Our Day to Float in the Sea

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Very excited this morning, today we are going to the Dead Sea! We check out and are picked up at 8:30am (or as our driver says ‘eight and the thirty’) for a 3 hour drive to get there.

It’s a great drive, through more windy mountains and with some of the biggest dust storms we’ve seen the whole trip, we can’t even see 30 centimetres in front of the car at times.

We see a sign saying 326km to Iraq, Saudi Arabia is also not far, don’t want to make a wrong turn here!

THE DEAD SEA

We get to the Amman Tourist Beach. Next to the beach is a huge swimming pool that is quite busy and a restaurant. We head down to the beach, there are chairs alongside the water but not many people. So in we go. Tim goes first, sits back then legs up! He’s bobbing about in the ocean like a cork - incredible! I go in next, now I float easily at the best of times, but this is something else! It almost feels like you are on top of the water. The water is such a nice temperature too, I expected it to be warmer, but it is pleasant. Then stupid me decides to see if it tastes salty. I just lick a tiny bit off my finger and it was the most foul, disgusting thing I have ever tasted, I wouldn’t even say it tasted salty, just disgusting!

We don’t stay in for long, after a while everything starts stinging with the salt. So we jump in the pool up top and then have some lunch.

MOUNT NEBO

We drive to Mount Nebo. This is where according to the bible God allowed Moses to see the promised land. Moses died on Mount Nebo and is buried somewhere nearby but no-one knows where. There has been a church and memorial to Moses here since the fourth century AD and the current church with spectacular mosaic floors dates from sixth century AD.

The church is currently undergoing a huge restoration so we aren’t able to see it, but the floors are out for viewing. They were mighty crafty back in their day because the floors look great.

The view from the top is huge. You can see forever, even with the dust haze blowing as it was today. You can see why this looked like the promised land.

ST GEORGE’S CHURCH, MADABA

Then we drive to a town called Madaba to see St George’s Greek Orthodox church. It has a mosaic floor made in the sixth century AD showing Jerusalem and other holy sites. It shows hills, valleys, villages and towns, many are still in existence today. It is 25 x 5 metres with 2 million pieces of coloured stone.

QUEST FOR A FLAG

I have tried to get a flag from each country we have visited, the only ones that I couldn’t was Zimbabwe and Egypt. We asked our driver if he knew where we could get a flag. When we got to Amman, we pulled up at a printing shop in the middle of the city. This is where his cousin works, while he was asking him another one of his cousins arrived. They both came over to the car to say hello. The second cousin gets us all out of the car and off we go down the street. We come by a shop with heaps of flags, and we get perhaps the best flag yet, it has really nice trim around it and everything!

We get dropped off at the hotel and the driver says if he takes us to the airport tomorrow, he will try for an Egyptian flag for us. And he also refuses a tip! Here people do things just to be nice!

FINALLY A REAL MASSAGE!

We check in to the Regency Palace Amman, it’s a really nice hotel, unfortunately the pool is being renovated at the moment, but fortunately we find out they have in house massage, and a real one with oil and a soft massage table!

So we decide to have a lazy, lazy end to our Jordan stay and have a massage and room service dinner.

The massage is great, relaxing and does the trick, and our meal is superb!

The only downside is Australia are playing tonight in the World Cup and we don’t have it in our room. To see it we have to go downstairs and pay. Not tonight, sorry Aus.

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