Dead Sea Hotel 2115

I am at a beautiful hotel on the beautiful Dead Sea. It might not have the most inviting name, but the Dead Sea is a huge blue lake in the middle of all those desert colors, with a few date palms here and there. I saw a few sights on the way and floated in the lake once or twice, and I am pretty sure I will go back in the water from time to time.

No one swims in the Dead Sea. You can try, but it is not going to happen. You float in the Dead Sea, like it or not. You will not sink, even if you want to. It would take an especially strong swimmer to force yourself underwater. Everything about the lake is different. With all the salt and minerals, the water does not particularly feel like water. At least not the kind of clean lake water I am used to.

One of the benefits of being so low below sea level is that it is hard to get sunburned. That is great news for people like me. I can float all day in the Dead Sea and the minerals will actually help my skin. If I swam all day in Lake Superior, I would come our redder than the salmon.

The biggest and most important detour on the way to the Dead Sea is Masada, Herod's hilltop city where 960 Israeli civilians held off 15,000 Roman soldiers almost 2,000 years ago. The Romans eventually took the city, but they never captured any Israelis. Masada is almost like the Alamo, but with spectacular views of the Dead Sea. Kind of like this: