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Jordan - Graeme Robin - Travel
Jordan - Graeme Robin - Travel
Graeme Robin travels the world in his trusty old Fiat Tempra, and writes about his journeys.
If you enjoy reading this, you should consider buying Graeme’s second book
Jordan
Sunday 3rd October 2010
At twenty to three we are out of Syria – ten minutes short of two hours! What a shmozzle! Yesterday
it cost 850 pounds to exit to the Lebanon side of the fence and today it cost 5350 pounds to do the
same thing to Jordan. How come? Who knows! And of course I didn’t have 5350 – only 3000. There
was some lukewarm good news in that there was an ATM right there next to the banker (who won’t
take a Visa card) – but it is jammed tight and really looks as though it hasn’t worked this decade. The
banker said that there is a second machine in the duty free store half a kilometre back down the road
and as I sweat out the walk back I am thinking about the drive all the way back to Damascus should
this one be a dud too. But it wasn’t. Thank you Allah, or Jesus or was it just the National Bank of Syria.
By contrast the entry into Jordan took just one hour. Buy insurance for Phe, get a 30 day single entry
visa, passport control and customs – that was thorough, they even had a bloke in a pit looking at Phe’s
underbelly as we drove across. What a difference it was. Some of the blokes had a little bit of English,
they were all pleasant, they had computers, and it was just an easy simple thing to do. No bullshit like
‘fathers name’ and ‘mothers name’ and ‘address in Jordan’. The only hiccup was that they too had just
one ATM at the border but guess what! A message on the screen said “This machine is off-line tem-
porarily” I had converted the remaining Syrian pounds to Jordanian dinars but not enough to cover
the insurance, and visas for Phe and Me but luckily the bank was able to change a hundred Australian
dollars into 62 dinars and that saw us through.
So we are out on the open road in Jordan with a little cash and not much of a map, but enough to
suggest a right turn to the city of Irbed in the north western corner may be the way to go for tonight
and maybe even tomorrow night if the hotel is okay.
I look at the landscape trying to find a difference with Syria and can find none. Why should there be
any difference, after all it’s only a few kilometres and a fence! It’s dry, it has some olives, but hold on!
There’s some prickly pear – we haven’t seen prickly pear since Italy I don’t think.
And then low and behold a whole heap of camels maybe fifty of them on each side of the road. They
were tethered and fenced so they were definitely domesticated and not wild but what a surprise so
soon after leaving Syria.
Apart from that it looks much the same. Same smog the sun is trying to squeeze through, and it’s in
the low thirties. Drivers and driving seems much the same. The litter is the same (would it be too
much to hope that it is the wind that is blowing Syrian litter across the border?- I reckon it would be
too much to hope!)
I couldn’t spot a sign for a hotel at all but a friendly policeman directed us to the Hotel Joude – it
claims three stars but that may have been a few years ago – and for 25 dinars per night, we are here
for tonight and a rest day tomorrow.
A little way out of Irbid the land to the left of the road is fruitful with olive groves,
while the land to the right is barren and almost desert looking.
So we left the channel and took a track that looked to be heading in the direction of the Jordan
There was an army post sitting up on the hill next to the track, and a barrier, but the barrier was up
so I drove straight through.
But some kids on the way home from school made me wonder about the TRUE Jordan.
Graeme Robin travels the world in his trusty old Fiat Tempra, and writes about his journeys.
If you enjoy reading this, you should consider buying Graeme’s second book
Many of the apartments are all the same straight up and down boxes and mostly the same or similar
colour – beige tending towards cream and roofs of a pale terracotta. All stuck to the hillside and
mostly 3 to 5 stories. The mechanic bloke told me that Amman has been destroyed a number of
times by earthquakes etc and then as recently as 1970 it was badly damaged when a rocket and
bomb battle between the PLO and the Jordanian army was played out on its streets.
That bloke (me) is sitting in the Royal Box - but when will the show begin?
The sunset colours were quite spectacular looking from Jordan over the Dead Sea towards
the West Bank of Israel.
