Dead Sea Capers!(Or, is this Palestine or what?)

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Flags at Dead Sea.  Where is the Palestinian Flag?  You can see the Union Jack at the end and of course Israel and US side by side, so is this Palestine or what?  The answerof course  is yes, but under occupation.  After a lot of dithering about whether, when and how to go, I got up late and just decided to give it a go.  Abed had given me some instructions for how to get there which was to go to the Arab Bank, catch a taxi to Jerico Dead Sea cross and then get off and catch an Israeli bus to Dead Sea.  None of this made much sense to me apart from I knew where the Arab Bank is!  However I set off walking in the beautiful sunshine, the streets fairly quiet as it is holiday today.  After quite a long way I reached the area where the wall is very high and runs next to the street. 

Helpful man showing me way to taxi past wall in Abu Dis.

 

Road to Dead Sea

 

The road gradually descends to the lowest point on earth.  I realized unfortunately that we had not stopped at the cross (a crossroads) for Dead Sea at all but had entered Jerico.  However I resigned myself quite happily to spending some time there.  The driver tried to explain something to me which I didn’t understand so he drove with the last remaining passenger right to her house to fetch her daughter who spoke a little English.  It transpired that the driver was offereing to take me to the Dead Sea for what seemed to be the same price I would have paid anyway so I happily agreed and off we went again.  He did actually have a few words of English when he was more confident and we agreed that I would only spend one hour at the sea and then he could drive me back to Abu Dis.  This was a great arrangement as I could see that the lternative of hanging around hopefully for an unknown bus on some hot desert road could be a little worrying.  Also it meant of course that I did go to the Dead Sea with a Palestinian! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I actually felt a little excited to see the sea and it was extremely relaxing there so made a good day off.  Deyaa the driver came in too and we both had a swim and covered ourselves in mud which we let dry before washing it off in the sea again.  It was strange to be with Deyaa surrounded by tour groups.  I heard American, Italian and Irish and of course Hebrew voices and spoke to a couple of very nice Irish women in the changing area who were on a pilgrimage and staying at Bethlehem.  They said they had to get up at 5.30 so I was pleased I was independent.  Jordan is just across the sea so this is border country. 

Dead Sea - IDeyaa in Dead Sea mud

 

 

So thanks go today to the helpful man in Abu Dis and Deya the driver who made my day a lot easier and more pleasant than it might have been.

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