Travel-World Photography
We travelled from Ashdod by bus through the desert and stayed in a hotel very close to the lakeshore.
The Dead Sea is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.
As of 2019, the lake's surface is 430.5 m below sea level, making its shores the lowest land-based elevation on Earth. It is 304 m deep. With a salinity of 34.2%, it is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water – 9.6 times as salty as the ocean – and has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea's main, northern basin is 50 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide at its widest point. The Dead Sea is receding at a swift rate; its surface area today is 605 km2, having been 1,050 km2 in 1930.
It was a strange feeling, trying to swim, as we usually ended turning on our backs. The water was so salty that the salt actually crystallized on the bottom. A side benefit: The skin got to be very soft and slick!
