Movenpick Resort & Spa Dead Sea

We got up early in Petra this morning, had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and got our bags in the car.  We asked for directions and the concierge tried to talk us out of taking the mountain highway directly to the Dead Sea, suggesting that going back to the Desert Highway was a safer, even though longer, route.  He talked about lots of crashes, curvy roads, and dangerous drivers.  We printed out a map from Google Maps in the business center, had a copy from the front desk with the concierge’s notes on it, and our Hertz map of the whole country.  We took off, determined to try the more scenic route recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook.

The road was good up to the point where we turned off of the main highway back to the Desert Highway, retracing our route coming into Petra.  As we made the turn north, off of the main route, the road became a narrow two lane road, with little shoulder.  Luckily, Saturday is a weekend day after the Islamic “Sabbath” which is Friday afternoon.  There was little traffic.  It was apparent that the road would have been difficult with more traffic and trucks, but with light traffic it was fine, winding its way along the top of the mountain ridge, through little villages and past industries and farms.

The road did not have highway numbers and we could only follow the signs to the next town we knew was on our route.  After one questionable intersection, we did stop at a  hardware store, and I asked the proprietor if we were on the right route.  He spoke good English and assured me that we kept going on the road we had chosen for another 9 kilometers before we turned down off of the ridge.  About 13 kilometers later, we came to a well marked intersections and turned west to drop the 4,000 feet to the Rift Valley below.

The Rift Valley is caused by the Arabian Plate moving against its neighboring plate and has created the valley in which the Dead Sea collects.  The mountain ridge we had been driving along is about 3,000 feet in altitude and the valley below is about 1,200 feet below sea level, the lowest point on earth according to the signs.

The road was good, the traffic light, and we twisted and turned our way down with the automatic transmission in second gear to save the brakes.  As we reached the bottom, we intersected with the Dead Sea Highway, with is the second main north/south road in Jordan, and it is a good, wide road and again did not have a lot of traffic.  Surprisingly, the margin between the hills and the valley appears to have lots of water so it is covered in farms for crops such as tomatoes, green beans, peppers, eggplant, corn and other crops.  We passed through villages, saw chemical plants, and Bedouin encampments.  There was even a herd of camels off of the road.

As we drove north, we came to the Dead Sea itself.  Nothing grows on its margins and it is surrounded by salt encrusted rock.  It is surprisingly blue and clear as it appears that nothing lives in it as well.

Near the northern end, we found a cluster of luxury hotels, including ours, the Movenpick, between a Crowne Plaza and a Marriott.  The resort is a large resort and spa, with numerous pools, including a sand beach pool like ours in Woodbridge.  Further down the path they have constructed a “beach” on the Dead Sea itself, with a pool and restaurant on one level, a lower level with lounges and umbrellas where the waiters would bring drinks or snacks.

After we checked in, and had the sandwiches that Patty had made at breakfast on our balcony, we changed and went down to the water.  I went for a swim.  An attendant was wetting the mud near the edge with a hose, and a lot of the patrons were caking it on themselves before going in.  I passed on that experience.  The water itself was about 75 degrees and was very dense.  It took some getting used to as you did not sink as far and floating upright you would only sink to mid-chest.  A sign recommended staying in only about 20 minutes, so I did not exceed that.  They had showers show you could rinse off the oily brine before you toweled off.

We spend the afternoon and evening at the hotel.  There is really no town, just a row of luxury hotels, so there is not much else to do.  You can see the lights of Jerusalem, on the top of the hills in the western horizon, come on as the darkness grows.

Tomorrow we head back to the airport outside of Amman for our 11:20 a.m. flight back to Istanbul.  Google Maps says we can make it in an hour.