As a kid, I always wondered if there actually was a way to walk on water, one devoid of miraculous explanations. My first introduction to the Dead Sea was through a few pictures in the travel supplement of the local newspaper, depicting people effortlessly floating on it. Imagine, to not sink in water! It became an obsession and I nagged my parents to take me there. They never did, and my dreams of floating on a body of water, however remarkable, soon faded as I got older.
By the time we pulled up along the stretch of luxury hotels carved along its shores, however, each its own isolated habitat for spa goers, all the wonder and amazement returned. The childish fantasies came back, and it felt as if I had waited twenty years to arrive, from the time I first heard about it.
Hearing the exclamations of delight from all the other tourists floating with us in the patch of sea allocated to our hotel, it was apparent that this unintuitive experience made children of us all. Admittedly, there were more interesting things to do than floating in a cubit of water.
But this was an experience I will remember not as a grown up, but with the memories of the kid who really, really, wanted to pickle herself in this particular sea.