With all of the mucking around trying to escape from Amman, it was sunset when we arrived at the
Dead Sea with all of it’s five star resort hotels lined up in a row. The first was completely full up and the
ask of 190 dinars a night almost took my breath away. The Holiday Inn down the road was 117 dinars
and they had a room for me. Short of driving back to Amman there was no option so it was ‘like it or
lump it’ It really was ridiculous when you compare this 117 dinars with each of the last three nights
where I paid 25 dinars a night in Irbid and in Amman. Sure they didn’t have three swimming pools and
a gymnasium or security similar to Fort Knox but they suited me just fine with a comfortable bed and a
shower that worked. They even had a toilet seat and toilet paper – what more could a bloke ask for?
Jordan - The Dead Sea and The Baptism Site where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist
Thursday 7th October
I fronted up to the magnificent Holiday Inn breakfast bright and early before seven and then went for
a walk on the ‘beach’ of this very salty, very warm, Dead Sea.
A few people were in having a dip and I could have done the same I suppose – it would have been an
experience - but the air was already around 25 degrees and rising and the prospect of dropping into
a warm salt bath didn’t seem to mix somehow. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on earth at 400 odd
metres below sea level, not that you would know that - actually you would not know that at all - and
is 34% salt, about ten times saltier than sea water. Remarkable!
I read that Jordan in cahoots with Israel is researching the possibility of piping water from the Mediter-
ranean to top up the levels in the Dead Sea because it is loosing water at around a startling rate of
1 metre per year. There is really only the one major river, the Jordan, flowing into the Dead Sea, and
no streams flow out of it. The Jordan starts out around Damascus, flows through the Sea of Galilee
and straight south into the Dead Sea. However Syria, Israel and Jordan all take a bite out of it to feed
their farming industry with the result that the flow when it eventually enters the Dead Sea is pitiful. A
pipeline from the Mediterranean sounds like a good idea, especially with that 400 metres of fall, the
water would just syphon into the valley all by itself once given a kick start.
There is a lovely sandy ‘beach’ in front of the Holiday Inn with sand that has been carted in from
somewhere to create atmosphere for the guests. The natural ‘beach’ is not nice. However the colours
of the water, the mountains over on the Westbank were wonderful both last night at sunset and again
this morning after sunrise. Really spectacular.
By half past eight I was up the road about 10 kms waiting for the nine o’clock shuttle bus to the ‘Bap-
tism Site’ – and what a wonderful little tour that was. A few years back there was a bloke called John
the Baptist who got the job of baptising Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River before it entered the
Dead Sea. It was to the site of the baptism that we were taken this morning.
When we left the Dead Sea there had been a climb into the hills to pick up the 400 metres plus a
bit, and all of the way it had been rugged country with a few pines here and there, but mostly just
bare country, dry, tussocky grass, and rock. Inhospitable. And you would have to wonder who the hell
would want to fight over a country like this.
Why didn’t I wake up Karen when we were down on the Dead Sea, 400 metres below the level of
the sea – she probably would have gone “gurgle, gurgle”.
It’s so dry, hot and bleak up in the hills but down in the valleys there are paddocks of green. Then
around the next bend a great crop of tomatoes growing in the little soil between the rocks. Then a
couple of olive groves. Where is the water coming from? Same old story - where there is a will, there
is a way.
I have started taking photos of the pretty girls – not that you see much of them with all of their
protective armour but they seem to be quite beautiful. On the other hand I find it hard to believe
that these beauties will turn into their mothers and grandmothers. Normally I like elderly ladies, those
who chat a lot, and smile, and laugh, and are good fun, but the Jordanian women on the whole, seem
to be a dour lot, whose face tells the story of a life of hard work and subservience. I had the chance
to watch a large group of older women at the hotel in Amman as they sat at tables of three or four
talking among themselves – so much different to women in my own country. These people looked to
be very sombre, with little joy or merriment evident. I don’t know how to explain my impressions. It’s
too difficult. And how does a young man take his beautiful young bride home to a tent on the desert
floor and tell her that this is what she has to look forward to for the next fifty years or so. And I bet
that is exactly what is happening in so many cases. Sad.
Jordan - And the ancient City of Petra - hewn from the Limestone
Friday 8th October
Petra. Petra.
We found the town okay yesterday afternoon and got a nice hotel at 35 dinar and will stay tonight
and tomorrow night. But why are we at Petra and what is there here to see? I know nothing about
the place, so today is going to be a day of discovery for me, and if I chronicle it as it happened I may
be able to make it a day of discovery for you too.
