3 Jan - The Dead Sea and Madaba
We were again woken at 5:00 in the morning by prayers
blasting out
of the loudspeakers from a nearby mosque. We
headed for
Mount Nebo, the mythical biblical site where Moses
died about
10km from Madaba. Fortunately we had our fleeces and
Goretex
jackets as the wind was bitterly cold, despite the sunshine.
We caught
our first glimpse of the Dead Sea from there, before
descending
1260 meters to the shores of the famous sea at 420
meters
below sea level. We chose a spot on the side of the road and
walked
down to the shoreline, unfortunately through a lot of rubbish
that the
receding sea and locals had left behind. We were concerned
that we
wouldn't be able to take a dip due to the water
temperature,
but were pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the
water.
Nobody was around, so we quickly stripped off and changed
into our
swimming costumes before eagerly taking to the water.
What a
funny sensation; you float like a cork ! Sophie found it
hard to
relax and let herself float because she's so used to
fighting
to stay afloat in the pool, but in the end she got the hang
of it. The
salt (10 times the quantity of the Mediterranean) began
to sting
the delicate skin of the girls. We rinsed everybody
off with 7
litres of mineral water. Not very ecologically friendly
maybe, but
essential !
We then headed back to Madaba via the newly built road which
passes the
hot water Springs in Hammamat Ma'in . We stopped off for
a picnic
on the mountains above the Dead Sea with a magnificent view
over the
surrounding area and Jerusalem over the other side of the
sea. In
the afternoon we visited the tourist sites of Madaba:
The
archaeological park, the Apostle's Church and St. Georges
Church. We
saw many beautiful mosaics and discovered that there is a
whole
Roman city below the town. The most impressive mosaic was the
6th
century map of the area representing all the biblical sites,
even
thought it was only partially preserved.
In the evening we discovered that the hotel had WIFI access in
the lobby.
So we updated our pages and loaded them onto our website
!
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| The Dead Sea
viewed
from Mont Nebo |
The Dead
Sea |
Taking a dip
in
the Dead Sea |
 |
 |
 |
| The girls
floating
likes corks ! |
François
working
on the PC - no he's only joking ! |
Mosaics in the
Madaba
archaeological museum |
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| 