Wrapping up Last Weekend (7/11-12): Adventures along the Dead Sea Highway

Wadi Mujib


Homemade mud packs at the Dead Sea


Visiting the Jordan River, the Baptism Site, right across from the Israeli/Palestinian border





Friday’s excursions were to Wadi Mujib, the Dead Sea, and Bethany Beyond-the-Jordan. I’m pleased to report that they went smoothly—no drama at the bus depot like Dana! There is no public transportation out to the Dead Sea and surrounding area so I arranged for a taxi through Shaher, our wonderful hotel manager.

The taxi (actually a van) arrived promptly at 9:30am, and even though most of us were still tired from the previous night’s concert (Algeria Night at Jerash), we all made it downstairs on time and soon we were on our way. It’s incredible how close everything is in Jordan, even more so along the Dead Sea highway. It only took us an hour to get to Wadi Mujib Nature Reserve, our first stop of the day.

Guide books like to call Wadi Mujib the “Grand Canyon of Jordan,” and though I’ve never been to the real Grand Canyon, I can vouch for Wadi Mujib’s grandness—it’s breathtaking. For 9.5 JD (the student rate! Our UJ ID cards are finally coming in handy!) We hiked the Siq trail, a 2km hike through the canyon to the Wadi Mujib Waterfall. You can’t anything with you since you hike through water the whole time; so sadly, I have no pictures of us actually hiking through the canyon. I can, however, describe the trek as best I can. The Siq Trail is one of the few unguided trails in the reserve; most require that you hire a guide to navigate the way. We hiked through the siq in ankle-to-chest-deep water, climbing over small waterfalls and using ropes installed by reserve staff until we reached the 20-metere high Wadi Mujib Waterfall. We forced behind the waterfall, where we could barely see through the wall of water. After swimming back out, we watched some ambitious hikers and their guide rappel down the waterfall.

I’m glad we did Wadi Mujib first, because as we hiked out we saw larger packs of tourists making their way in. I call these visitors tourists, not hikers, because none of them looked prepared for the trail ahead: men and women wearing jeans and flip-flops, taking smoke breaks while hiking through the wild are tourists, and insensitive ones at that. Jordan’s nature reserves are great because they have no rules (in the United States we would have had to sign pages of waivers to do the Siq trail hike), but I do wish there were some way of enforcing, at the very least, a non-smoking rule in the parks.

Next up was the Dead Sea. I’d read in my trusty Rough Guide to Jordan that we should go to Amman Beach, where we could pay a few JDs for showers and bathrooms, not to mention a tad bit more privacy then the public strip, which I’d read can be uncomfortable for Western women.

After a bit of finagling, we found a beach for 3JD (thanks again, UJ student ID!), and after parking our belongings under an umbrella and applying a thick layer of sunscreen, we headed for the water. The Dead Sea is the warmest, murkiest, and most oily-feeling water I have ever swum in. It’s also the saltiest (6X more saline then the world’s next saltiest body of water), but that really should have gone without saying. Floating there was such a peculiar feeling. You start by walking out slowly because the sea floor is very warm and unsettlingly mushy, and then all of a sudden, your legs lift without warning and you’re floating! Try and put your feet down, you only end up on your back on the top of the water. Lonely Planet was right when they said that “drowning would be quite a feat [in the Dead Sea].” Not that anyone in their right mind would want to put their head in this water—I dipped a finger in to taste it, and let me tell you, it was absolutely disgusting.

It turns out that the squishy part of the sea floor is the mud used for spa treatments. We saw several locals on the beach who had painted themselves black with the mud from head to toe, and decided to give it a try. I don’t know if it really worked wonders for my skin or no, but it was fun nonetheless.

We got most of the salt out in the beach’s showers, and then we were off to Bethany Beyond-the-Jordan, which is about 15 minutes north of Amman beach. Bethany Beyond-the-Jordan is the place where John the Baptist lived and was most likely to have baptized Jesus Christ there. The site had been closed off for years as a military zone, but after the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, the land was opened up and soon afterwards numerous historical and religious sites were discovered. You still have to go with a guide and obtain a special permission form to visit from the visitor’s center, as the baptism site is very close to the Israeli border.

A quick aside: I’ve found it difficult to label the land to the west of Jordan. It is recognized as the state of Israel by most countries of the world, but for so many Arabs, Jordanians, and especially Palestinian refugees, that land will always be Palestine. I definitely do not know enough about the conflict to pass judgment, and passing judgment is not my job. But in terms of describing the aforementioned territory, I will refer to it as both: Israel/ Palestine.

Back to Bethany: Most of Jordan is desert, and the heat is usually a dry heat. Not so in Bethany: at about 350m below sea level, the air is hot, muggy, and unbelievably heavy. I was happy to dip my feet in the Jordan River when we arrived at the Baptism site—apparently people can baptize their children here, so the river is not off-limits. This was also the place where we were only a few yards away from Israel/Palestine. I can’t believe how close we were to the border: you look across the river, only a few feet wide, and there is an Israeli flag blowing in the wind. We didn’t linger long because of the heat—the entire tour of Bethany Beyond-the-Jordan took less then an hour.

Saturday (I told you it was a full weekend!) I went on the University of Jordan school trip to Mt. Nebo and Madaba. The trip was organized through the Language Center, which provides free transportation to the trip sites. “Organized,” however is a term I use loosely to describe the trip—in all honesty, we would have been much better going on our own via public transport. Just like in middle and high school, we were shuffled through Mt. Nebo, the place where Moses stood and saw the Promised Land—rather quickly, and though this wasn’t the school’s fault, the church at Mt. Nebo was under construction and the bulldozers and accompanying noise destroyed the “tangible holiness” the place is known for.

The visit to the Christian town of Madaba wasn’t much better. Though the mosaics were beautiful, again, I would have liked it if we’d had more time to really explore the city. Instead, we were herded through the Archaeological Park to a nondescript restaurant and then to St. George’s church, which houses the oldest map in the world. I suppose the map was impressive, but I can’t say for sure—I accidentally went in to the church without paying the entry fee (somehow I missed the ticket booth) so I only got a quick look before I was asked to go back out and buy a ticket. Thanks, but no thanks.

After visiting the church, we were herded back to the bus and got back to Amman in the mid afternoon. Though I’m glad I went to Madaba and Mt. Nebo, I’ll be planning the rest of my trips my way, budgeting my time so I can see what I want to see. Still, I’m glad I was able to visit so many important sites because I’m trying to experience as much of Jordan as I can in the time I have left. Two weeks left—where the time has gone, I couldn’t tell you, but it’s been well spent!