KOJ part 2. Who knows what miracles you an achieve?

~June 25~

So one thing I noticed when researching what to do in Jordan is a most people recommend using the hotel and hostel sightseeing excursions, because most hotels out of Amman take daily trips to various places. I had my fingers crossed the hostel we were staying at would have a trip to the Dead Sea, and sure enough, there was a trip on Wednesday. Score!

We woke up bright and early Wednesday to partake in the hostel breakfast before our trip. It was quite delicious. Fresh omelettes, bread, hummus, jelly. We met up with our driver, who was wearing a LSU shirt. Nicki went to LSU, so she commented on his shirt but he didn't get it.

So I only really cared about seeing the Dead Sea and Mount Nebo but this car ride included other stops. It was 22 JOD each. Our first stop was Madaba, where a mosaic of the Biblical world was uncovered in a church. It was pretty cool.

Then we stopped at another church with lots of mosaics, then a museum of the history of Jordan as presented via religions with wax figurines. It was weird. At one point the tour guide pointed out the women were all unhappy because they worked all the time and had no fun and then men were all smiley because they partied all the time. Nicki and I were both like, what?

We also put our names on some mosaic tiles for what is supposed to be the largest mosaic in the world. Look for our names on the sails!

Next was Mount Nebo, which is really just a short little visit. You can see where Moses looked out and saw ~the holy land. Nicki and I proceeded to sing The Prince of Egypt, because there can be miiiiracllles, when you belieeeeeve (when you belieeeeve).

Though hope is frail, it's had to kill (it's hard to kill.)

I am Moses

No, I am Moses

Next was the Dead Sea. We drove down a cliffy cliff with hairpin turns because the Dead Sea is the lowest point in the world...?

Its surface and shores are 427 metres (1,401 ft) below sea level,^[3] Earth's lowest elevation on land. Source

 Our driver drove us to Amman beach. It was 20...? JOD to enter? Something like that. Guys, I am telling you, Jordan is NOT CHEAP.

On the bright side, there was a pool and lockers and a restaurant right by the beach you had access to for that money. So we put our stuff in the lockers then headed down to the salty salty water. We spent a little while debating how to go in. There were other tourists who were wearing bathing suits, but we'd been told you never ever wear a two piece in Jordan. So Nicki decided to not wear pants, so I decided to just wear my bathing suit top. Compromise?

The water was hot. Like bath water. And salty. Like so salty it buuuuurns your skin. And you can't swim in it, because you just float. They are not exaggerating. Nicki and I floated a bit, then I got out of the water to take a picture of her floating because that's what tourists do at the dead sea. While I was waiting on my salty salty hands to dry, a manboy comes up to me with mud on his fingers. Apparently Dead Sea mud (or as Nicki calls it, Jesus's poop) has healing properties and such, so of course they sell it. This manboy was offering me a free sample, so I allowed him to put it on my face.

Nicki had become friends with an Asian man floating in the Dead Sea, so they just saw me talking to this man. They didn't realizing he was applying blackface to my face, so when I turned around, they were both startled to see that I had become Julianne Hough.

Well, I took Nicki's floating picture and realized I had quite the problem now. You're not supposed to get Dead Sea water in your eyes because it's sooo salty. I have contacts. How was I going to get this mud off my face?

Answer: very, very carefully. I very delicately cleaned my face with the sea water, then used the rest of my bottled water on my eyes.

I was a bit Dead Sea'd out at that point. I didn't like that it wasn't a normal beach where you can layout and get nice and toasty. The water was super hot and salty. So we went back to the Amman Beach pool to get the salt off. We were going to eat at the restaurant, but it was only a buffet, and the buffet was 14 JOD! So I ate a bag of chips and Nicki ate some nuts.

So began the days of not eating. Ha.

When we got back to Amman, we went to some nearby restaurant I'd found on Trip Advisor. It was pretty good! All vegetarian, but very filling. Hummus, falafel, lots of bread. After dinner we went back down to the cafe and watched the World Cup, then went to bed.

~June 26~

We met up with another Amy who was in Nicki's archaeological group at breakfast, and then she joined us on our trip to the Amman citadel that morning. It was quite the hike up, but very pretty.

The rest of the day we just waited till we had to take a taxi to ACOR to catch Nicki's group's bus. They were kind enough to let me ride with them, which was great and saved me some money and stress. The bus ride to Petra was only supposed to be 3 hours, but we stopped at the airport to pick some people up and ended up sitting at the airport for...2.5 hours? We didn't get to Petra till 10 p.m. and they were kind enough to drop me off at my hostel on the way. Thank goodness! The way up to my hostel from their was only a little over half a mile but straight up hill and winding. I did the trek a few times without my bag and can't imagine it WITH my bag.

My hostel! Rocky Mountain Hotel in Wadi Musa. I really liked it, so much I decided to stay near Petra Sunday night and head back to Amman to catch my flight Monday evening. Since it was off season, they kindly upgraded me room to one with a big bed and a nice view of Petra. There were fresh omelettes for breakfast every morning and they were really nice about answering all my dumb questions about the Jett bus back to Amman, ha.

Also. It had a shower with a curtain separating it from the bathroom.

Glorious!

Petra in a separate entry.