Another sunny morning. I’ve been awake for hours since the 4:30am prayer calls to be exact.

 

We eat breakfast and check out of our hotel in Petra- it’s called the Rocky Mountain Hotel. The hotel has a beautiful view of the town of Wadi Musa and the rocky hills beyond.

In the car we can’t get the portable wifi working on either of our phones which means I’ll need to navigate for three hours back to the Dead Sea using only John’s offline navigational app…things are about to get ugly.

 

[John note: my offline app shows all the roads, even walking trails, shows where you are, has an arrow showing where to go and when to turn and a voice telling you the same… this apparently is insufficient data for Kimberly to follow!] 

 

On the way to the Dead Sea we are going to stop at Shobak Castle. The map takes us onto a one lane road. John has to gun the engine to get us up the steep hill. I only see air past the incline. Ack!

We continue upward on the twisty, steep one lane road. We see the castle.

This crusader castle is more of a ruin. Men are working on preserving it. A guide comes out and shows us around. You can still see the round rocks flung from catapults lying around the site. The Muslims under Saladin attacked the castle and took back this area from the Christians in 1189AD.

 

After about a half hour we return to the car. For some unknown reason,  our wifi hot spot clicks back in. Hallelujah!

Driving along the Kings Highway, I find there is not much traffic…except for a traffic jam of sheep.

We pass a very large area of solar panels.

We are now descending the mountains. I’m trying to contain my fear because of the sheer  drops onto jagged rocks…and after endless twisting turns we are back on the edge of the Dead Sea.

 

We stop at the Museum of the Lowest Place on Earth. The guy who lets us in is wearing a “Crowchild Twin Arenas” polo shirt. As my sister lives in Calgary I know this arena is located there. I ask him if that shirt is from Calgary and he says yes. He tells us that he is trying to immigrate to Canada.

 

I knew the museum does not mark the actual lowest place on Earth,  because I had to drive up a hill to get to it. Rather it represents the area and the people who lived there.

 

The Dead Sea area is 414 metres below sea level which makes it the lowest land on the planet.

The museum is small but very interesting. It is awesome to see actual material that survived from first century  graves and read the translated grave stones.

They also discuss current people in the area. It turns out the tents I’ve seen are the homes of Bedouin people. A display shows what a typical one looks like inside.

 

The museum also serves as the access point to Lot’s Cave. The guy in the Crowchild shirt serves us free coffee as we wait for the shuttle to take us to the cave. This is the Lot from the Bible who was the only good man in Sodom. He took sanctuary in this cave with his daughters after the tragic loss of his wife who was turned into a pillar of salt when she turned to look back at the destruction of the sinful city of Sodom.

 

Ruins of various churches built over the cave over the centuries have been excavated and you can enter the small cave itself. 

 

Back on the road, we continue our drive to the Ramada Dead Sea Resort. We should be there in an hour.

My navigation is perfect. Yikes. Spoke too soon. The road Google maps has sent us on is blocked by a number of cement blocks. We pull a u-turn, drive back, pull more u-turns onto the highway, drive through some sandy, undeveloped areas and make it to the Ramada Resort.

We go through a security check before driving through the gates including looking under the car with a mirror on a pole.  Now our bag check. The guard asks us if we have any food or drinks. His English is minimal. John and I both answer “one bottle of wine”.

He asks again. We answer the same. He doesn’t find the bottle of wine and we are sent through to reception.

We get the sense that if you look like a tourist the searches are very perfunctory.

By the droppings on the trail and the slight smell in the air, I can tell that camels are in the vicinity.

At the beach here are a number of tourists lounging in beach beds. A lady in a black burka speaks on her phone while her husband and two boys lather themselves in mud and then splash around in the water.

The weather is beautiful, it’s sunny and the sea is calm. John and I walk into the Dead Sea. Easier said than done because there are lots of small rocks to walk through and I still have a blister on my small toe (from our last day in Petra when I walked 34,000 steps).

Once past the rocks at the shoreline, the bottom is sandy.

A couple from the Netherlands gives us a newspaper to pose with…and we float.

Literally, you don’t have to try  you are held up by the water. A person would be hard pressed to drown in the Dead Sea.

John tries to do the breast stroke and keeps flipping over onto his back. It’s impossible to swim unless you do backstroke.

The friendly Dutch couple take pictures of both John and I floating together.

Now it’s time for our Dead Sea mud bath. We slather ourselves in mud, even our faces, wait a bit and then head back into the sea for more floating and washing off the mud.

There is still lots of mud on us so we go to the beach showers. John assures me that all mud is off but a women at the shuttle stop says my neck still has spots.

The sun setting over the Dead Sea is beautiful. It’s time to catch the shuttle back to the hotel.

We shower again at the hotel. John says his skin feels much smoother.