Dead Sea

In the past, when I have traveled with my daughter, I find that I am much more organized than when I travel with my husband.  I check everything out online and arrange airport pickups and tours and activities all in advance.  I print out all of my vouchers and have them all with me.  This way I can be assured that we will be able to get in to see such things as the Tiffany Show or the Elephant Village in Pattaya.  Of course, I always ask her first if she wants to go before I book.

Me: Hey, do you want to go to the elephant village when we are in Thailand?  It says that you can ride the elephants if you want to.

Nic: Yeah, that sounds cool. 

Me: How about the tiger zoo?  It sounds kind of similar but they have pig races, crocodiles, and tigers in addition to elephants. Also, it comes with lunch.  (note* lunch may or may not have been the aforementioned crocodiles... still not sure)

Nic: Um, ok, sure.  

Me: Well, what about drag queens?  Are you at all interested in seeing them?  It's listed as number 10 on Trip Advisor.

Nic: What?

Me: Drag queens.  It says its a "Must See!" Wanna go?

Nic: Um, ok...

And so goes the planning of the trip.  What Nicole lacks in enthusiasm, she makes up for in agreeability.  Always good fun.  (Miss you Neekole Peekole... see you soon!!)

Anyway, when I go with my husband, we tend to play it by ear.  This time, however, we may have played a little too fast and loose with the lack of planning.  As we were sitting in the car on the way to the airport it sounded a little something like this:  

Me: You know, we never did arrange for a rental car...

Matt: I'm sure that we can just get one at the airport, I mean... it's the airport!

Me:  And we have no idea how to get from the airport to anywhere that we are going... We probably should have mapquested some directions beforehand.  

Matt: It's the middle east, mapquest doesn't exactly work here. (totally true)

Me: But a general idea might have been nice...

Matt: No worries. 

Me: But that's the thing.  I'm not sure what it is, but I seem to have a germ of apprehension beavering in the pit of my stomach. (OK, so I totally stole that line but I love it and try to work it into conversations whenever possible) I'm not sure why that is...

Matt: I don't know what to tell you. 

Me:  I think I left the curling iron on. Did you happen to notice if I left the curling iron on?

And so went the conversation.  It might have been helpful had we continued on the vein of things that we may have forgotten because then we may have remembered to exchange some of our riyal for Jordanian Dinar.  We didn't.  Didn't even occur to us.  Definitely would have been helpful.  Especially for when we got to the airport and needed to pay cash for two visas into Jordan.  You know, it probably would have been helpful to have a bit more riyal on us as well especially since the ATM in the airport was broken... but, live and learn.  Anyway, between the two of us, we were able to exchange enough riyal to get the visas.  

We were also able to get a car at Avis.  Probably not the best deal in the world... or the best car, but no worries right?  So off we went in our dirty car with an empty gas tank.  And once again... we realized that we had forgotten to try the ATM on the other side of immigration.  Oops.  So between us both, we had about 40 dinar, 30 of which eventually made it into the gas tank.  (Gas is WAY more expensive in Jordan than it is in Saudi.) At least we remembered to get a map at Avis.  We also got some general directions but still got lost a couple of times on the way.  Eventually we found an ATM and our hotel and then all was right with the world.  Except that by this time it was getting dark and so the Dead Sea would need to wait until morning.  There was always the pool, but the temperature was a bit chilly.  We had dinner early and went to bed early and got up early.

The weather was a bit odd.  Nice and sunny in the morning and then rain in the afternoon. Then sun again, then clouds.  Here are the pics!

Is that a burkini?? Ha ha, no! Just a rash guard.  Nice and warm.  I am not about to post a pic of me standing on the beach in my bikini.  Not gonna happen.  Anyway, it was a bit cloudy so you really can't get the effect of the infinity pool here.  Dead Sea is behind the pool.  (There were several pools, some heated and some not.)  This pool was not heated so we decided to forget the pool and just head down to the actual beach to float in the Dead Sea.  

See, no hands and no feet! Really crazy I tell you.  Also, if you try and flip over onto your stomach, your legs automatically go up in the back.  So weird.  (Bucket list~ Check!) You are only supposed to stay in the water for 20 minutes.  After about 10 my skin started feeling very tingly.  Also the water seems really oily. But, it all rinses right off.  The water was nice and warm.

Afterwards we went over to the adult pool.  It was heated.  Quite nice. Then later we went to the spa for a salt scrub and a mud wrap.  Not sure if it helped, but it was interesting to say the least!

The second day was clearer so there was a much better view of the sea.  You don't really get the effect of the infinity pool here... but oh well.  

Also, I think that Grandma may have shown up.  I don't know who she has been with for the past few weeks but I haven't seen hide nor hair of her. But, I may have seen her after breakfast.

Now, there are no hummingbirds in the middle east, but this really looked like one and it moved like one so I looked it up and it turns out that it is something called a sunbird.  Very similar to a hummingbird.  Not sure if this counts.  Anyway, there were two of them flying around.  Hopefully it was grandma.  The Dead Sea was something to see!

A few last pictures of the Dead Sea on the way out and we were off to Petra.  Had a fabulous time!