The Dead Sea and Madaba

It has now been several weeks since I went on my weekend trip to the Dead Sea and Madaba. They are both in what Elias calls the wider area of Amman. Truth be told they are not far from Amman at all, it takes less than an hour to get to the Dead Sea and Madaba is about half way in between the two. So basically it takes me about the same time to get to the Dead Sea as it takes some one to get from one side of London to the other on the tube. That being said it only takes four hours to dive from Amman to Aqaba which is pretty much the length of the country, so the time it takes you to drive from one side of London to the other is about half the length of Jordan. That just shows how very very small this country. I mean I was always under the impression that the UK was small, but I think it is clear that Jordan is much smaller!

We went as a group as a sort of Birthday celebration for Ruth's birthday. The drive from Amman to Aqaba is all downhill, which is to be expected considering the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth being 400m below sea level. This is the reason why the dead sea is sooo salty, because it is a basin where the River Jordan collects and then has no where else to go so the water evaporates leaving behind it very salty water. We went to Amman beach which you pay 16JD for the day to use the pools and the beach.

When we arrived we went straight to the sea to experience that floating feeling that everyone talks about. It was very strange and when we went up to the pools afterwards I felt like I was a rock. The pools were glorious and we sat by them pretty much all day watching crazy Jordanians diving into the pool in all manner of ways. I lost count at the number of belly flops that occurred. To round off the experience we got mudded up in the famous Dead Sea sludge that is supposed to make your skin as soft as a babies bottom. I can't say that my skin was softer, but it was an experience especially the applying of the mud. The guy who was rubbing me all over, whilst doing my inner thigh managed to hit my gooch numerous times.

After we had had enough of the Dead Sea we split into two, some went back to Amman and the rest of us continued to Madaba. In true risky Jordanian style we crammed six of us into a taxi to make the price cheaper, but in no time at all we were there and for only 3JD each.

Madaba is famous for its mosaics. So the next day we walked all around the town looking in the many many churches and remains of churches looking at bits of mosaics. It is amazing to think that those mosaics have been there since the early centuries. They are very impressive and I definitely want to go back to buy a mosaic souvenir. My host mum's family live there so we will definitely be going back at some point.

This Mosaic map is the oldest map of the Holy Land in existence. It's not extremely accurate or to scale, but you can see all the necessary bits are present. It would have been amazing to the see this church floors in their original glory,  because all that is left is fragment of the original thing.

Over all the weekend was thoroughly enjoyable and it's nice to know how close it all is to my new home.

Next time on this blog : I will be talking about my holiday in Eid break to Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.