Still travelling: Dead Sea adventures

Day 33 - 3 July - Red Sea
Another wine tasting, another early bridge day. - yes, I know I said that yesterday, but it is true today too! Today is our final sea day before we reach Aqaba, Jordan tomorrow morning. We steamed past Mecca overnight, so I had to realign the bathmat this morning! (no small feat, given the size of our bathroom). Still an overcast morning so far, with just a little bump on the water. By mid afternoon the sun is out and the temperature has risen to the mid 30s.

Day 34 - 4 July - The Dead Sea
Arrived in Aqaba at 6.30am. It was pleasant to watch our sail in from the balcony while having room service breakfast. Well that was what I had envisaged. The reality is more of a horror/comedy with a happy ending!

We had a private tour with Jordan Inspiration Tours to visit the Dead Sea. Not that we initially knew it, but there were 2 groups of 16 doing this trip from the ship.

Mid last week, someone apparently asked the tour operator if we needed our passports. The answer came back "yes". This resulted in a request to Passenger Services for our passports. In turn, alarm bells rang and it was "assumed" that we would be going into Israel.

Now the ship was perfectly correct in their procedures, as part of the immigration process is that all passports remain onboard for the authorities to check/process. We all went to a meeting yesterday afternoon and were told that we would be able to get our passports released by the Jordanian authorities, but there would be a fee of USD15 each. OK, although Dr Google does not show us going over the border at any stage.

But going with the flow, we were required to assemble in Legends Bar at 7.00am to be processed. This mean't changing the alarm to 5.30 and making sure we got breakfast by 6.30. That part all worked perfectly and we did sit on the balcony enjoying breakfast (albeit somewhat rushed). Down to Legends at 7.00 and various Immigration/ Cusoms officials aboard, as well as (I assume) the port agent. Much discussion & plenty of stamping going on.

Next step - Passenger Services advise us that we will need a Visa and that the authorities are prepared to give us an exit Visa, *BUT* if we return to Jordan within 24 hours there is a USD85 fine each. Now this is becoming ridiculous. A quick happy ending after eventually contacting the tour organiser, who confirmed that we were not leaving Jordan - so off we go & no fee. Jordanian Immigration are apparently most unhappy as they'd sent 2 staff from Amman (400 km away), who were not now needed.

After all this we still left the port ahead of schedule at 7.55. The Dead Sea Resort is pretty close to the top of the Dead Sea and is almost 300 km from Aqaba. Our drive there took nearly 4 hours, with stops for comfort (had USD2 Palestinian ice creams), photos, water & diesel.

The landscape was intriguing, going from sand dunes to craggy hills to plantations & crop growing, all the time running parallel with the Israeli border. The area we travelled along is called the Jordan Wadi - the River Jordan feeds the Dead Sea from the north, not that we went that far.

About halfway through our journey we were stopped by a police/security random stop. We are not sure what it was all about but they took our drivers license and he and our guide spent a good 5 minutes in "discussion" before we were allowed to proceed. Just an extra bit of excitement for the day.

The first part of the Dead Sea we came across was not actually the sea, but an area where both Jordan & Israel process salt from the sea. Huge operations for both the salt and also Potash. Minerals from this area are a major export earner for Jordan, along with fruit & vegetables.

Interestingly Jordan lives in a peaceful co-existence with it's neighbours, Israel & Saudi Arabia. To the north of our destination lies Syria, a mere 120 km away. Much of the western foreshore of the Dead Sea is actually in Palestinian territory.

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at -1,412 ft (OK purists, you know what I mean) and it's waters are both highly saline and contain many other minerals which can be very dangerous if consumed or enter the eyes etc. Therefore it is important to simply float on your back and not attempt other swimming activity. The reality is that when floating it is physically impossible to put your feet down.

Getting ahead of myself here. We arrived at the resort just before midday and were surprised how large the resort was. Now this was one of some 6-8 big-name hotel resort complexes located in an area of just 1 or 2 kilometres, as the rest of the shoreline is unoccupied and inhospitable.

We all decided to have the Dead Sea "swim" before lunch, so off we trot a couple of hundred metres down to the waters edge. The shore was very rocky (mainly smallish stones) but *VERY* hot! Anyone contemplating this activity would be advised to have aqua socks or at least jandals - even though it is only 5 or 6 steps to the water. BTW the air temperature was in the mid-40s.

The swim experience is quite unique and although we only paddled out to a depth of about 2 feet, this was enough to be able to float happily. After obligatory photographs it was time to return to shore, but this was no easy feat (feet). I was simply unable to make my feet reach the seabed, even in 1 foot of water. I eventually scuttled backwards to shore and at that stage could get up. Next process (apart from the Fijian fire walk) was to use the showers on the beach to rinse off the sea water, before the trek back up to the resort & changing rooms.

Still more and more steps up as far as the restaurant, where we had a buffet lunch of traditional food. Disappointingly there were no complimentary drinks (incl. water) and Vivian paid USD5 for a small pot of hot water & a green tea bag! Luckily I had bought extra water from onboard, so made do with that. There was adequate water provided on the bus as well.

The funny thing was that we were originally scheduled to leave the resort at 4.30 for our return home, but various parties wanted to get back earlier, so we had agreed to a 3.00 departure. This turned out to be more than enough time as after we'd all done the sea swim, some did a subsequent pool swim, and then lunch we were very happy to contemplate the return 3-4 hour journey.

As a compromise, we actually had an half hour visit to Aqaba on our way back to the ship. Interesting, but at the end of a long day, we were happy it was just a short stop. Vivian hopped on the bed as soon as we got back while I did bloggy & photography things. Room service snack around 8.30ish and that was the day over. A long day, but really interesting - not just the Dead Sea experience, but the journey itself and the fascinating ever changing scenery.

Day 35 - 5 July - at sea
Tomorrow we leave the Middle East behind as we transit the Suez Canal and enter the Mediterranean. We then have a very port intensive fortnight ahead and I will try to update this blog on a regular (daily?) basis before my mind gets too scrambled 😂😂.