Aqaba to Egypt

We are now in Penguin Village in Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba in Egypt - yes normal life and traveling are temporarily suspended whilst we chill out in this laid back holiday resort full of camps, hotels, restaurants, divers and backpackers. We have a wonderful hotel room with a huge balcony overlooking the sea all for 20 pounds a night, a restaurant on the sea shore with carpets and cushions on which we can while away the daytime and nightime - its a lot warmer here, we have lost those cold desert nights - getting here however was not as much fun as being here.

After Wadi Rum we went by taxi to Aqaba, shared with the two girls from Leeds Univ who then went back up the road to Wadi Musa for Petra - our driver Mohammed got carried away with chatting and hand waving to loud arabic music and was pulled in by the police for speeding - his instant fine was 25 dinars - his fare from us!

After a rather tatty hotel in Aqaba (but great food in a market stall) we left the next morning for the ferry to Neweiba in Eqypt - walked along to the harbour only to be assailed by a large group of taxi drivers informing us that the passenger ferry now left from 12 kms down the coast towards the Saudi border - despite an attempt at haggling (they had us and they knew it) we had to pay the 5 dinars to get taken there. At the terminal nothing was clear, we trailed about getting tickets (at 70 dollars each more than double what we had expected), getting our exit tax paid, getting our passport checked and finally left in a large hall to await departure. Eventually with people suddenly disappearing we realised we had better move and found that people had boarded a shuttle bus to the ferry - a fast catamaran. There were about a dozen of us foreigners, the rest were Eqytian workers returning home - possibly far more than usual as the land crossing at Eilat had been closed. Interesting to stand in Aqaba - you can see three countries Jordan, Israel and Eqypt. We had to leave our packs in the cargo and vehicle bay and were then corralled in a foreigners area whilst the Eqyptian immigration official stamped everyone else's passports - including women in Burkas who had to lift their veils to show the official but no-one else their face.

Eventually the ferry left Aqaba, we had to sit and wait to have our passports checked, there was anyway nowhere else to go so we got to know each other, a Korean girl travelling alone for one year, Sebastien from Italy, Jenny from the US, Benjamin an organic farmer from Australia, running his business from his mobile and travelling the world with no end date in mind.

The ferry arrived at Neweiba but we were not allowed off, Sebastien and the Korean girl had by now apparently missed their overnight bus to Cairo and we looked in danger of missing ours to Dahab but finally we were allowed off streaming off the cargo bay to cries of Mohammed! Mohammed! from a seething group of porters with large metal trolleysm in fact they were calling out the names of the workers who had hired them to carry the huge loads of tvs, carpets, even a wc that they had bought in Jordan - and it just happened that a large proportion of them were called Mohammed.

All of the foreigners (except Tess and I who already had our full visa) had then to find doorways and offices at which to pay for visas, collect visas and passports - it was chaos but was eventually achieved and we all moved off the the arrivals shed - there was further chaos as the goods were scanned by security - but we were invited to put our packs through straight away and so were were finally through the bureaucracy. Sebastien discoverd a bus for Cairo in the port area we were told to find our Dahab bus outside the gates - and of course there was no bus! There were eight of us going to Dahab now surrounded by a noisy group of taxi drivers - Benjamin took control and began bargaining with the right degree of utter disgust at the prices first quoted pointing out how many of us there were, eventually we got an offer of half the amount - 30 egyptian pounds each (about 5 pounds) so were piled into minibus for the 45 minute ride through the most desolate landscape we have ever seen - just piles of bolders and small hills - welcome to the Sinai desert!

As the sun went down we reached Dahab, piled out of the van and madeour way to the Penguin Village which had received votes from those with guide books and previous experience. It was a relief to arrive. No more travelling for a few days - the sun is hot and the evenings are balmy, think of us lying around on those carpets and cushions and around the wood fire in the evening!