Day 9 - Jerash and The Dead Sea.

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Our last day of the tour, we left the hotel around 8am and got to Jerash around 9am. Jerash is a very large ancient Roman site on par with Ephesus in Turkey. I didn’t even know about it until we had booked this tour. They even have a chariot race and gladiators show in the Hippodrome, but we didn’t have time for that. Lana took us all the way through the complex which took over 2 hours. Lana showed us a spot in the amphitheatre in the centre where you stand and your voice comes back amplified. This explained why we saw the group of youths singing in that spot in the Amman amphitheatre.

We left Jerash around 11:30 and drove through Amman again to get to the Dead Sea around 1pm. All the resorts here are five star and we were booked into one of them for lunch and use of the facilities including their private beach. Lana also told us the spot where they found some of the Dead Sea mud that’s suppose to be good for your skin. We were told to enter the water slowly and to be careful where we trod and to then sit first, slowly stretch your legs out and lean back to relax which is exactly what we did. It is an amazing sensation to float so easily. Lana also told us to breathe deeply and the salt in the air would enter our bodies and heal them from the inside. You can bend your knees and where normally you would just sink, you stay afloat. In fact once I was floating I found it very difficult to stand up again as it is very hard to force your legs down and place your feet on the bottom. The water keeps forcing them up again. I always had to float over to a shallow section , roll over and get up on my knees. It was a lot of fun but any small abrasions you will feel, I had some small scratches and a bit of heat rash on my arms and they did sting a bit.

After a while, Daisy yelled out excitedly, that she had found some of the “magic mud”, so Phil, Marie and I went over and we all started covering ourselves with the mud until a man came over and told us to come back, and said that mud is no good, you have to buy his mud. We joked that maybe we were covering ourselves in sewerage, but Daisy assured us she had a good smell of it first. Anyway it was good laugh. Meanwhile, Pierre had gone over and bought the mud they were selling which was very black. I joked that he looked like Ernie Dingo (no offence). After about 45 minutes we had to leave and there were outside cold showers available back at the hotel area which we used to wash off the rest of our mud and salt. Straight after getting out, your skin feels silky smooth, but I think that was the salt rather than the mud. Altogether it was a worthwhile fun experience.

Got back to the hotel at 5:30, so a bit of time to get ready for our farewell dinner. Lana arranged taxis for all of us and we went to a very nice Jordanian restaurant called Tawaneen Al-Hawa. Phil made a nice thank you speech to Lana and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal and company. At the hotel we all said our sad goodbyes, ready for our next lot of adventures.

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Comments

[Bob Worsley]

More great pictures Ray.