This past weekend I was asked to participate in a strategic planning retreat for work. To my delight, the event was arranged at the swanky Movenpick hotel on the shores of Dead Sea. I decided to head down early on Friday several hours before the opening dinner to see what's going on down there at the world's lowest point on land below sea level.
Driving there in the van with a couple of colleagues made me realize how much time I have been spending looking at sprawl since I got here. Unexpectedly, driving southwest out of Amman - a new direction for me - the city ended abruptly and we were suddenly passing through a wide open landscape of steep hills, terraced olive groves and deep valleys. A sight for my sore eyes.
And then we started to go downhill. One of the women I was travelling with offered me gum. I declined. She insisted... 'really, it is for your ears, they will feel the pressure.... like in an airplane...". Amman is indeed on a deceptively high plateau and though the Dead Sea is only 30 minutes away by car, it is a completely different climate and at a much, much lower altitude. In Amman, it was 6 degrees C, rainy, foggy and overcast when we left; half an hour later, when we reached the bottom of the steep hill into the Jordan river valley where it opens into the Dead Sea, the sky was clearing, sun was streaming , the humidity was rising and the temperature was a balmy 17C.
Suddenly there were banana plantations and orange groves and flowers and lush vegetation. And signs for the baptism site of Jesus. And weird rinky dink souvenir shops. And lots of plain clothes and uniformed security people because of the proximity to a certain neighbouring country. And the Dead Sea itself.
December 18th is not a peak season for swimming but there were a few other ridiculous tourists like myself (mostly German) who couldn't resist the water. We bobbed along in the briny sea. Fantastic feeling floating weightless. Amazing oxygen-rich air.
Will definitely do it again - highly recommended.
Does it ever blow you away to think that you are actually in a biblical country?
ReplyDeleteAll the time! The juxtaposition of these contemporary islamic cities that are 90% built in the 20th century overlaid on top of these ancient places that only had metaphorical meaning to me in the past is constantly mind-bending. I never really thought of the hills of Gilead, or the place where Christ was baptized at the mouth of the river Jordan, or the road through Salt that the 3 kings took when they were heading to Bethlehem as actual PLACES, let alone places that have a lot of problems with illegally built residential subdivisions, and dangerous pedestrian crossings and faulty water and sewer systems.
ReplyDeleteYou don't say anything about that so-beautiful-it-looks-fake stone paved road. I suppose that's the Mövenpick resort?
ReplyDeleteyou are dead bang on, BSL. the whole resort was ye olde arabia a la TE lawrence... tinkling fountains and quiet courtyards and damascene wooden screens and inlaid carved chairs, which is quite different from the loud diesel engines and falafel stands out on the main road e.g. the real deal. The reason I posted the picture is because of the greenery... the small shrubby tree on the right is (according to my colleagues) unique to the dead sea area... it seems to grow up to the edge of the salt flats. It reminded me of swamp sumac in n. ontario.
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