One of the main tourist attractions in Jordan is the chance to swim in the Dead Sea and was one of the first things on the list of places we wanted to visit since we came to the Middle East.
The Dead Sea gets its name because of the high salt content and the inability for fish and other animals to survive in it. It is however known for the "magical" powers. With this in mind, we had to give it a go.
With the exception of a small public beach, the coastline can only really be accessed through one of the luxury hotels. We booked into the 5* Holiday Inn as a little treat as it has its own private beach with fresh water showers for cleaning off after swimming.
On arriving at the hotel, we quickly headed for the beach. All the guide books advise not to shave and cover any cuts before heading into the sea and I have to admit that they say this for a reason. After only a couple of minutes in the water your body starts to tingle.
Due to the high salt content of the water, your body naturally floats. It is a very weird and quite an indescribable feeling.
The mud in the Dead Sea is also reputed to have healing powers and be good for the skin, so we had to give it a go. The hotel kindly provides a bucket of mud on the beach to save you the trouble of hunting for it. So, when in Rome and all that, we caked ourselves up. We were quite content to sit and wait for the mud to dry but the hotel guy on the beach told us that the best way to do this was to bury ourselves in the sand. Well what an opportunity this was to bury Jenny in the sand. I'd dreamed and planned of this moment on many occasions - only joking!! So after slowly cooking in the sand for about 10 minutes it was time to wash off. When we stood up, we looked like the inside of a crunchie bar.
I have to admit that putting mud and sand on the face was probably a bad idea. When trying to wash it off it would start to run into your eyes. The natural reaction is rub water into it. However, this is the worst thing to do. I don't know how many times Jenny did this and had to run out of the water blind to get the salt out of her eyes.
Interesting facts about the Dead Sea
1. The Dead Sea is approximately 400m below sea level.
2. The water is approximately 33% salt, which is about 8x greater than ordinary sea water.
3. The unusually high salt concentration provides natural buoyancy
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