Blogs from Dead Sea, West, Jordan, Middle East - page 4

« Back » on the road after a few weeks break in France and on for a new humanitarian mission, after one year in North Korea, I have now moved to Baghdad, Iraq! Middle East is now my second home so do expect a lot of blogs from that part of the world ! The first one of this series is dedicated to the Dead Sea in Jordan … Mud, Salt & Sea ! Long week end in Amman before starting my mission, explored already many sites in the capital city and felt like going for a little “escape” from the crowd so when my colleagues mentioned that by the dead sea the temperature would be about 7 degrees warmer than Amman although only at 45mn drive from the capital I made my mind immediately! The ... read more

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at 400m below sea level with a salinity level of 31%. Well OK, the Marianas Trench in the South China Sea off the Philippines is the lowest point on the surface of the earth. So to be technical, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth that's on land. And technically it's not a sea either, but a lake that is 9 times saltier than a real sea. The salt content is because there is no exit for water from the lake except by evaporation. So the minerals and salts dissolved in the water stay behind when the water evaporates. Due to the salinity, it is devoid of fish, but not completely empty of life. It turns out there are vast quantities of salt loving microbes ... read more

This morning we set of for the lowest place on the planet not covered by water. We stopped at an elevation of 422 metres BELOW sea level on the East Bank of the Dead Sea overlooking Israel. With eagerness we grabbed our cameras and books and ran into the dead sea to discover what all the fuss is about. It turns out that the dead sea is very salty. Life jackets are not required, as drowning isn't really an option. They have life guards on duty on the beach, but I'm not convinced they can swim - actually it is very difficult to swim in the dead sea. It is so salty that everything floats incredibly well and it is actually hard to swim when you are floating so high up in the water. We decided ... read more

Hayley and Kevin have been a source of infinite wisdom during our overland travels and on the day of our long drive taking us via the Dead Sea, the instructions before our dip were clear and straight to the point-no heads under water, no drinking the sea (taste it and you'll see why!) and ladies...umm, no breastroke or frog kicks...best to have legs crossed please! Given Hayley and Kevin's words of wisdom, I wasn't quite sure what I was letting myself in for as I took the plunge into the calm and still waters. In retrospect, 'plunge' is actually a terrible verb to describe my action of entering the sea...it's probably one of the only bodies of water in the world when plunge is simply unapplicable as a descriptor due to the near impossibility of dropping ... read more

Swimming in the Dead Sea. This morning after a breakfast of pancakes we drove north through Jordon to the Dead Sea. As much as I had read about the salinity nothing can prepare you for the actual experience. The Dead Sea levels have been dropping for a number of years and I read that there is a proposal to pipe water from the Red Sea. We parked about 15M above sea level. That is the Dead Sea level which is 400M below true sea level. We had to walk over 100M to commence our swim. There is so much salt along the shore and sticky black mud that the walk was tricky. The sea bed is like a short spiky coral and very sharp. It was really weird floating ½ out of the water and being ... read more