The first step has to be to get a map of the town – but this hotel doesn’t have one. The reception
guy said turn left and then right and go to the end of the street. He didn’t have very good English
so that was about as much as I was going to get. Phe took us the short distance and then a friendly
taxi driver pointed out the big sign that said ‘Visitors Centre’ (in English) which I had almost fallen
over (and not seen) and then told me where to park Phe. The Visitors Centre came directly after the
ticket office where I had to part with 33 dinars as an entry fee. But in English it said that this 33 dinar
included amongst other things, an English speaking guide and a free one way horse ride. Not too sure
about the horse ride because the last time I rode a horse I fell off at full gallop and that was 45 years
ago when I was fit and agile, so any horse I get up on today will need to be built really close to the
ground and to have trainer wheels!
But armed with my ‘One Day - Over Night’ ticket the bloke at the information desk said I must wait
for the guide. It was not a long wait for the guide whose name was? – you guessed it – M’hamid, and
he spoke excellent English. There was just one other person in the party, a young German tourist
bloke who must have been pretty serious about Petra because he had bought a three-day pass.
M’hamid led us downhill along a dusty roadway of rocks and stones for quite a way and
into some pretty spectacular scenery of rugged mountains with massive limestone rocks on
either side.
After a bit of prompting, M’hamid told me a bit about himself. He is 39, has a wife and four children
ranging from 8 down to 2 and they don’t expect to have any more. He has been working for 16 years
as a guide here at Petra and gets paid a contracted amount for each trip he makes and I guess the
tourists dob in a few dinas, as I did (but the German didn’t). He works all the year round although it
usually starts raining in November and the winter months are cold – even snow occasionally – but
very hot in the mid summer. He told me that children in Jordan start school at 5 or 6 years and go
through to 17 or 18 years – but I am not quite sure when they can legally stop schooling. He con-
firmed what the bloke said yesterday about Jesus being just another one of a number of prophets in
Islam – so he is important but not pivotal as in Christianity.
I was sitting in the shade having a breather and listening to a tour guide – a Jordanian woman who
had excellent English – talking to her group of disciples of ten or twelve Dutch men and women. I
was sitting in the middle of them and listening to her commentary. She was a lovely lady, plenty of fun,
heaps of smiles.
Graeme Robin travels the world in his trusty old Fiat Tempra, and writes about his journeys.
If you enjoy reading this, you should consider buying Graeme’s second book
But she told us that one old bloke would not sell to the government and refused to leave. She took
us to his place as I suppose she does every time she has a group going through.
He has a couple of rooms dug into the rock, has tap water, has electricity and a satellite dish for the
TV and a little fireplace outside for his cooking. I asked her where he got his supplies, and she replied
“On these mountains he is better than a goat!” Nice old bloke – rolls his own from baccie grown out
the back somewhere. And along with every other Jordanian he knows the English words - “Welcome
to Jordan!” and “Thank you”
This photo may not have been taken from Phe, but there is no doubt about it being On
Roads Without Lines!
It was a beaut couple of hours that we spent driving around this desolate desert area, and even the
obligatory stopover in a Bedouin tent for a cup of chai (tea) with all the other tourists was great. It
goes without saying that they had things to sell to the tourists but with no pressure – just look and
buy if you want to, and don’t if you don’t.
Back to Rum Village and it was a bye, bye to Salem as we headed south down the main road to the
southernmost city in Jordan – the port of Aqabah. We arrived at the outskirts of Aqabah around
three o’clock and were sitting at a red light when a car pulled up next to Phe. The driver called out
across his wife and I thought he was asking for directions so threw my hands up in the air and said
“Only English” but then I heard the words,
“Do you want down-town Aqabah?” so I said ‘yes’ and he said
“Follow me.” which I did until it was time for him to turn off when he stopped and came back to tell
me how to get to the hotel district. How nice was that!
The first hotel I picked seemed to be just the goods with a clean, quiet room, a toilet seat and paper,
an air-conditioner and only 24 dinar for the night.The receptionist bloke was very helpful in guiding
me to the ticket office for tomorrow’s noon ferry to Egypt.
So tonight is our last in Jordan. (Well I thought it was, but little did I to know!)
The bastards have got me AGAIN! This time it’s a “Carnet De Passages En Douane”
Sunday 10th October
The bastards have got me AGAIN! This time it’s a thing called a
“Carnet De Passages En Douane” ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
The Red Sea runs all the way up from the East coast of Africa and at the top it splits into two arms.
