Exodus

Well, it looks like I have time to draft a few more entries, though I’m not sure exactly when they will be posted. We will, however, do what we can. This entry is about the trip from Egypt into Jordan.

First of all, Moses had fewer problems leaving Egypt than we did. The original plan was simple and painless enough. We were going to take a 2-hour bus ride from St. Catherine’s to Nuweiba and then hop on the one-hour hydrofoil to Aqaba in Jordan. We left at 8:00 am to get to the ferry station in plenty of time, as required, and that part worked out perfectly. Then things went awry.

The first problem was with the hydrofoil. Although we got to the station in plenty of time, the hydrofoil didn’t. Not only was it not there on time, it wasn’t coming at all because of bad weather in Jordan. Even though we could see Jordan from where we were waiting and we could see absolutely nothing wrong with the weather in Jordan, the hydrofoil wasn’t coming.

Plan B. We did have a Plan B. Plan B said that we would hop on the cargo ferry, which usually takes around two hours, and then head on to Jordan. Plan B looked good considering the fact that the ferry was sitting there in the Nuweiba harbor, ready for us to board. And board we did, settling in at around 12:30 pm. The plan said we were going to cross into Jordan, check into our hotel in Aqaba and spend the afternoon checking out the town. The plan didn’t go exactly as it was supposed to go.

When we boarded the ferry there already were plenty of people on board, but we were able to find seats in order to wait for the trip to begin. Our seats were in booths in one of the upper classes and they were quite comfortable. This proved to be fortunate. We waited for the ship to depart. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four hours. Finally, at around 4:30 pm, the ferry finally departed Nuweiba. Good enough. A two- or three- hour trip would put us in our hotels in plenty of time to have dinner and drinks and a good night’s sleep before heading out to Wadi Rum the next morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a two- or three- hour trip.

Throughout the night, we kept receiving messages over the intercom that I assume were updating us on the status of the trip. Unfortunately, the messages were in Arabic and none of us spoke Arabic. Starting at around 8:30, eight hours after getting on the boat and four hours after leaving Egypt, we started getting updates here and there from other passengers that we had another hour to go on the trip. We got these messages at around 8:30 pm, 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm, 11:30 pm . . . . Finally, shortly after midnight, we got our first, last, only message in English on the trip. It was along the lines of “welcome to ship, water choppy, cannot dock, enjoy trip.” Okay, screw it, we’re not landing. I put in some earplugs and slapped on a sleeping mask and decided to go to sleep. There was not going to be any dinner or any drinks, but at least I would try to get to sleep.

Finally, at around 2:15 am, the ferry finally docked in Aqaba. We still had to go through immigration and customs and it was around 3:00 am before we got to our hotel. Once there, we learned that our morning activities had been cancelled for the next morning so we could get around five hours of sleep and walk around Aqaba a little bit before heading out to Wadi Rum.

The tragedy of the entire debacle was that we missed our evening in Aqaba. We walked around in the morning for a few hours and it was a beautiful city. At least I think it was a beautiful city. After seeing all of the grime and garbage in the cities of Egypt, it probably wouldn’t have taken much to impress me. But with that proviso, Aqaba certainly did impress me.

A friend and I walked around town, stopped by an ATM and then went to a restaurant called Ali Baba for some coffee and to take advantage of the free WiFi. We also did a little shopping, particularly at a few of the many, many liquor stores in Aqaba. Jordan is a relatively dry country, but Aqaba is a duty-free port city connecting Jordan with Egypt and Israel and the liquor stores were plentiful and cheap. We bought some Jack Daniels and Coke to enjoy on our trips to Wadi Rum and Petra. Sadly, that was pretty much the extent of our trip to Aqaba. From there, we bused to Wadi Rum and yet another blog entry.