To the Dead Sea and Beyond!!

Marc and I have safely arrived on the lovely island of Cyprus but have not yet posted about our last week in Israel. We spent the week in Jerusalem, Nazareth and Tel Aviv respectively before heading here for some time. We were supposed to be here for one week but it is so warm here (18C!) and they have HEAT at night so we may stay a bit longer. Well now onto the Dead Sea.

We did a day trip from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. It wasn't too cold, especially because there was a hot sulphur pool we could go in after. The hot pool was lovely the first time we went in, but the second and third time I could only put my feet in because of the burning salt. Oh the burning. Marc felt no adverse effects and loved laying in the pool, but I could not take the stinging.

Dead Sea mud has healing properties (Carlynne and I had an expensive facial in Kenya with the mud) but here you can rub it all over yourself for free!


For those of you who have never heard of the Dead Sea or its properties, it is the second saltiest body of water on earth, 8 times (yes that says eight, if you get the water in your mouth or eyes you must report to the lifeguard immediately!) saltier than the ocean.

Because of the extra salt you float much easier and you can do things like dry your hair (yes my hair is already dry but I really wanted to test the electric current in the Sea.) ;)

And read books

After burning all our skin (well mine) off we headed to Nazareth. We spent three nights in an old Arabic mansion that was absolutely beautiful but it was freezing! It was about 12 degrees during the day but it got down to 3 degrees at night and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cold in our room. We spent one of the days biking around the Sea of Galilee. The trip was 60 km and we made it 50km and I wasn't sure I could make it all the way back before it got dark. (I was tired!) So we phoned the bike rental shop and they very reluctantly came to pick us up.

Our lunch spot

After Nazareth we headed to Tel Aviv for our flight to Cyprus. Here we hooked up with some lovely Canadians we had met on the bus in Jordan. (Marc actually first saw Joe at the bus station in Jerusalem and we recognized him when we saw him and his wife waiting at the bus station in Amman.) We went to their place for dinner and had such a great time! It was so nice to talk to some Canadians again and eat some home-cooked food. They also have a dog, it was so nice to pet a dog again and take him for a walk! (Okay now I am getting all nostalgic about Niko but here are some pictures of Masha and Joe, unfortunately our camera battery died before dinner but you can see the beautiful beach in Tel Aviv here but not Joe.)

Doodie (sp?) taking a drink after his walk. So cute!

As I mentioned, Cyprus is BEAUTIFUL, here is a preview of pictures you will see in the next couple of days. This is from our hike today.