When you’re a long term traveler, it’s normal to hear the same questions… “What was your favorite place to visit?”, “Which country did you like most?”, “Do you have any spot that you didn’t like?” and the list goes on… After traveling two years now, I feel that answering those questions gets harder and harder. Traveling sometimes can be so intense, that love and hate can describe a place, one country or one experience. However, besides the shallow judgment, for sure there are places which are remarkable. And one that is in the top of my list is the Dead Sea.
Driving to the Dead Sea
I visited the Dead Sea in 2017. I rented a car with a friend in Tel Aviv and we drove by the highway that cuts through the desert of the Ein Gedi. The road itself is a movie scenario! Impossible to not get impressed by it!
We ended up in a kind of SPA which charges us around 50 shekels to have transport to the beach and also a shower after enjoying some time there. There’s a lot of places like these around the Dead Sea, however, you can go and float in the Dead Sea spending absolutely nothing. All you need to do is to find a good spot and go for it! I regret a lot to spend this money in the SPA. In the end, the water of the Dead Sea is so good for the skin, that there’s any problem to just get dry and take your shower when you go home.
If you have plans to visit the Dead Sea someday, you can forget the sunscreen, but never the flipflops. Because it’s under the Sea Level, the UV rays are not so strong compared to a normal beach. However, in the sea, there’s no sand, just a hard layer of salt filled with crystals that can cut your feet easily.
The beauty and the colors of the Dead Sea are astonishing! Definitely one of the most beautiful places that I visit on this planet!
Curiosities about the Dead Sea
- The Dead Sea is not a sea properly. Actually, it’s just a big salt lake. This phenomenon of naming lakes as “sea” is not uncommon in Israel, and it also happened with the Sea of Galilee, which is also a lake. But why those places are named as “seas” if they are just lakes? Well, considering that this region of the planet is desertic, a lake can be considered almost a sea…
- The Dead Sea is located 427metters below the sea level, for this reason, the atmospheric pressure is a bit high and some people with high blood pressure can feel a bit dizzy or have headaches. People with low pressure (which is my case, by the way) can fell super good!
- The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest lakes in the world. For this reason, don’t try to dive especially with eyes open… You can get blind!
- You can’t get bitten by a shark in the Dead Sea! There are no fishes or any kind of marine animals in the Dead Sea. Just water and salt. However, in the rainy season, when the salinity decreases, some bacterias were founded.
- The water and the mud of the Dead Sea are used for many health treatments and also cosmetics. Just to mention an example, many people with psoríases have used the mud to control and also decrease the disease.
- If you have any kind of cut in your skin, don’t worry, the salty water will make it heal in seconds!
- The minerals of the Dead Sea has also an important function in agriculture and are used to cultivate and grow many kinds of plantations in Israel. It’s also a reason why Israel, a desertic country become sustainable in the cultivation of several fruits and veggies, especially with hydroponic agriculture.
- The water of the Dead Sea is a bit oily and using flipflops are a must, since the ground is made by crystals of salt.
- If you add tons of flour in the Dead Sea, it can become a big cream cracker… :P It’s a joke! (a bad one, I know!)
