring back for him. The next thing you know, they blew up the bag without trying to find out what was inside. When Christine finally made her way to us, we found out that they evacuated the building because of the purse her friend gave her in Amman. It was a Thomas Wylde purse with tons of studded metal skull heads. I guess the border security people couldn’t identify what they were looking at through the x-ray machine, so they called Christine in after evacuating and questioned her for awhile. Luckily they didn’t blow up her purse.
Christine should really write a book about her 2 week adventure with us. I hope it’ll be smooth sailing for her from now on.
Our poor friend Christine
Christine arrived in Amman, Jordan on a long, 2 day connecting flight from Vancouver ready to spend 2 weeks with us on our adventure. I think she’s regretting coming already.
The first place the 3 of us went to was Jerash, an old Roman town about an hour north of Amman. Though the ruins are quite nice, I think Di and I are pretty happy that they are the last ones we’ll see on this trip as collectively we’ve seen more than 15. Anyways, in the Roman theatre the last step, about one inch high, is of different height than the rest of the steps. Christine missed this as we were coming down, resulting in her falling and rolling on the ground on her first day here. Her knee and hand were quite scraped up but after she got up and dusted herself off we were all able to laugh as it honestly looked pretty funny. It was a really slow fall and roll, so she called it her slow-motion-fail.
The next morning we rented a car really early and drove to Petra, the ancient rose-red city that is the highlight of anyone’s trip to Jordan. The Nabataeans, who built it, were an Arab tribe who settled in the region and were able to generate massive wealth through controlling the lucrative trade routes of the desert caravans. They also had control of water supplies through innovative hydraulic engineering, creating an artificial oasis that only added to their prosperity. This wealth enabled them to cut this beautiful city out of rock, a city that is now on everyone’s list of “places you must see before you die”. This was my second time here, and this time was equally as fascinating, if not better than the last. The only thing that was worse was the preposterous entrance fee which is currently 33 JD (about 50 USD) but will be rising to 50 JD (70 USD) in November of this year. I think since they’ve been voted on that ridiculous list of “The New 7 Wonders” they’ve raised the prices significantly.
About a kilometre after you pass the entrance gates of Petra you hit the Siq. The canyon-like Siq is 1.2 km long, with walls up to 200 m high on either side. At parts the width of the path between the walls is only 2 metres. Technically it’s not a canyon as it’s a block that’s been ripped apart by tectonic forces. Either way it’s my favourite part of Petra and as you emerge from the darkness of its looming walls your first sight is the Treasury (pictured above), bathed in daylight and absolutely stunning. The treasury is Petra’s signature building, and seeing it as you come out of the Siq is Petra’s most ethereal experience. I actually enjoyed it more the second time because I knew what was coming and the anticipation of it approaching was pretty exciting, unlike my first time when I had no idea how long the Siq was or what was at the other end of it. Way at the other end of the city about a 2 hour hike away (over 800 steps uphill are involved) is the Monastery, Petra’s second most famous building. The Treasury was used in Indiana Jones and the Monastery was used most recently in Transformers 2. The plan was to walk from the Siq to the Monastery and back, admiring all the other amazing structures in between. Christine (a high powered lawyer in a famous downtown firm who is not used to walking) wanted to hire a donkey to cover the distance. Di and I did not want donkeys, so being the team player that Christine is she decided to try this crazy thing called hiking. Much to our delight she made it all the way to the Monastery! We stayed there for about an hour to take pictures, drink water, and rest before making our way back down. All in all, we were probably hiking for at least 5 hours. Unfortunately all this walking created a massive blister on the sole of Christine’s foot, and she decided not to tell us.
The next morning we drove down to Wadi Rum, a desert made famous by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). I actually like it more than the Sahara due to its amazing landscape and colour. Here large sandstone and granite mountains emerge from the pinkish desert, with wide sandy valleys separating these pillars. It reminded me of the limestone islands of Asia (Halong Bay or Krabi or Palawan), except you replace the ocean with sand and the limestone islands with these sandstone ones. When we arrived, Bedouins met us and took us around in 4x4s for the day to different attractions in the desert. One of these attractions was a natural bridge that you could hike up to. The Bedouin guide told us to take off our sandals to walk as the slope was quite steep and would be better walked barefoot. Christine, though scared of heights, was a good sport and did exactly as she was asked (though deep down I’m pretty sure she wasn’t so thrilled about it). Unfortunately, the hill was a little rough and it cut open her blister. Imagine having an open blister on your foot while you’re in the sand-filled desert. Yes it would suck. She kept it together and that night we slept on mattresses underneath the countless stars with no tent in the middle of the desert. I actually really enjoyed it as it was warm (unlike the Sahara) and I decided to listen to old songs and reminisce (think R&B songs from the mid-late 90s, I think my haircut from Barbie in Kuwait got me in the mood) while all the other people were sleeping.
The next morning we awoke and drove to the town of Aqaba on the Red Sea. By this time Christine could barely walk as her blister was filled with sand (and looking pretty nasty if you ask me). So we went to a pharmacy where the pharmacist, a 250 pound dude, asked her to sit down so he could clean her wound before bandaging her. For the next 20 minutes, he was my new hero. First he told her to put her foot on his lap, and then he proceeded to tear off the tape that Christine had on covering her blister. She was in obvious pain while he was slowly peeling this off, and as she was gasping he looked up at her and told her to ”stop being such a baby”. Immediately I started to like this guy. After this he wiped the wound with iodine which elicited a larger pain response from her. Di ran over to hold her hand, and the pharmacist looked at Di disapprovingly and said “she’s not having a baby”. Awesome! He then proceeded to bandage everything up really nicely and when he was done he finally smiled and started to joke around. I would love to be able to be that stern with my patients in certain situations, but alas that would not fly in North America. After this Christine went back to the hotel to rest while Di and I did some spectacular snorkelling in the Red Sea.
Now we’re off to the Dead Sea before heading to Israel. Christine, who is walking with a significant limp, still has about 9 days left with us. Let’s see if we can keep the remaining parts of her body injury free.
fromwonderintowonder 
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