The one to the left leads through Egypt and the Suez canal into the Mediterranean and the one to
the right – called the Gulf of Aqabah - goes as far as Aqabah The term ‘Up close and not very com-
fortable,’ came to mind because this narrow strip of water has Saudi Arabia along the east bank, Egypt
along the west bank and Jordan and Israel each with a 30 or 40km frontage to the water at the top
of the Gulf. Yesterday it was four fighter jets flying in a ragged formation over the water but tending
towards Israeli territory, and today it was a couple of army helicopters over the Gulf. I don’t know
whose they were but it certainly would do nothing to keep temperatures down. Maybe it’s a daily –
or hourly – event and nobody takes any notice, but I certainly noticed and no way did I give it ten out
of ten on the diplomacy scale.
It was a bit strange for me to have to find my way around the border post as there were people
everywhere and many looked as though they had all of their household belongings with them loaded
on trolleys and trundled through custom. But I managed to get some Egyptian Pounds from the ATM,
bought one month’s car insurance and got a visa for myself with no problems.
Then this phrase ‘Carnet De Passages En Douane’ came up. I was shunted from one window to the
next until it became very, very obvious that we had a big problem. It turned out that the ‘Carnet De
Passages En Douane’ is a fairly large and thick folder, which apparently accompanies every vehicle
while it is in the Middle East. Although the ferry was packed with passengers, it was carrying only
three cars and as it happened I saw one of them in the custom yard and asked the driver where he
got the folder.
“In Jordan” he said.
There was bugger all English around, so I was never sure that I had understood the answer and any-
way, even if I did, was it the answer to the right question, but they floated another option and that was
for me to put up a guarantee that would be refundable at the end of the journey. $US1,000 was the
figure floated which I agreed to but with a heap of reservations – not the least being how hard would
it be to get the deposit back in three weeks time! Then the figures seemed to escalate like magic to
$US6,000 – out of the question – plus a road tax of 4000 Egyptian Pounds.
That leaves just two choices.
Ahmed, my friendly hotel receptionist was no help with the ‘Carnet De Passages En Douane’ – had
no idea what it was – so the first stop was to return to the travel agent who sold me the ferry tickets
to Egypt three days ago. A nice young lady with pretty good English looked after me and after a few
discussions with others in the office they decided that the document could be acquired but only from
one place - another travel agent in Aqabah. A choice of just one, is not much of a choice at all!
As a favour they had one of the young men in the office drive me around there, which was just as
well because I would never have found the place in the first place even with a taxi, and secondly the
bloke wasn’t there and we had to wait for fifteen minutes or more for him to front up. What’s more
he barely had basic English.
The upshot of it all was that, “Yes,” he can produce a ‘Carnet De Passages En Douane’ for Phe but only
if the car is here in Jordan! He must have the ‘blue paper’ that I get from customs when she enters the
country! He cannot produce a ‘Carnet De Passages En Douane’ without that ‘blue paper’! And she is
sitting miles away in no-mans-land with her nose right up to the Egyptian border!
Then he started talking about a guarantee that I would have to put up. Refundable. The first figure
was $US10,000. I laughed! (or cried) Then it was $500, and I said okay, but then it became $6,000. We
were getting nowhere fast. And I must say I didn’t like the bloke very much. Four years ago I had paid
1500 euros deposit on a car to a Turkish carpet salesman – and have been whistling Dixie ever since,
so I am not likely to put up big sums like that again to some sloppy snoozer in Aqabah!
There are no choices left now. I can only turn my back on Egypt – what a bugger! I will have to catch
a return ferry to Neweiba and bring Phe back to Jordan.
Then it was the mechanics of getting back to the first – and reputable – travel agent, buying a ticket
back to Egypt, and a taxi out to the Port for the one o’clock fast ferry. Once there, it only took a
few minutes to organise the departure tax and a stamp as I know where to go and what to do now,
so with still an hour before departure I went to the Information Kiosk and found the same bloke
who last Sunday had not told me about that piece of Egyptian magic called ‘Carnet De Passages En
Douane’.
He was great. Maybe he remembered me, maybe not, but we went from one section to another all
over that place as he got more and more information. The last stop was at the office of a travel agent
on the second floor called “Al-Ahli Club of Kuwaitand” but what especially encouraged me was the
next line on the sign that read “For Tourism and Automobile Services.” The office was closed at the
time but apparently they too can produce a ‘Carnet De Passages En Douane’ for Phe but they do
need her to be here in Jordan, and they do need the ‘blue paper’. The same story but at least it was a
second choice. More importantly there was no mention of a guarantee so there is still a little light at
the end of the tunnel – I just hope it’s not the light of a train coming the other way!
