Live from the Dead Sea, this is Cari and Jack!

 

Okay, this isn’t really live.

We took a day trip to the Dead Sea from Jerusalem.  As you probably know, the shores of the Dead Sea are the lowest land on Earth  at 377 meters below sea level.  It’s salinity is about 34%, which is about 8 times more salty than the ocean.  It isn’t quite the saltiest body of water, but it’s right up there.

The extra buoyancy is just as weird as you might imagine.  Jack is pretending to read a newspaper.

The minerals are extremely potent and they really hurt when you inevitably get some up your nose or in your eyes, or even on your lips.  Hence the rule about not swimming on your stomach.  The lifeguards can shout this in quite a few languages.

The salt forms neat crystals on the shore.

There’s also lots of strong black mud.  There’s a big industry around cosmetics and health products from the area.  The Blue Lagoon in Iceland really did make my skin feel amazing, but I can’t say the same for the Dead Sea. 

We read that there’s more oxygen than usual there as well as some powerful effects from various minerals, even in the air.  I can say that Jack was pretty darn hyper on our way back, or at least he was for the first hour we waited at the bus stop. 

We watched sunset … from the bus stop.