Towards end of last year we had made a plan to hike Mori point in Pacifica, at sunset again, but bad weather made us change plans and go to Windy hill instead. To make up for that we made Mori point the first group hike of the year! 10 of us made a great evening of it including a “chaifie” at the top.
We caught a beautiful sunset..
These pictures say it all..
My hike buddies keep taking pictures of me taking pictures. Loved this one.. Did put the iPhone upside down into the wet sand and got some shots that made me happy! They are in the gallery..
A few snaps and San and me enjoying the cold breeze!
The orignal plan was to grow the beard through the 60 day challenge and see how it looks.. after this hike and seeing the photos, the beard was off. It survived 12 days..
Another “bench photo” to add to our collection..
We would recommend hiking here any day.. especially if you can make it back down to see the sunset! There used to be a nice swing in this beach.. it is gone now! Glad we had the chance to sit on it and take pictures!
A short video including a timelapse of the sunset at the end..
We were done with Wadi Rum. There were more flight changes for part of our group. So BIL and family had to stay in Amman for an extra day. The rest of us had rescheduled our return (which was originally through DC on United) to go through Doha on Qatar airlines with a 8 hour gap in Doha!
At least we would all be together till we were done with the dead sea experience. It took us a good 3+ hours to drive to the dead sea from Wadi Rum. We drove along the Israel Jordan border and stopped at Aqaba to see Egypt, Palestines West Bank, Jordan and Israel from the freeway. You can see it in the video. No wonder the place is tense all the time! The population density around the red sea area was incredible!
Then we were driving alond the dead sea. It was desolate. We could see a lot of farming on the Israel side, but nothing on the Jordanian side. We were blessed by the camel gods again on the drive. .
Zaid stopped us at a store to buy some beauty products made from the dead sea. We spent 30 minutes there. It was interesting to know so many dermatology clinics and skin care treatment centers sprout around this area based on the curative aspects of the salt and water.
From the store we went to the Crowne plaza where a lunch had been arranged. It was an amazing buffet with a lot of vegetarian options and we got to drink tea with fresh cow milk for the first time in 5 days! There was a cake cutting celebration! With our tummies full, we were apprehensive of going in salty water.. what if we swallow some and the lunch comes out?!
It was too late to discuss. So off we went. There is a beautiful elevator that takes us down to the water level in the Crowne Plaza. They also gave us towels and pool access as part of the service. It was all pre-booked. There are a lot of villas and long term housing accomodations in the crowne plaza. We learned that medical tourism, especially for dermatology is famous here and folks do stay there for 3 months at a time to take daily dips in the dead sea!
The signs that said Beach access were a lie. There is no BEACH! it is a bunch of rocks you walk on and eventually float.
This is highly risky. Out of the 8 people in our group and 6 others on this so called beach 5 of us had cuts and bleeding injuries when we came out of the water. Happy that no one hit their head on the rocks!
Yes, you do float in the water and if the salt gets to your eyes or mouth, it stings badly and you have to rush to the shower to clean it out. There is no sand and the rocks on the floor cut your feet! My thighs were all bruised and bleeding (realized it much later), San's back was all scratched..
Like my niece aptly noted "the dead sea will take away all your pain and then double your pain by the time you are done floating!"
It was an interesting experience though. You get smeared with oily black sand, let it dry on you for 5 minutes, then go wash it out, float a bit, then get hosed down with fresh water.. followed by selective sand washing again and a final salt scrubbing.
When the entire thing was done, my skin was very very smooth but extremely dry! The supposed super moisturization didn't work on my skin. Maybe the salt water dehyrated me a lot. We were asked to drink a lot of water after that dip. The dead sea has 6-8 times the salt of regular seas and is also oily!
We walked back the hotel area and hung out by the pool. Then said our byes. It was time for the four of us to leave for the airport.
It was an hour plus drive from the dead sea to Amman airport and we saw tires burning in different places. We were hoping that my BIL's family stay safe the next day they were on their own and made it to our flight on time.
At Doha we took a transit Visa for 20 USD each. Then we took a taxi (they are reliable and affordable) to the Central Inn (15 minutes from the airport) and crashed there for the night. We got 5 hours of sleep. We already had boarding passes on carry on luggage only. We were back at the airport in the morning just in time to clear immigration, security check and board our flight to SFO!
The long return flight was actually good and the Vegetarian meals was excellent. This is my first time flying Qatar Airways, and I have to say they did a great job!
A video highlight of the drive to the dead sea and the experience there.
For the first time, I have managed to finish blogging about a weeklong trip within a week of returning. My family knew I wanted to finish it this time and have let me keep at it...
Yet to blog about the anniversary trip from July. Hopefully will do that over the next few days!
Thanks for reading through this series!
This traveling family wishes you all a wonderful 2025!!!!
In what seems to be ages ago, San and me did a day trip to Monterey earlier this year.. this was between the India trip and our anniversary trip!
It was a trip to go hiking with our jigiri dost's from morning to evening. Given our kids were not home, we drove early in the morning to meet them and started hiking.
It was cold and foggy as we made our way along the trail to see the coast line.
Amazing views, lot of birds, deer, (some insects buzzing about) and seals in a cove with their little ones! Lot of work wtih the macro option as well ..
slide show of landscape photos..
and the rest of the highlight photos
We then went back to their place to have lunch. Had chai and then went back for another hike down to the beach!
It was almost a private beach that day. Enjoyed that walk long the beach and drove back to bay area.
It was a ton of fun and there were 200 photos and many video clips from that day..
Here is a video highlight
It deserved a blog post!
We really enjoyed that day and still remember it! it was San's way of prepping me for traveling alone with her again and still have fun.
It was a long drive in bad traffic on the way back. We realized there was no way we will make it home by dinner time.. so we stopped on the way at an Indian restaurant (my first time there). The food was good!
Still have 2000+ pictures from that anniversary trip to Europe. It will take 2 years to write blog posts on that.. if my memory doesn't fade..
