Driving along the Dead Sea in search of adventure!

  Dead Sea Region, Jordan
Friday, January 22, 2010

Dear Blog,

As promised, Akram was waiting for us outside the hotel at 7:30am.  With excitement, I sat again in the front seat smiling at the same time at the appearance of the bright yellow sun in between the clouds.  A beautiful day was being forecasted on this Friday morning!

The Jordan Valley Highway was the route Akram took for our day's excursions.  As he drove the car from the top of the hill into the valley, the image opening in front of us was quite spectacular due to the emerald green trees, deep blue sky and coloured rocks displaying a picture perfect landscape.

After descending to the Dead Sea level, the lowest point on earth at 400 metres below sea level,  Akram proceeded driving along the Sea which had a beautiful rich turquoise colour shinning graciously under the sun's piercing rays.  The sky was hazy but we could see quite well Israel on the other side of the Dead Sea.  

Along the route, the security was quite tight due to being so close to Israel.   Several patrol cars with policemen holding machine guns on their shoulders were stationned at different check points stopping by random cars passing by.  As for us, we were stopped twice in which, each time, Akram had to show the patrolmen his valid driver's license as well as identifying us as Canadians.   

After driving for almost one hour, a brief stop was made along the Dead Sea route so we could look at the dried pillar of salt supposingly being the remains of Lot's wife.  According to the writings, Lot's wife is supposed to have disobeyed God's warning not to look back as she fled Sodom with her husband and turned into a salt pillar.  Quite interesting!   The morale of the story, as explained by Akram, is that the wife always has to listen to her husband!  BS

Right next to us, the water of the Dead Sea was splashing along the edge of the cliff's rocks.  The rocks were white in colour but this was due to them being covered with salt, salt from the Dead Sea.  As well, from where we were standing, the salt on the rocks looked like tiny little diamonds shinning under the sun's rays.  I couldn't take my eyes away from them as the image they were producing was so beautiful!!   Another moment in time I was witnessing to be remembered forever!  :-)

After another half hour drive, we finally arrived at Lot's Cave, one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Jordan in which, within minutes, we were just about to explore by ourselves!

Stay tuned!

Thankful for Jordan's Valley,

Monique   :-)