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).