Dec 18 - Talk with an American and French backpacker, the only traveler types I see on this boat. From the sounds of it, couchsurfing in Egypt is not the greatest for single females. If you don’t know, couchsurfing refers to a website by that name, on which you can look for a free place to sleep while traveling. It is theoretically free, but of course comes with caveats, such as being propositioned by the host, or being expected to ‘tip as you wish’.
There is a point on this ferry ride where it is possible to see Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia at the same time, but I think you have to be on the roof to do it. Odette looks for sea turtles, which I tell her is theoretically possible.
/w=3840,quality=90,fit=scale-down)
At about 17:00 we come into port, at a place well south of the town. Immigration is fast and painless, then on to the taxi gauntlet. Two guys are pestering us the whole way out, so I use one against the other to halve the price and we are off.
All we do in downtown Aqaba today is look for food and an ATM. We ended up with about $6 worth of Egyptian pounds so barely worth it to convert. The Jordanian dinar is worth about US $1.40, so prices all look very different now. Food looks to be more expensive here: a really simple chicken and rice dish is $5. It is the World Cup final tonight, Argentina vs. France, and we watch the final part, from the tied regular session to the bitter end during the penalty shoot-out.
JordanEgypt