Haha! This morning was Travis' first experience with my alarm clock. Meaning, not just hearing it go off and me hit snooze, but rather, him having to hit snooze and turn it off. It's really not a complex clock, but I didn't think to explain to him how to hit snooze or turn it off. Since we were sleeping, quite literally, on the shores of the Red Sea, he had decided he wanted to get up for sunrise. Not knowing exactly what time sunrise was, we set the alarm early, and when it went off, he got up, realized it was way too early, and came back to bed. Next was the process of alarms that lasted way too long as he tried to turn it off, and me too tired to say simply, "Push on the face of the clock" or "The off switch is on the back. Push it down." My brain simply wasn't working that early.
Finally, time came for the sunrise. Travis was awake and chipper and singing with the morning birds (ok, he wasn't really singing... but it seemed to fit in the ambiance of the story) when he came bursting back in the room to see if I wanted to get up to see it. Realizing that this may be my only opportunity to see the sun rise over the Red Sea, I got up. Although my body was upright and moving, my brain seriously struggled with the thought of consciousness. I slept walked more than anything down to the shore, collapsing upon the first lawn chair I came upon. Again, I was too tired to care that the mattress pad on top was probably the nastiest thing I had touched in all of Egypt, and trust me... that's saying something. I lay there, trying desperately to focus on the gorgeous horizon, but mostly sleeping out on the beach. I must say, however, that it was very beautiful... when my eyes were open. As soon as the actual sun rose (instead of all the pretty colors just before), and opening my eyes deemed instant blindness, I stumbled back to the room and right back to bed.
I woke up a few hours later to find Travis asleep as well. For the next half hour or so, we both drifted in and out of consciousness until finally, around 9 am, we drug ourselves out of bed and made our way over to breakfast. Again, they made it for us just as soon as we got there. Breakfast consisted of cheeses (ick), green olives (triple ick, yuck and gross!), tomatoes (Travis' turn to say ick), cucumbers (which I want to say yummy, but the fear of Rameses' Revenge kept me from eating them to find out), plain yogurt (which I didn't try because plain yogurt is nasty, but Travis tried it mixed with plum jam and seemed to think it was an alright mix.), crepes (cold, but good with honey or jam), eggs (slightly oily, but good enough), plum jam, honey, butter, and orange Tang. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite breakfast ever. But is very typical of the middle east.
We got back to the room and looked at our sandals—covered in salt from walking out in the sea the day before. Gross. So we spent a few minutes washing them well, then setting them out on the porch to dry in the sun. (Note: my chacos dried in record time!) Then, whilst I lazed about awhile more, Travis started cleaning the sand out of his camera bag. I must say, that was quite the process. Every lens, every bag, every 4x5 film thingy. Though, he did comment that it would be nice if he were that picky with all of his possessions... like his car. :) As we sat there talking, being lazy, and cleaning camera gear, we looked out the window and saw one of the Belgian girls out on the kayak that Travis had taken out last night. He decided to go warn her that it was leaking. I watched from the window as he approached, said something, then she started flailing about, trying to see a hole. Haha! He then had to explain to her that it was a leak under the kayak—she wouldn't be able to see it there. Later we saw them all still out there, both girls sitting on the one-man kayak, the brother pushing it, the father walking alongside of it, and mom on the shore, keeping her eyes peeled.
Not knowing what time the ferry departed, we decided to go up to the front desk and ask. As soon as the question left Travis' mouth, the guy told us, "NOW!!! are you ready? No? We'll send someone by your room to get your bags in 5 minutes." Yipes! So we walked briskly back to our rooms and threw everything in the bags. We finished just in time to pay our bill, jump in the taxi, and head back to the port.
Once at the port, we asked the driver if we could stop at a bank to get some money out. (We constantly underestimate how much money we'll need. And we don't want to carry cash. And we expect certain businesses (like a hotel) to accept Visa and they don't. Curses.) So he let us out at the National Bank. We walked in, asking if we could get money from his credit card. He pointed us to the ATM. We told him it was a credit card, not a debit card, and that he didn't know his PIN for the credit card. We needed a cash advance, that the bank would have to do. He told us that we'd have to go to the bank across the street. Repeat process, this time saying that their American machine was broken, go across the street. Grrrr. We told them we'd already been there, but turns out (after some guidance from our taxi driver) that there was another bank, the Cairo Bank, right next door to the first. So we went over there. Repeat the exact same process. This time, as we left, Travis found his debit card and we decided to try it, pulling out the correct amount from his checking account... in Egyptian pounds. So we headed back over to pay for our tickets for the ferry. After a bit of confusion about if we had the right boat and such, we finally went to pay. "American dollars only. No shekels." Are you kidding me?! We're in Egypt, right? ~sigh. We asked what time we needed to be back to buy tickets and they told us that the ferry left at 3. It was only 12:30, so we figured we were fine. So it was back to the first bank to change money. Sent away. We decided to skip the second bank and went straight to the third. After a bit of talking, and a fear that they wouldn't do it, they finally gave in and gave us US dollars. Then it was back... yet again, to the ticket office. On our way over, the Belgian dad (they'd all been with us as we all ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to pull this whole thing together... except they fought the ticket office while we fought the bank) informed us that we had to be through customs by 1. Gee, that was nice of the ticket guy to tell us. [rolls eyes] So, they went over to get through customs while Travis and I went back to buy our tickets. (Oh, did I mention that all of these things are not right next door? Rather, they required the taxi driver to drive us back and forth. Nice guy that he is. Plus, he was overcharging us anyway. We wanted our money's worth. :D) Finally, we drove back over to customs and, having no idea where to go, we just walked until we found the place. We finally made it through customs and entered the big, dark, waiting room.
