Relaxing by the Red Sea

On the morning of New Year's Day, our Bedouin guide woke up up at about 6:30am to see if wanted to watch the sunrise.  I got out of bed, went outside, saw that it was a little bit cloudy, walked to the bathroom, then went right back into the tent and under the covers to go back to sleep.  I think everyone else got up at around that time so I only slept for another half hour and then saw the New Year in on East Coast time at 7:00am.

After a breakfast of Bedouin tea, pita bread, olive oil and soft cheese, we packed up our stuff, got in the Jeep and drove back to Rum Village (sounds like some place out of a Jimmy Buffet song, huh?)  Everyone was heading to Aqaba so Jessica, Hans, Goncalo and I shared a cab into the city where Goncalo was dropped off at the Israeli border and Jessica was brought to the bus station to catch a bus back to Amman.  Hans didn't have a hotel booked in Aqaba so he got out of the cab when I did and decided to check in to the same place.  The hotel was actually about 12 kilometers south of Aqaba in the South Beach area where there are lots of resorts and dive spots.  There's not much around there besides the beach, but it's a great spot if you just want to relax by the sea for a few days.

I was out of cash so I had to walk about a kilometer down the road to a big Radisson resort where there was an ATM machine inside.  The hotel was a gorgeous place right on the water, but clearly way out of my budget.  I had walked to the hotel on the side of the road, but I walked back along the beach and put my hand in to check the water temperature.  It was cool, but not freezing, which is saying a lot for the beginning of January even in the Middle East.  For the rest of the afternoon, I just hung out by the pool at the hotel, which had a nice view of the sea across the street.

On Monday, I went out scuba diving with one of the dive masters from my hotel and another guest from Germany.  The water wasn't too bad, but we still wore full wet suits, which helped even more to fend off the cold.  We went to the spot of a shipwreck not too far down the beach from our hotel, though we did have to drive there.  The wreck was not the result of an accident, but was rather an old ship that was intentionally sunk about 25 years ago to help bring tourism to the area.  With our open water licenses, we could only go down to about 20 meters so we weren't able to go under the ship, but could just swim next to and on top of it.  It was still fascinating to see since it was my first "shipwreck" diving experience.  We also saw some coral and lots of colorful fish.  Our dive instructor brought a camera so there are lots of funny and ridiculous shots of us from underwater.

After we got back from the dive, Hans went out with another guy on his first "discovery" dive in more shallow waters right across from our hotel.  While he was gone, I ordered lunch and sat by the pool where we remained for most of the afternoon before going down to the beach to watch the sunset.  The one odd thing about winter on the Red Sea is that the sun still sets pretty early at just after 4:30pm and once it goes down the temperature drastically drops.  For dinner that night, we went to a nearby hotel, which had a larger menu selection than ours, and enjoyed sitting by the fire they had built in one of the portable pits.

The following day, I went out for another dive since the manager of the hotel had given me a great price for booking two.  I ended up paying about $42 total for the two dives (not including the extra cost of the photos), which I thought was a pretty good deal.  Granted we dove from the shore, not a boat, but the cost did include all the rental equipment.  This time I went out with a different instructor to a spot right across from the hotel called the Japanese Garden.  There was lots of coral, including some really big reef outcroppings, and obviously tons of fish.  We saw banner fish, lionfish, puffer fish, coral groupers and clownfish.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any sea turtles, but we did see an octopus hiding under a rock. The instructor nudged it with his hands, but it didn't seem to want to come out to play with us.

Once the dive was over, Hans and I took a cab into Aqaba where we had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the harbor.  We then went to the post office so I could mail a bunch of post cards and to some nearby shops so Hans could buy some souvenirs.  In one of the stores, we watched the shopkeeper make a sand sculpture out of colored sand from Wadi Rum, which reminded me of the sand art I used to make as a kid. These designs, though, had images of camels and mountains that the artist formed along the sides of the bottle with a wire.  As the sun started to set we walked to the Royal Yacht Club to watch the sun go down over the water before taking a cab back to South Beach for dinner.

On Wednesday, Hans was headed up to the Dead Sea and I was crossing into Eilat, Israel, so we had a taxi drop us off at the border.  It was the first time that I have technically crossed an international border completely on foot. When I took the bus from Cambodia to Thailand, we had to get out of our first bus at the border and go through the actual immigration stations on foot, but there was another van waiting for us right on the other side.  In this case, I had to walk through the gate then first pay the Jordanian exit tax before having my passport stamped and leaving Jordan.  I then walked about 50 meters into the Israeli side where I had to put my bags through an x-ray machine before going to the window for immigration.  I feel rather ashamed about this, but I asked the immigration officer to stamp a piece of paper instead of my passport in case I have any problems getting into nearby Arab countries.  I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry, but it still feels like I'm making some sort of political statement.  Luckily the whole immigration process was relatively fast and painless, though I was asked if I knew any Israelis, which is supposed to help make things go a bit smoother.  After I made it through the gate into Israel, I shared a cab into Eilat with a Russian guy and got ready to explore the Red Sea from the other side.