Aqabah, as a city is pretty good. It has wide streets with plenty of street trees and the
buildings are modern. And it is growing like wild fire, with apartments, and hotels, and retail
outlets springing up all over the place.
Jordan - It has been great but now we are heading for our first night in Israel
Friday 15th October
Last night I realised I have missed another birthday! Wombat – Adam to everyone else – was ten
three days ago and I hadn’t realised it. Another bugger! But the sim card has some more money on it
now so I will give him a ring later this morning when he will be home from school.
It was an early start today – gave the breakfast a miss – as its 300 plus kms back to Amman and it
would be good to get to the Israeli Embassy before lunch time. I have tossed it around because there
is a border crossing here in Aqabah and it would be easy to cross into Israel, take pot luck and hope
for the best – but that sort of thinking hasn’t panned out too well lately so I decided we should drive
to Amman and get some proper information about visa requirements, ferries out of Israel, and can
we travel from Israel into Egypt? The internet has Amman listed as the only official Israeli information
place in Jordan.
The road is called the Desert Highway. It’s divided with plenty of lines and plenty of heavy transports
many carrying crude oil from one of the oilfields to a refinery near Amman, and a few cars. It was
interesting really because I couldn’t help but notice the fuel tankers near the turn-off to Wadi Rum
because there were hundreds of them congregated around what looked like huge petrol bowsers.
There was no sign of storage tanks and it looked as though the tanker just hooked up to the bowser,
was filled and then took to the road. I saw the same thing yesterday down by the Saudi border but
didn’t take a lot of notice at the time. For the next 200 kms we passed many full tankers going north
and heaps of empty ones coming back. I wonder why there is not an oil pipe line? But it was not a
boring drive because the scenery was great, with the same light brown coloured rocky, craggy, hills all
around and the occasional flatter land often with Bedouin tents and shepherds tending their flocks.
Then a sign to a Uranium mine – so once again this ‘rocky rubbish’ is not worthless.
Once we got to Amman – and it’s a big place - the challenge was to find the Israeli Embassy. Why
hadn’t I thought to get Ahmed at the hotel to write the street address in Arabic for me. It would have
been so much easier! Then I could have asked anyone at all but having it only in English will need an
English speaker and an English reader as well.
When we were here last week I got close to the two huge twin towers in what looked like a pretty
posh area, and you can see the towers from almost anywhere in Amman they are so tall, so I headed
for them. Wallah! There is a five star hotel - the Crown Plaza – just the place to ask for directions.
There was plenty of good English at the Crown Plaza and they took me to one of their ‘drivers’ who
gave excellent directions right to the gate of the Embassy – just the two U-turns.
That was the good news.
The bad news though was that today is Friday and Friday is the Jewish holy day. The Embassy was
closed. The Israeli sentry on the gate was absolutely no help with no English and no interest. When his
three mates turned up to see what was going on it simply meant I had four sentries with no English
and no interest. I could have been pushing too hard because the situation became a little nasty.
I was about to leave when a car drove up to the gate, so I ignored the kids with the guns, and asked
the driver if he spoke English and to my great relief he did and did not mind spending a few minutes
answering my questions. And the answers were all affirmative.
“Yes, you will be able to get a visa at the border. Yes, there are plenty of car ferries running out of
Haifa for Cypress and also Turkey and Yes, we can cross from Israel into Egypt.” This man looked as
though he belonged to the Embassy and spoke with the authority of someone who knew what they
were talking about.
At last a photo of the River Jordan taken from the middle of the bridge border crossing between
Jordan and Israel not very far south of the Sea of Galilee – and even though it is quite wide it is barely
flowing. I guess it is about the same ‘height’ below sea level here as it is on the Dead Sea and if the
Dead Sea levels rose the river here would become wider.
A few more turns of Phe’s wheels and we will be in Israel!