For the next couple of hours, we sat around, making up stuff to do. Travis took pictures of random people sleeping on benches while I read through our ferry ticket. Fine print is surely one of the best things out there. I believe my favorite part is that if we are overtaken by pirates, the ferry has no liability for our luggage. Also, if there is a risk of us losing our freedom, the captain reserves the right to drop our luggage at any port he sees fit. Hahaha! So, if we're attacked by pirates and turned into slaves, our luggage may end up on some random port and the company takes no responsibility for it. Oh, how I love fine print. :D
Finally, the time came to board the ferry. Or so we thought. So we gathered up all of our stuff, crossed the football field sized room, tried to blend into the body-odor soaked crowd, and attempted to push our way forward. (We weren't being rude. We were being, in Bro. Merrill's words, politely aggressive. To be polite means you lose.) Suddenly, the door closed, and we were all sent back to our seats. We chose a closer seat this time. And waited. And waited. The door opened again, we got up, the door closed. We sat back down. And waited. And waited. The door opened again. We decided to see what happened first and stayed seating. We're glad we did, because after a while of people pushing, some guy came running through the door yelling and screaming. He sounded remarkably like an angry father who had been pestered one too many times about, "He's touching me!" and "She's looking at me!" and "Are we there yet?" and "I'm hungry!" I couldn't understand the words, but I knew that tone. Even being in a country where everyone yells and screams their polite greetings and "Have a nice day," we could still tell that this guy wasn't wishing us a pleasant afternoon. I was scared for my life and felt guilty for pushing, even though I had been sitting the whole time. We almost wanted to raise our hands and say in a very meek tone, "We've been sitting here the whole time!" But we didn't. First, he probably wouldn't have seen us. Second, I'm pretty sure no one there spoke English. Third, at that point, we preferred not being seen.
We figured out a way to tell if the line was actually moving. There was a lady, near the door, balancing her suitcase on her head. We figured that when she actually made it through the door, it was time to go. Finally, after a few more false alarms, the suitcase lady made it through, so we loaded up everything and set out on our way. We finally made it through the door, to our great relief, expecting to be at the shore, ready to get on the ferry, only to find that we were in a parking lot, the ferry still a ways away. To top it off, as soon as we made it out, they shut the door behind us. So we again waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, a bus pulled up, we all got on. Try walking down the aisle of a bus with a large camping backpack on your back. See how many people you hit and arm rests that hinder your progression. It's great fun, really. A three-minute drive later, we got off the bus. This time, I waited for everyone to get of the bus in front of me, then I knocked down all of the arm rests on my way out. Here we entered the bottom of the ferry—where all the cars would go if they were carrying cars. Here we had to leave our big luggage. This worried Travis a bit, since he would have to leave his large camera... but he was brave and did it. We stood in line for what seemed like forever. (I'm pretty sure this was our first and probably only actual line in the entire middle east... as opposed to massive crowds pretending to be a line.) I swear, they let in one person every 5.341 minutes. We finally made it in. Turns out the hold up was that they were checking our passports, though, we made it through in record time.
We got on the ship to find an entirely different atmosphere than anything we had experienced since our 5-star hotel. It was very nice, air-conditioned, beautiful view. Exactly what you would expect from a cruise ship. After that nastified waiting room, I guess I expected a cattle-shipping boat or something. I was pleasantly surprised. We got in yet another line, waiting to get our passports stamped. This turned out to be a nervous surprise... instead of making us get in line, they took our passports, handed them to the guy in the booth, then motioned for us to take a seat on the comfortable chairs. So we did. But then, we waited and waited as we watched the one guy in the booth, hand entering every single passport, and not even touching ours. What was going on? Deciding not too worry too much, yet, we bought a chicken sandwich for lunch. Turned out to be two chicken sandwiches, a banana, and a juice. Yay for pleasant surprises! Finally, we decided to ask when we were going to get our passports back. They told us when we got to Jordan. Then, they escorted us upstairs to sit.
