Amman to the Dead Sea

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From Amman to the Dead Sea
I had a quiet day yesterday, opting to do my own thing. I couldn’t face another city tour in the 40’ heat. I caught up with some of the crew later in the evening meeting at a cafe overlooking the city. From there we went to another place called the Book Cafe. From the outside it’s a book store, with some nice books too, you can’t help but think it’s mealy a front for the bar. Once inside you walk between all the shelves off books and then follow the narrow staircase up several levels, around corners, and eventually pop out on a roof terrace. Delightful. It’s very popular with the locals who come to drink coffee, play backgammon and enjoy shesia pipes. It’s also sells alcohol so it’s popular with westerners too. I enjoyed a glass of Lebanese white wine. When you order wine here, it’s red or white, no choices. But I have learned to ask if it’s dry, and is it chilled.
The minimum wage here is 150 Jordanian dinars a month, there are no unemployment benefits. The average wage is 300 Jordanian dinars a month. It’s expensive here even for tourists; most people work two jobs to make ends meet. The dinar is stronger than the US$.
We left the busy city this morning and drove to the Dead Sea. The resort we visited was built a few years ago, but already the level of the lake has dropped a great deal, so now it’s a bit of a hike to the shower to rinse the salt off. The Jordan River has been dammed many times restricting the inward flows.
Walking to the edge of the water you can see the salt crystals encrusted on the rocks. On entering the water to start with it doesn’t feel any different to any other body of water, until you allow yourself to float. You can sit in the water as if you were sitting on an imaginary chair, trying to put your legs beneath you is difficult, your body bobbing about like a cork. It was a fabulous experience. Some of the team went off to buy their bucket of mud to cake on themselves. Now when I see those irritating sales people in Woden Mall selling Dead Sea mud I can ask them if they’ve actually been there!

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