Dead Sea

After a few days of scrambling through and over rocks and ruins - Jerash was spectacularly large and well-preserved - we descended 400 meters below sea level to the Dead Sea. We're staying in this ridiculously over-priced hotel, but it's the only place to stay in the area (and it's actually cheaper than its neighbors). But we got here just as the sun was starting to go behind the hills on the Israeli side of the "water," and we hopped in the sea and bobbed like apples in the sunset. You can fully extend your arms and legs into the air, and you'll still float. The only way you could drown in this is if somebody held you under. And we could only stay in for about a half hour, since the salt (and/or other chemicals) in the water eventually makes you hurt in places you never thought you'd feel pain (or at least hoped). Fortunately, they have fresh-water showers right next to the beach to rinse the unforgiving salt off.

The weather down here is oddly humid and probably even more hot than before, as there is a belt of agriculture on either side of the Jordan River before it gives way to semi-arid and then desert again. It's also down in a valley too (obviously with the decline in elevation) with no wind. But the desert up by Azraq where we were two days ago - where Lawrence of Arabia spent one winter at the oasis - is strange and other-planet-like. Tiny basalt rocks everywhere, no plants, and flat, flat, flat as far as you could see. There were no people where we drove through on the road, not even Bedouin who can live anywhere with the their herds of sheep and goats. This wasn't Arizona or New Mexico or even Nevada desert. It was something else entirely that I've never seen.

So now it's on to Karak, a crusader castle, back up in the hills - at the end of our journey today (there will also be a panamoric view, hot springs, and a drive across an interesting wadi), and we'll be staying overnight in that town. And then tomorrow night, we'll be in Dana Nature Reserve before starting to head further south for Petra, Wadi Rum, and eventually Aqaba.