“Dance music is junk all over the world!”
(Wadi Rum – Aqaba – Red Sea Camp)
Baby Camels!
We got up early and packed quickly. No showers so I look like a gorilla that’s just had a fit. We said good bye to the camp & met the bus in the nearby village. We got to see some baby camels- so cute! We then proceeded to the port town of Aqaba. Here we were thankful for clean “western” toilets. We explored the town in a short period of time- we went to a liquor shop (my countrymen needed some for Egypt), a bakery where I got a thing that was like a sausage roll, got my soumak spice and made a quick visit to McDonalds for some fries.
We then went to the port, got our passports stamped and boarded the ferry which was stationary for 60 minutes. In all, the trip took 3 hours. When we got into the Egyptian port- what a mess! It took us another hour to pass through the doors of the ship (all the while being tortured by hideous Arabic music videos). It wasn’t much better than what we got outside the boat. Talk about chaos! We had to go to this bank and buy our visa (in American cash only), then go to the passport office and have some guy stick it into our passport before getting it back. Talk about a redundant process (did I mention we had to line up inside the ferry in order to surrender our passports in the first place?). Then we had the delightful task of waiting in line to clear customs. I think we angered some of the Egyptians because we got to jump ahead of them. Finally, we made it to the bus, where we met Ahmed. We then proceeded to our Red Sea camp near Nuweiba.
The Red Sea!
The camp was called Sawa, which means “friendship” and was beautiful. The main communal area was a series of marfrashes together and had a pool table to boot. There was a smaller one that ran along the western fence line which was good for getting some rays while reading. The property backed onto the sea- it had a great view of Saudi Arabia across it.
Our huts were simple but superb! They were about 3m x 3m and only had a bed covered by a mosquito net. The walls and roof were thatched reeds and palm leaves. Very cool in the heat of the day. After settling in, we had a refreshing dip in the sea and had our supper on the beach. The food was really nice- I had chicken kebab. Afterwards we returned to our hut for some shut eye.
