After arriving in town in Jericho, we stopped to get a little brunch at the diner we were dropped off in front of. By stopped to get brunch, I mean that one of the guys we were riding with immediately invited us inside and we followed without any real discretion. It was a spacious place and served delicious food, some of the best hummus and falafel I've had yet in Palestine. After that we caught a cab to the hostel in Jericho, which had a a beautiful sitting room. We were shown to our wing and quickly changed into our bathing suits and called a cab to the Dead Sea. To get to the Dead Sea we had to leave Palestine and cross over into Israel since Israel has decided that the Dead Sea should be theirs exclusively. We had to pay for access to the beach which reminded me of a private beach at some Caribbean resort. It was a little spendy (about 12-15 dollars) but hey, you only get so many times to hang out at THE CRAZIEST SEA IN THE WORLD! I know that everyone knows that the Dead Sea is salty, but it is one of those things that must be experienced to be understood completely. When yo float in the Dead Sea you actually are mostly floating on top of it since it is 30% solids mixed in finely with the water in addition to the salty content. And it's salty, very very very salty. So salty that you can't put your face in the water, unless you didn't read the warning like me and instead got ththe worst burning sensation I've ever experienced in my retinas. It's so salty that my nasal passages got all chapped from the water and my lips were chapped like I ate ten bags of Tim's sea salt and vinegar. I don't think I have the literary skill to properly describe the water there, but it was cool to say the least.
Next up was a thorough coating of Dead Sea mud all over since it's apparently a must due the "magical" property of the mud. The floor of the sea is odd, in one spot you can be standing on sand, take two steps and cut your toe on a giant piece of salt and take two more and sink knee-deep in mud. The mud is in layers there of varying colors between shades of grey (or is it gray?) and pitch black. Charline, Danny, Scott and I all slathered ourselves in the mud throughout the day as we wandered between the water and and our chairs. We looked something like this in the water:
or this:
Here's some other shots of the Dead Sea. Jordan is across the Dead Sea here:
Quick side note, while I hate to sound like an asshole, the beach was covered with some really unattractive people
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