Day 1:
We arrived in late afternoon at the Holiday Inn Resort Dead Sea after driving about 80 km from Jerash. It was pretty cold being January but I was not going to let that get in the way of my bucket list item – taking a dip in the dead sea. After checking-in in at the hotel and freshening up we made our way to the private hotel beach.
The hotel kept 2 big tubs of Dead Sea mud by the beach. I had read about the beneficial qualities of Dead Sea mud and coming all this way I wanted the whole experience. So off I went applying the mud all over the body (well almost all).
After taking forever to get acclimatized to cold water (outside temperature was 7 degrees Celsius) I finally went in the water. One has to be very careful to not get any salt water on the eyes. Dead sea is about 10 times saltier than regular ocean water and therefore any cuts or scrapes will be very painful. Same goes for getting any salt water in the eyes (or mouth which tasted extremely bitter and not salty !!).
After spending about an hour in the water we decided to call it a day. It would have been much more fun to visit the Dead Sea in say May-June but we never come by this part of the world during that time of the year so we had to make the most of it while we were there.
Day 2:
We left the Holiday Inn Resort Dead Sea just after lunch and drove towards Petra.
The distance is around 200 Km but goes through a lot of mountains and so took us over 4 hours. For the first hour or so the road runs right beside the Dead Sea.
We reached Petra around early evening and checked-in at our hotel Petra Guest House. After freshening up we walked over to My Mom’s Recipe Restaurant. We ordered the traditional national Jordanian dish, the Mansaf along with Moutabbal.
Day 3:
We woke up very early and had breakfast at our hotel. After breakfast we walked over to the Petra Entrance gate to get our Jordan Pass stamped and soon we were on our way. It gets hot in the desert and so it is highly recommended to start out early sightseeing in Petra.
The walk from the entrance to the Siq and then to the Treasury is fairly easy early in the morning and the beginning of the day.
After walking the entire length of the Siq we came upon one of the most recognizable faces of Petra, the Treasury.
We continued on our walk past the Treasury and came upon the Petra Theater, a 1st century theater built during Nabataean period that could accommodate up to 8500 people.
We walked past the Royal Tombs onward till the Colonnaded street.
After reaching the Colonnaded street we decided to head back towards the Treasury. We did not think we were in a physical shape to reach the Monastery in the same day.
After reaching the Treasury again, we decided to get my parents a horse drawn carriage that would take them to the entrance (20 JOD) while we slowly walked back (about 35 minutes walk).
After reaching back to the hotel we had lunch at the Red Cave Restaurant.
After lunch we set out to drive back to Amman (230 Km).
