At 7:50 am we left Amman for the Dead Sea. It’s about a 45 minute drive and we arrived at Amman Beach, the public beach at the Dead Sea, with more than enough time to float about before my spa appointment!
The water is incredible. I’m bouyant on my own so with salty salt water, I was even more like a cork. In fact, on my stomach, I couldn’t actually swim. It was like when parents try to teach their kids to swim but hold them too far out of the water. The water felt oily and the salt deposits in the sand looked like epsom salt bath crystals (this is where they come from), and there is a rock that is in all the photos with deposits on it that look like melted wax.
http://flickr.com/photos/young_geologist/482781784/
We only bobbed around for an hour because my spa appointment was at 10 am. That would be 10 am to 2 pm!!!! This is the bar at the hotel (one of them) and the spa was equally chic-chic.
http://flickr.com/photos/jaakob/1536371410/
Kempinski Hotel and the Anantara Spa. My Thai massage therapist was excellent. I started with a foot bath, then an aromatic bath while sipping on amazing chamomile tea. Then I had the Dead Sea scrub. Exfoliate baby! Next up was a shower, then the mud wrap. The Dead Sea mud is famous and I was rubbed all over with it, then wrapped in plastic, while I had a head massage. I thought I’d died and found my own personal heaven. After my 2nd shower, I had the hour massage. It’s hard to wash off all that mud, and incredibly hard to just lay around all day having people service your skin.
James always feels drunk coming out of a spa treatment and I was falling over my feet. So relaxed, so oiled, so glowy. I loved it.
Then we went to a baptismal site because our guide was pretty keen to take us. Next thing I know we were on some cattle bus being shuttled to the edge of the Jordan river to see where Jesus was baptized. This was not the end of my spa day that I imagined. Suddenly we were being herded like donkeys in the desert to the edge of a river that’s about 6 metres wide, swatting at flies the entire time. Lots and lots of flies.
So yes, today I floated in the Dead Sea (the lowest point in the world), had a lavish spa day, and then walked where Jesus walked, saw where he was baptized, then drove back to Amman.
This is definitely a rich part of the world.