Day 10: November 14

We find a real Carrefour supermarket on the map in Madaba (there were many of them in France). Volchiy doesn’t really want to go, but I’m very curious to see the “proper” prices. In the small shops there are no prices on the goods, and the sellers make up prices out of thin air; we noticed that long ago, and it was interesting to understand how much all this actually costs here. We realized that several times we had overpaid in local shops by two or three times :)

Once again, the air is filled with an orange haze from dust and strong wind. Along a narrow winding road, we descend to the Dead Sea.

I had three dreams in Jordan — to visit Petra, walk through the desert, and swim in the Dead Sea. There are many articles online saying that there are no free wild beaches on the Dead Sea and that the only way to swim is either to go to a paid beach, which costs about $20 for entry, or stay at a hotel with a private beach.

Later we realized that all of this was untrue and found wonderful free beaches. But that would come later, almost a week later….

Almost all the hotels near the sea are five-star and expensive; there is only one four-star hotel. We decide to stay one night in the four-star one (today), and one night (tomorrow) in a five-star one — for variety.

At the entrance to the Ramada hotel there is a big sign: no outside food or drinks allowed. A security guard stands at the entrance and checks all backpacks and suitcases. Our fruit, dates, and cookies did not arouse suspicion, and we check in.

There are so many flies here, literally thousands! The room has a cool balcony, but it’s simply impossible to sit on it because of the flies!

After a cup of coffee with dates, we head to the beach. There is a shuttle bus taking guests to the beach. It’s possible to walk there in about 10 minutes, but we decide to take a ride for the first time.

An amazing feeling when you first immerse yourself in the Dead Sea. It feels like sitting down in a soft armchair - the water is so salty that you don’t need to make any effort at all - you simply float in it, and that’s all. The information board said that the water in the Dead Sea is ten times saltier than in the ocean.

We arrived an hour before sunset, which is a very beautiful time. However, everything around the beach looks rather dreary. Trash, old tires, the landscape is not very impressive.

There are bowls of mud on the beach, and we smear ourselves from head to toe. I don’t know how useful it is, but it’s definitely fun (in fact, even Volchiy noticed that after the mud and the sea, the skin changed and became soft and smooth). We rinse off the mud in the sea, swim a little more, then walk along the beach and dry off. Funny salt flakes remain on the body.

Our hotel stands in the middle of nowhere, so it’s impossible to go out for a walk or eat somewhere nearby. Volchy suggests going to a shawarma place, 10 km away. We buy shawarma and a fajita (chicken with vegetables in lavash) to take away. They bring us huge plastic boxes of food. It turns out that Volchy ordered not just an ordinary shawarma, but a set with fries, sauces, and salad.

I’m in shock — how are we going to get this into the hotel? Volchy assures me that everything will somehow be sorted out on the spot and there’s no need to panic.

We stuff the food boxes into the backpack as best we can, cover everything with clothes, hoping they won’t notice the food. The security guard turned out to be very meticulous; he unpacked everything and realized we had a ton of food with us. He gives us some not very clear paper to sign, saying that we take responsibility for eating our own food. Happy that we got into the hotel with food, we have dinner on the balcony — by evening all the flies had disappeared somewhere. There was so much food that we could barely finish half of it.