By this point we had already glanced downstairs, where everyone had been going to sit, and saw what looked remarkably like airplane seats. "Great," we thought, "all this effort to take a ferry and we won't even be able to see the Sea while we go." So, heading up the stairs, we expected it to be the same. Were we ever shocked to see first class seats! Wow! I've never been in first class before. The seats were large and very comfortable. They played Spiderman 3 for our entertainment. (Which I had never seen before, and missed the first few minutes, so Travis had to enlighten me here and there.) Best part, we could go out on the deck and see the Red Sea. Wow. That is a serious wake. It was HUGE! Not only was it as wide as the ferry, but it went back as far as I could see. Probably clear back to the harbor. We spent a large portion of the trip outside. Then I stayed in, watching Spiderman, while Travis went off, I'm assuming to take more pictures. Oh, and turns out, basically anyone that looked Caucasian was upgraded to first class.
When the ferry docked in Aqaba, the crew shooed us off, let us go down and get our luggage, then ushered us into customs. There we sat in an area designated for "foreigners" and we sat and waited. And waited. (Seems to typify our day, really) We waited as the Belgians got their passports stamped and left. Then the Australian. Then the Scot. Finally, after a long while, I got my passport as well as the other two Americans sitting there. Of course, to keep par, Travis didn't get his passport. I was standing next to a security guard while Travis was up at the desk trying to figure out what was going on, when the guard's cell phone rang. He answered it, walked up to Travis and asked, "What's your name?" Travis told him, the guard went back to his call, and left us to roll our eyes and say simply, "Well, chalk another one up to experience." ~sigh. I was certain that his passport must have still been in Nuweiba or something. That we'd be stuck in Aqaba all night. But, despite our luck, just then, they handed over his passport, and the guard came over and told me that our taxi had just called and was waiting outside for us. (Our hotel in Petra had ordered a taxi for us... which was really nice not to have to find our own way up there.) Oh, lest I forget, we got a stamp for Jordan!!! A real stamp! Not that stupid half stamp on a piece of paper we got last time when we went with the Center.
So we started our departure of the station. Once again, not a nice and easy process. Of course there were the x-ray machines. Travis, very practiced at this, quickly asked if they were safe for film. For the first time, we were told no. So they took his camera bags out to a table where another guard opened them up and started digging through them. It was quite the game of charades to explain to him that all the boxes and bags were film and it was all camera equipment. Finally, he got frustrated and told us to just go. So we did.
Outside waiting for us was our taxi, nice and new and clean (another shocker), and a very nice driver named Fares. We first stopped at a gas station where he bought us both a drink. Think... orange juice, pulp and all, with a punch. Almost a milkshake. It was frothy. Then we were on our way. Travis and I had commented on how beautiful the stars were. I mean, you could actually see them! So Fares pulled over and let us gaze and get all happy because of them. Apparently the stop was also a panoramic view where you could see the prince's summer castle or something, but it was really dark, so we couldn't see it. Fares also convinced us to hire him for the next leg of our journey the next day.
Finally, we entered Petra. We were welcomed by fireworks! It was very exciting, it being the fourth of July and all. On the way in, we stopped at an ATM to get some Jordanian Dinars, and all I saw over Travis' shoulder were the words "Normal Cash" on the ATM screen. hehe. It made me laugh. Last stop, the Petra Gate Hotel. Ok, it's more a hostel than a hotel. But that's why we picked it. Travel cheap (not cheap—broke) and all. It's a nice, quaint little place. Definitely got what we paid for, though. The bathroom door was a shower curtain. Appropriate, since their was no actual shower, just a shower head coming out of the wall and a drain underneath. Also, the toilet ran unless you pushed the button down hard. And even then, it still ran for awhile. To make up for it, however, was the view. The view in and of itself wasn't particularly incredible. But there happened to be four wedding parties that night. And here, they celebrate weddings with fireworks! (We should take note. I like that idea. Also, they decorate the cars with flowers and white ribbons. They're really quite beautiful. Again, we should take note.) Anyway, Happy Independence Day everyone!!
I fell asleep that night to Travis taking pictures of the fireworks. He got some pretty amazing ones. For the first time this entire trip, I fell asleep on top of the blanket because it was hot, but then actually crawled underneath during the night because it was cold. Here's the amazing part—we didn't have A/C or a fan. It was just plain cold during the night! Amazing...
I will refrain from adding anything else because this is already way too long ... Touche.
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