Our last two nights in Jordan were luxuriously spent in its Dead Sea resort region. Our rooms at the five-star Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea were far and away the finest of our trip. The resort’s Obelisk Restaurant overlooks its cascading series of patios and pools that lead to a private beach on the Dead Sea.
Several of us had a drink at a poolside bar the evening of our arrival, and Omar Banihani, one of our Jordan Tourism Board hosts, recommended that we go to the beach early to swim.
“If you want to have the Dead Sea to yourself, get up early tomorrow morning and beat the crowds,” he said. “That’s what I do.”
I left my room at sunrise the next morning and ran into Ransone, so we walked down together. We were the only two on the beach, and I took a long swim out to the buoy line and back. On my way back up to my room, I met another group member, Julianne Gorny with Travel Adventures and Tours in Chicago, who was headed down to swim as well.
That afternoon, after a trip to the Evason Ma’in Hot Springs Resort nearby, the Kempinski treated us all to a spa experience. I enjoyed a full massage followed by a swim in the pool. We could not have chosen a better setting than this to unwind and consider all the sites in Jordan we had seen over that memorable week.
