Day 90 - Dead Sea, Jordan

Today we woke up and had to have our bags and had breakfast by 7.20am to get on the road towards the Dead Sea area.

Our first stop along the way to the Dead Sea was to Karak Castle. Omar took us on the tour of the castle that was never taken by force and only surrendered by the Crusaders after being surrounded for two years with no one in or out. The Crusaders built this castle in the 12th Century.

We had an hour and a half hour drive to the Dead Sea area from Karak Castle, which we had a booking at the Medical Centre, a four star hotel resort that features pools, a water slide and access to the Dead Sea with the mud.

Once we arrived, we had lunch at the resort which consisted of a buffet meal. After lunch we got changed and headed straight down to the Dead Sea.
Floating in the water was a very weird sensation! When you tried to stand you would just bob in the water and not go down unless you pushed against the water. We also tried the mud that is meant to do wonders for your skin, Katie tried a small amount, of course I went all in!
After the Dead Sea we moved up to the resorts pool that had a water slide. We spent time with some of the group seeing who could go down the slide the fastest.

We went back to the bus ready to start making our way to our next hotel in Madaba. On the way we stopped at Mt. Nebo, Mount Nebo is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land before his death. The landscape is home to stunning surroundings and one can look out at the Dead Sea, Bethlehem, and on a clear day, even Jerusalem (we could kind of make the outline of some buildings). The Memorial Church of Moses also rests at the summit that has intact mosaics from the original church on the floor and walls.

We ventured onto the hotel in Madaba, we checked in and headed out for some dinner locally. We had a walk through the Main Street and main shopping mall (McDonalds was the most interesting thing there!)
At 9pm I had booked a hair cut from a barber directly across the hotel for 3JED! This was going smooth until we talked about Turkey and how he off handily mentioned he had lived in Istanbul but in Jail… still working out if that was miss communicated english or serious!Read more