» The Landlady
The Dead Sea Diaries
I have just returned, intact, from a whistle-stop tour of Jordan, which is an amazing and diverse country. I almost need a week off to recover, such was the pace of our travels.
On departure day, after a two-hour delay and a couple of large gins at Heathrow Airport, my friend Anne and I finally arrived at Amman Airport at 3am local time and were relieved to discover that the air was much cooler than it had been on the plane. After tackling a very odd queueing system in order to purchase a Jordanian visa, we were sped down to our hotel on the Dead Sea, which was about 70km away. En route, our taxi driver gave us half a bottle of water and urged us to watch what happened to it. We wondered whether we should mix it with the bottle of Bombay Sapphire we’d just purchased in duty free, but were so excited by the sight of a lit-up Jerusalem that we forgot all about it.
Down and down we sped, our ears popping wildly. Just 20 minutes later, our driver reminded us about the water and, upon further examination we discovered that the entire bottle had been sucked inwards. This was, apparently, because we were now 400 metres below sea level as the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth. By now we were quite excited, although in the pitch darkness we couldn’t actually see the Dead Sea at all, just the lights of Israel twinkling on the far shore.
“We managed to survive on the nuts, olives and watermelon handed out by the infinity pools”
After far too few hours sleep for my liking, we awoke to the vast, breathtaking blue expanse outside our window. The sea itself is an intense blue and is surrounded by white shores (due to the salt residue) and beige mountains. The Rough Guide description of a ‘stinking, desolate lake’ was not far off. In fact, if it had not been for the seven (yes, seven) infinity pools spread out over terraces all the way down to the shore, I would have thought I’d landed next to a gravel pit on the moon. The hotel was huge and very difficult to negotiate via a complex lift system. It was almost lunchtime by the time we made it down to breakfast. The lobby area of the hotel was big enough to host the FA cup final and, because it was a brand new hotel, was spookily empty, to the point where I almost expected Jack Nicholson to lurch out of one of the many lifts with an axe in his hand.
It soon dawned on me that this was the most luxurious hotel I’d ever stayed in – and it was a fraction of the cost of similar hotels in the UK, or anywhere else, for that matter. What is more, our room rate included a free spa treatment, free breakfast (cue us stuffing smoked salmon in our handbags) and, most exciting of all, a complimentary mini-bar. We didn’t buy a meal in the entire two days we stayed, as we managed to survive on the free nuts, olives and watermelon handed out beside each of the infinity pools. I know, it’s a hard life.
But the best thing about this part of our trip was the Dead Sea and we regressed to kindergarten levels as we submerged ourselves in this bizarre lake. Even in one foot of water, it is impossible not to float on the surface like a cork and in places where it is 400ft deep, one cannot sink below the chest. It is also 32 degrees celsius, which is the temperature of a very warm bath. By noon, while trying to perfect a Brigitte Bardot-style exit from the water, we decided that we never wanted to go home. And we hadn’t even really been to Jordan yet…