Geographically, Jordan has a long 800 km north-south border with Israel to the west and neighbours
Syria to the north, Saudi to the south and Iraq to the east. Its bread and butter comes from the River
Jordan valley, a fertile river valley where waters from the Jordan and it’s tributaries have been diverted
into channels and spread over the plains for intensive cropping. The River Jordan creates the border
with Israel as it flows through the Sea of Galilee in Syria, almost due south and ends barely a trickle
into the Dead Sea. It is this 200 km stretch of river that has given us the recognised names, the ‘East
Bank’ and the West Bank’ The east bank of the Jordan River is Jordanian territory, and the West Bank is
in Israel and is settled with Israelis and Palestinians.
Jordan is almost totally landlocked except that in the very south, in the 1950’s, Jordan did a deal with
Saudi Arabia where it swapped a huge chunk of it’s territory out east for a small piece of Saudi’s
coastline at Aqabah to create a deep water port opening through the Red Sea onto the Mediterra-
nean. So Aqabah in the south is the only sea port in Jordan.
Jordan is a Democratic Monarchy with a King and a parliament. It is very hard for me to judge, but I
think people here enjoy a higher standard of living than in Syria for instance although I had a long talk
with a bookseller when first entering the country and he said things were very tough for those peo-
ple with no jobs or poorly paid jobs. There are not a lot of flash cars around and not a lot of prestige
homes that I could see. Of all the Moslem Arab states, Jordan has historically been the most friendly
towards the West. It still has major differences with Israel but in the Gulf war Jordan allowed the US
to use it’s territory for an air base from where strikes on Iraq were launched. It also had a major bat-
tle against Yassar Arafat’s PLO in the capital Amman causing major destruction in the city.
We crossed the border from Syria and then turned sharp right to have a breather for two nights at
Irbed in the north west. From there we went further west to pick up the Jordan valley and followed
it south to the Dead Sea – well we were interrupted by an altercation with the Syrian army simply
because I had drifted off the main road onto one of their military bases. I wanted to see, and photo-
graph, the Jordan river and had followed a road that soon became a track down to where the river
should be, when a sentry box, some rocky barriers, and a solitary sentry - who may have been having
a nap - rubbed his eyes, put on his flack jacket and found his rifle before confronting this invader from
Oz. From there it got worse. First to the army post just up the hill, then to interrogation – that’s a
good word, but a little over the top – at the local army base, ten brass with a major at the top all with
me in a small room, and then 25 kms down the road to head quarters and an hour or more with a
Lieutenant Colonel. Must have been a slow day and I was the only action around. But like all of the
Jordanians I met they were nice friendly happy people.
Just before the River Jordan finishes it’s run to the Dead Sea there is a site where Jesus was baptised
by John the Baptist a few years back. I found it great, because it brought back names that I had heard
at Sunday School more than 60 years ago. I was able to take a photo from Elijah’s Hill – named after
the prophet Elijah - where there is an arch and through this arch I could see the city of Jericho over
on the West Bank and up on the mountain tops behind was Jerusalem, and to the left Bethlehem. The
desert to the left was Judea where Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights and further left again the Dead
Sea and the Dead Sea scrolls up in the mountains behind, plus also the remains of Herod’s castle
where he used to go to escape the summer heat. The very fascinating thing for me was the fact that
this is a Christian site and the pilgrims who were at the site were Christian pilgrims conducting their
impromptu church services in shelters down by the river. But this is an Islamic country and Jesus is not
important in Islam, simply another one of their many prophets, not pivotal as he is in Christianity.
I suppose what I am saying is that Jordan is the fifth Islamic country I have visited after Morocco, Tuni-
sia, Turkey, and Syria and not once have I been made to feel different, or out of place, or even uncom-
fortable because I am not a Moslem. The religious difference just doesn’t seem to be important. Yet in
the West, as a people, we fear the Moslems. Is it just the difference between governing bodies and the
ordinary people – the difference between Al Quida and the USA Government, for instance, whereas
down here on the ground I have found no angst – no angst at all.
I didn’t swim in the Dead Sea – maybe I should have. The level is dropping 1 metre per year even
though there are no rivers running out of it – a bit hard for rivers to flow downhill out of a sea that is
400 metres below sea level. The River Jordan feeds the Dead Sea but with only a trickle if even that,
as the waters of the Jordan are being diverted for agriculture by Jordan, Syria and Israel. The Dead
Sea is something like 34% salt and ten times saltier than sea water. I have some very good sunset and
sunrise photos with reflections off the blue waters from the pastel colours of the mountains on the
West Bank. They look almost unreal.