Hella Solutions blog: "Document. Share. Inspire."

Unfortunately we are not going to be able to make a trip to Petra. It’s a 2+ hour drive from here and the tours are only on Tuesdays and Fridays (it’s past Tuesday and we leave Friday morning). Today we took a drive through Amman and to the Dead Sea. We made it about a quarter of the way there before the driver mentioned that we might need our passports to get past the two military check points along the way (none of us did so we had to drive back to the hotel). This gave me some extra time clicking pictures from the car window.

About half of the drive is through the city and then you hit a more “rural”/barren landscape with occasional houses and signs of much development to come. The temperature gradually increases as you get closer to the Dead Sea.

Like many Westernizing countries billboards are everywhere and the religion of consumption and capitalism is strong. Here’s a sign for water, a big commodity here, which is, however, a refreshing site while driving in 100 degree weather with no air conditioning…but still sad to see the comodification of such an essential element to life and where most people don’t have the access to decent paying jobs.

To get to the shores of the Dead Sea you have to go through one of the newly developing hotels (which means you have to pay). The one we went through is the MovenPick (two little dots over the “o”). It looks like a nice place to stay with more of a Spanish influence than Middle Eastern it seems.

Wading in the Dead Sea is amazing. You can stand in the water, without touching the bottom, and you will only sink as far as mid-way up to your chest. You really have to work to get your shoulders under before immediately bobbing up. The easiest position is to lay flat on your back with your hands behind your head. In this position you are basically lying on top of the water. May be this is where the whole Jesus walking on water comes from. May be the sea was just that more saturated with salt and it could actually support a man’s body wait. It’s really a cool excursion if you are ever in the area.