After we left St. Catherine's we drove for several hours north along the Gulf of Aqaba. The terrain continued to be very desolate. However, the water was turquoise blue and beautiful and I kept wanting the bus to stop so I could get out and go put my feet in the water. There were a lot of beach resorts right on the water and then nothing else inland for as far as you could see. We learned that beach tourism has really picked up in Egypt and people come from all over, especially Europe and Russia, to snorkel in the Gulf of Aqaba. Since it was off season, the resorts were all completely empty, which was a little weird. Sometimes it seemed like we were the only people around for a long ways. Kate was sick and throwing up, but thankfully, gave me advance warning every time, so we were able to keep it contained and not all over the bus. Our bus was comfortable and not too crowded, so we were each able to have our own row. This kept the kids much happier since they each had their own space. They read books and played their Nintendo DS's and William played with his little figurines or with my cell phone.
We ate box lunches on the bus and then arrived mid afternoon at Egypt's coastal town on the north of the Gulf of Aqaba. And then we began the several hour process of crossing the borders. We had to cross from Egpyt into Israel, drive 10 miles, and then cross over into Jordan. At each place we had to go through major security--to get out of a country, and then to get into a new one. The crazy part was the tour bus from Egypt couldn't pass into Israel, and Israel's couldn't go into Jordan. So we had to get off and walk through it all. With all of our luggage. And with a vomiting child. And with William tantruming because I wouldn't let him pull his own luggage or hold his own passport. Imagine us walking this way through the no man's lands between the countries, often making several trips back and forth with luggage since it was more than we could manage in one trip, and then waiting in line for security and passport checks over and over and over. It was crazy! The whole process took nearly three hours. We finally made it to Aqaba, Jordan. We met our tour guide, Abdulah, and got on a new bus. We stayed in an amazing hotel with beautiful mosaics throughout. It was dark before we got to the hotel. We hurried and checked in, waited for our luggage to be delivered to our rooms, and then went to dinner. The food was amazing and it was so nice to be able to eat salads, fresh fruit and drink the water again. This was the nicest hotel that we stayed in on the whole trip. We had beautiful views of the Gulf of Aqaba from the balcony off our room. I had grand visions of a memorable stroll along the beach, but everyone was so wiped out from being up since 1:00 a.m. that the kids were all having meltdowns. By the time we got them to bed, David had had it too, so no walk along the beach for me.
We all felt much better in the morning. I looked outside and had this beautiful view.
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| The morning view of the Gulf of Aqaba from our hotel room |
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