Hi out there,
First of all I would like to say THANK YOU very much for all the lovely birthday mails! You really made me happy. Who ever thinks right now something like “birthday? Uppps!” I would like to say : don’t worry. I really don’t take it to heart. I would actually like to say thank you to everybody individually but I cant enter the facebook website. I think it has to do with governmental restictions here in Damaskus, Syria. I will say something about that later.
Just in time for my birthday my old friend Alex flew into Aqaba, Jordan. We just changed the usual birthday drink for a waterpipe after a beautiful dinner and enjoyed ourselves looking to the Gulf of Aqaba at night.
We worked our way thru Jordan quite fast, due to a tight time management on Alex’s site. We rented a car to get us to the stonecarved city of Perta early in the morning the next day. The plan failed because of a flat tire just 15 km after knocking of. It took us an extra two hours to get a new car from the car rental and to get beyond the 15 km mark. But after that everything was flowing – most of all streams of sweat. The city of Perta streches out quite far. And one of the best parts is at the opposite end, up on a hill. The site is just beautiful you cant really visit all of the 800 buildings, but I don’t think that is necessary anyway. I just wondered why these huge dimensions? Why did they chisel 40 meter high facades into the stone? Breathtaking all the way!
The direction of travel went on from the Red towards the Dead Sea. Therefore the corals get substituted for salt. And looking into the future I dare to say that in the 22. Century there will only be salt left as there is no river merging into the Dead Sea. There is no marine live in that sea even today. Maybe you can find a fish in salt in one of the restaurants nearby.
I had heard of the high concentration of salt in the Dead Sea which causes extrem boyance to the body. But actually experiencing this sensation is so unbelieveable. If you hold yourself vertical you float up to almost your nipples. If you try to press yourself down you come straight up again. That must be the sensation a buoy is experiencing. It is kind of hard to maintain that vertical position because your legs are pushed upwards and all of a sudden you find yourself lying on your back again. Alex and I had a ball playing with bouyance in that sea situated at 400 m below sealevel. It is the deepest point on earth they say. The day passed, the sun started her decend in the west and was diving into the mist that lay above the Dead Sea. That softened the dazzling light and made it possible to look straight into the sun. I witnessed how the sun colored the mountains of the westbank in different shades of brown and beige. She decended slowly, almost carefully towards the mountain tops. Eventually she melted into the montain range until finally there was only a slight glowing left that reminded of the place the sun just disappeared from.
After two nights in Amman, Alex left heading east, meanwhile I headed north. From Amman to Damaskus it is just a 4 hour ride. tomorrow however i will ride on. To be continued.
