Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Saltiest body of water on earth. . . . can you taste it?

We had the opportunity to taste, feel, and float in the waters of the DEAD SEA!!
It was so interesting to float so much that it was hard to even get your feet under you. There were definitely parts of your body that stung really bad so most of us could only handle for about 15 minutes. But it was fun! It is 3 times more salty than the Great Salt Lake. It was so salty that if it got in your eyes it stung and if you licked your finger you could get your full intake of sodium for the week. After we dried off there was a salt layer on our skin. The water is really blue and pretty, and under the water the rocks have beautiful salt crystals on them. There were many people that rubbed the mud all over them to get softer skin, but the mud smelled like poop so I decided against it. But it was a great experience to partake of the salty waters of the DEAD SEA. Now I know why they call it the dead sea.



This is the cave where they found most of the Dead Sea scrolls. It is a near a town called Qumran that is on the northeast shore of the Dead Sea. They found all these scrolls by accident from about 1947-1956 when a shepherd went into the cave looking for a lost sheep and found bottles filled with ancient scrolls that were written by the Essenes in the 3rd century BC. There are many different caves around these parts, but this cave is where they found most of the scrolls.

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