The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is a short drive from Jerusalem... so how could we pass this up!  We even passed the city of Jericho along the way... Jericho is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world.

I never thought in my lifetime that I would ever float in the Dead Sea, but I have!
It was absolutely amazing.  Here I am just a girl from Tennessee Ridge (yes that's a real city even with no traffic light) walking up to the Dead Sea. THE DEAD SEA PEOPLE!
I wanted to pinch myself, but didn't out of fear I would break skin and then the salt of the Dead Sea would burn me.

I learned from my experience in the Caldera in Santorini, Greece that that kind of water will turn my hair a real ugly red and dry it out...it does this because I've died my hair. So note to self if you die your hair don't get in hot springs or Dead Sea.  So this time around I put my hair in a bun on the top of my head and then put on a real ugly tight hat that I bought in the souvenir shop at the Ahava factory just up the road. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do to avoid hair problems.

So here is a bit of information about the Dead Sea from my friend wikipedia:

The Dead Sea, also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east, and Israel to the west. Its surface and shores are 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface on dry land. The Dead Sea is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, with 33.7% salinity. It is 8.6 times more salty than the ocean. This salinity makes for a harsh environment where animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres (42 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.

The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets.

In 2009, 1.2 million foreign tourists visited on the Israeli side.

The sea has a density of 1.24 kg/L, making swimming difficult.

The Dead Sea is also warm even in the winter...

By the way the water felt a lot like silk or something similar. It was cool/weird.

Now for some pictures:

Standing on Masada (King Herod's turf) with the Dead Sea in the background

Mike floating in the Dead Sea

Me floating wearing an ugly hat and flip flops (the bottom of the Dead Sea is rough) I'm also making a very stupid face in the picture...oh well... I'm floating in the Dead Sea I can make whatever face I want, right?

Strangers covering themselves in the mud of the Dead Sea, it's suppose to be good for your skin. We did this but have no pictures because well...our fingers were covered in mud... I have to admit my skin did feel really good afterward.  Be careful when putting your mud on it may have some rocks in it I didn't realized this when rubbing the mud on Mike. Poor Mike :(

So as for my bucket list: Visiting the Dead Sea the Lowest Point on Earth: CHECK!



Cheers,
WMMc