The Dead Sea

I neglected to tell you about one of the other world wonders I experienced while visiting Israel this summer.

No, it’s not one of the accredited 7, not even 7 natural wonders, but it’s definitely up there high on the list. Maybe top 20?

I’m rambling. My point is this - I got to experience the Dead Sea. Incidentally, besides being damn salty, it’s 420m below sea level (the lowest point of land below sea level), and while only the second-saltiest body of water in the world, it’s the deepest. Good luck scuba diving there though.. I heard they once tried to send a submarine to the bottom to find out what’s at the center, to see if something or other from the bible lurks within, but had to give up because of the rust damage the submarine was taking.

But first, about the journey to the Sea. We began our drive from northern Israel towards the south-east early in the morning, before sunrise. We stopped briefly at the famed Masada ruins, where once upon a time, some EXTREMELY determined Christians Jews committed suicide en masse instead of being captured by the evil Romans. (They won the respect of the Romans through this act… but I can’t help wondering what happened to the soldiers, wives, and children who didn’t want to die.) The place was pretty amazing, and deserves an entry of its own, so I’ll just briefly mention that the history behind the place is extremely long, and worth looking up if you’re interested in that sort of stuff.

We found some incredibly tame, and intelligent birds there. They were black, had voices like crows when shouting “MINE MINE MINE!”, but then cooed like the sweetest, most innocent little angels when asking for food from humans. The bravest of them ate straight from our hands. They had a striking dash of orange in their wings. Apparently they are a type of bird called Tristram’s Starling. Eyal wants me to say that they bite people, but he’s exaggerating.

I tried really hard to keep my eyes open, but failed, until the landscape changed dramatically. Cliffs of red, yellow, and orange began to rise around us as the flora and fauna began to transform. Instead of the lots of bushes and trees of northern Israel, there were the occasional extremely twiggy-looking tree, cacti, and scattered oases. Car license plates stopped being Israeli and morphed into Palestinian ones. I felt like I was on the moon when the random BEWARE OF CAMEL-signs began to pop up. “Camels?” I wondered, “Wild camels?” Eyal told me they weren’t really wild - more like free range camels of the beduins. Camels always walked home on their own. I didn’t really believe him until suddenly, up on the rise of a mountain-like dune, the silhouette of a camel. Grazing. Wow.

We stopped at a gas station, where Eyal’s favorite football team’s bus was also resting, as well as several camels in the parking lot. “Camel? In the parking lot? What, do they have to fuel them here or what the hell is it doing there?” I wondered. Eyal enlightened me, by pointing out the tourist attraction of camel rides. And sure enough, some silly tourist paid for a ride around the parking lot of the gas station, while another crazy one snapped photos nonstop.

Shortly after, the signs proclaiming our descent into the depths of 420m below sea level began to appear. Apparently 0m (pictured here), was a popular place for tourists to stop and take their picture. I just took the shot from within the safe confines of the car.

We had packed 5 or 6 random cds with us, including the not so cool home-brewed “NEW MTV HITS!!!!!”-cd from the late 90’s. Or was it early 2000’s? There was some painful painful stuff on it anyway. Eventually we ran out of cds and attempted to listen to the radio, but were treated to nothing except variations on Arabic music. Now, I like the strange, exotic music with Arabic tones, but after a while, it starts to be too much for me as well.

Anyway, finally, we arrived. The road carved in the mountain slithered down to the shores of the Dead Sea, and I was able to snap a few photos before my camera decided that this would be the perfect moment to run out of batteries. (Damn it!)

We stayed a night at a Zimmer (sort of bed and breakfast bungalow which tends to have a jacuzzi), where nothing worked except for the air conditioning. In the evening, we drove to a free Dead Sea beach, where we went around and around in circles, trying to find a parking spot. We finally found one, unloaded our touristy selves, and trotted towards the beach, where we set up our towels and headed towards the water.

At first I thought someone had farted. There was a hefty aroma of rotten eggs in the air, and as we approached the water, it got stronger. I asked Eyal if it was him, but he said, “No, it’s the water.”

How could the tourist brochures have neglected to mention the “gentle” smells of sulphur bubbling up from the water? It was fenced off by a series of rubber barricades, with a large intimidating sign warning us not to approach it. Speaking of signs, this is the only beach I’ve ever seen where they tell you how to get into the water, and where the “DO NOT SPLASH OR DIVE” warnings actually are 100% obeyed. The water is so salty and full of other minerals that should you get it into your eyes or mouth, you will have to be hospitalized.

In order to enter the water, you had to first trudge a little through the warm warm water into a slightly deeper area. The bottom began as sand, but then turned into hard, solid little balls of salt-clusters, the size of medium-large meatballs. These were not so comfortable to walk on, but it was not a problem, as you began to float very soon, whether you wanted to or not. For each step I took into the water, it began to be harder and harder to push my foot all the way down to the bottom, and easier to lift it. Finally, when we were satisfied with the depth we sat down. My butt didn’t touch the bottom. I was sort of floating there. And then I stretched my legs and back and suddenly I was floating on an invisible raft of saltwater.

It was great! The other mystery of the Dead Sea is the matter of how the heck saltwater is supposedly good for your skin. Well, as I previously mentioned, it’s also full of a bunch of other minerals, as well as some oil. So it’s very gentle. Just make sure you wash it off after coming out. Paddling was incredibly easy. Just one gentle swoosh of Ann-Mi’s arm-oars, and I go saiiiiiiling across the waters.

Wonderful. If you find yourself in Israel or Jordan, don’t go without seeing the Dead Sea.