Phil made advance hotel reservations for most of the trip but last night was not arranged, and further, there were no rooms in the youth hostel in the town he was visiting yesterday. Naturally, it took my breath away when he messaged me on Facebook that he was going to sleep on the beach of the Dead Sea. My overprotective mother instincts kicked in. Maybe there are things a mother ought not to know about her adventuresome grown son's travel plans, if not having a place to stay is a plan. In all fairness, he's a young man who can easily jet from New York to Geneva, Switzerland, where he's interning at the International Labor Organization for the summer, then figure out where to stash his belongings, and in less than two days, be enroute to Tel Aviv. El Al, the Israeli airline put him through extra security because of his short time spent in Geneva, and it was apparently stressful at the Geneva airport, but okay in the end. It's clear, Phil's got it going on, and I know from hearing of his previous travels, he's experienced amazing times and circumstances. Anyhow, apparently, there were other people at the campground on the beach where he stayed. Details are sketchy, but he lived to tell about it.
I'm having a great time here-- I woke up to a sunrise over the Dead Sea this morning then went and saw Massada, then went to a place called Ein Gedi that has a bunch of waterfalls. Then I went and swam in the Dead Sea, which was interesting. You hear about how it makes you float, and you don't quite realize how much it will do that. I lost my balance standing several times, because my legs would start to float. Crazy. The other weird thing is how salty it is. I mean, obviously it's salty, but it's so salty that a lot of the salt goes to the bottom. If you scrape the floor of the Dead Sea, it's just a bunch of salt at the bottom. Also, salt crystalizes on the rocks, so you pick up a rock and it has salt crystals on it.
If you would like to see all of the pictures from this series, click the link Avdat, Mitzpe Ramon, the Dead Sea.
I'm not-so-secretly hoping Phil procures me some Dead Sea cosmetics so I can compare against my Korean Mud Rang!
Photography: Phil Bastian
Alright, there are tons of cosmetics at the Dead Sea, and I really didn't know which ones you would want. Also, they are all liquid, which means I would have to send them to you from here. So, I'm not sure you would save any money. In any case, I've procured a catalogue and you can see if you are interested in having some shipped to you. I thought about getting you a tub of mud, but again, I just didn't want it in the suitcase with all of my stuff.
ReplyDeleteYes a catalogue is great! thanks!
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