JORDAN AND ISRAEL: THE DEAD SEA

We had split off from our Fun-for-Less Tour, booking our own earlier flight to Amman and hiring a private guide, so that we could cover more territory in Jordan on our first day there than what was on the schedule for the group. Our plan was to reunite with our tour in the evening at our hotel. However, the one thing the larger group did on our day apart that we didn't was go swimming in the Dead Sea, something I've always wanted to do. 

We had seen the Dead Sea from a distance from Masada and as we drove south through the Negev Desert toward the Red Sea:

View of the Dead Sea from Masada

There is something mysterious, almost eerie about the Dead Sea. Maybe it's the color, or perhaps it's the isolation, or it could be its utter barrenness. 

I grew up around another "dead sea," the Great Salt Lake, and I have gone swimming there. It is well known for its high salinity of 5% to 27% (50 to 270 parts per 1,000, depending on the year), which is 2 to 7 times saltier than the ocean. The Dead Sea, however, is almost constantly at about 35% salinity, or 9.6 times as salty as the ocean. I hear this greater salinity makes the water more bouyant than the Great Salt Lake. I guess I'll never know.

However, as the Dead Sea straddles the Israel/Jordan border, and as Mount Nebo is quite close to the Dead Sea, we were able to convince our guide Isam to take us down to the water for a quick toe-dip.

I may not have gone swimming, but I saw the Dead Sea from two different countries, and I did stick my feet in it. That's not too bad.

The Dead Sea is really dead--no plants or birds, just people. In contrast, the Great Salt Lake has a bird sanctuary, marshes, and brine shrimp. The Dead Sea is also 1,407 feet below sea level and 653 feet deep, compared to the Great Salt Lake at 4,200 feet above sea level and 33 feet deep. Even though the surface area of the Dead Sea is only 230 square miles and the surface area of the Great Salt Lake is 1,700 square miles, the Dead Sea contains 27 cubic miles of water, while the Great Salt Lake contains just 4.5 cubic miles of water.

And there is one other big difference: the Great Salt Lake doesn't usually have a camel in its parking lot: