This morning seems like so long ago. We spent the morning at a dive center snorkeling and warming up in the sun. That was my first time seeing a coral reef in person. We saw all we could in about half an hour and then we started to get goosebumps. There were some neat fish. But we really need to go to Hawaii to see the good stuff.
I’ve felt uncomfortable on this trip because of the language barrier. For some reason it’s been harder to deal with than in Switzerland. At lunch today, Elisa was asking the waiter, “How do people that live here say the name Jordan?” She asked it a dozen different ways. The waiter called a different waiter over to help him understand. The second waiter answered, “Two months, three months.” Another waiter said, “But I’m from Egypt. We’re all from Egypt.” Then they called a manager over to help them understand some more.
We took a cab to the Jordan/Israeli border. Then we walked across a no-man’s land with our luggage. We got some cool passport stamps. Then another cab on the other side picked us up and brought us to Eilat.
Now we’re staying the night next to the Dead Sea. On our bus ride here we passed the Fountain of Youth and Lot’s wife. We almost rode the bus all the way up to Jerusalem because the driver didn’t stop anywhere in town. He didn’t think anyone wanted to get off. As he was pulling out onto the highway, I asked him where he stops for the town En Bokek. He asked what we needed En Bokek for. (Well, what did he think?) After asking that same question a few times, he pulled over to the side of the road. We got our luggage out and he drove away. Elisa and I had to walk ourselves back into the town and to our hotel. Luckily it’s pretty small so it wasn’t so bad.
Today I learned that I want to see Lawrence of Arabia. We rode through the Wadi Rum desert and kept seeing sights that bore his influence.
Getting the cab ride to Wadi Rum was awkward. The hotel receptionist had called the cab for us, so we didn’t have a chance to negotiate the fare. The receptionist told us to pay fourteen Jordanian Dinars, which was a great price anyway. When we arrived at the Wadi Rum Visitor’s center, the cabbie demanded forty JDs. 😡 He even called the hotel and the receptionist said that we had heard the number wrong. We never would have agreed to that much! After talking to him for awhile we let him convince us to pay his full fare.
Inside the Wadi Rum we rented a Jeep and a driver. He looked like he was 10. We thought it was a joke, and knew it wasn’t. 🙂 He was a great driver.
There are great facilities at the hotel in Aqaba. They were overbooked so they didn’t have our reservation. We tried to hide our tears as they upgraded us to an executive suite worth $600 a night. Wow. I feel out of place.
We had mint lemonade that was the most delicious thing I’ve had in a long time. Then we had ice cream and I couldn’t decide on a flavor so the guy just started scooping up something of everything all in two scoops. It’s the best two scoops of ice cream I’ve ever had. Then we went to the spa, into the separate male and female areas and did some much-needed relaxing (from relaxing).
Elisa and I got up late today, and tired. I was woken up a few times during the night because our room got so hot! It had taken us a while to figure out where to set the thermostat, and so the room had already been heating up all evening. Then it turns out that the hot/cold switch is backwards from the label. It was past 3 am and the room felt like a dry sauna before I realized that might be the problem, and dared turn it towards Hot. 👿
Elisa and I have wanted to see Petra for a long time. After I heard Daniel was going to Petra last fall, I was insanely jealous. True. Petra had been on my list ever since I learned that the sandstone facade at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a real place. 🙂
We walked through a pretty canyon that kept getting narrower and narrower. The scenery was similar to southern Utah. There were so many really interesting things to see, not only archaeologically, but the natural wonders were awesome. We probably hiked 8 km today–we weren’t expecting that. I can barely walk now. The hiking turned out to be one of my favorite parts. We hiked up to the Monastery, which was pretty steep and had a lot of stairs. The paths were pretty narrow at some points. You could ride a donkey up and down and that looked absolutely terrifying. The breeze was nice. The sun was hidden behind a little dust.
For the return hike, we got on camels for a ride. So fun! They are weird looking creatures, you have to admit. And they were fun to ride. One of the merchants shouted out to me while we were riding back about how we needed to steer closer to see his goods. Then he said something like,”Get something for the baby! You’re going to have a baby right?” I have been all self-conscious about just looking chubby. I am glad he got it right! 🙂 This was a real vacation day.
