Tuesday, October, 25, 2022

Today has become interesting. The goal is to travel to Jordan. We get a bit of a ‘Lay-in’ until 7:30 AM and have a departure time from the resort at 9AM. We get breakfast and check out. Our bags are brought to the vans and loaded. It is an hour and a half ride to the Ferry that will bring us across the Bay of Aqaba to Jordan but turns into 2 hours because one of our three vans has lost its way and we wait for it to catch up. Elee grabs a nap on the bus.

Once at the port, we check our luggage through x-ray. Twice. Then we put it on a conveyor belt hoping it is the right place. We go into the Terminal which means we show out tickets and passports. Three times. Then we wait. And wait. The Ferry is not on a time schedule. Rather, it will leave when enough people and vehicles are there to load. Hours go by. We find a way to lay down on benches and get a cat nap. Finally, someone of some authority comes around and tells us to ‘wait over there’, indicating a corner of the Terminal.

So we wait again but not long. We are ushered to a bus where we are packed in like sardines for a short ride to the Ferry. The bus comes to a stop. We are not allowed off. Finally, the bus drives an additional 50 feet, literally, and we are allowed to get off and get in line to board the Ferry. No photos are allowed.

We show our tickets and passports to board. We walk up a ramp and turn to go up a second ramp where we have to show our tickets and passports. Again. I kiddingly quip that we have to show them for every level and people chuckle. We go up the ramp to the passenger level and, you guessed it, we have to show our tickets again! Sheesh! We are also told not to take photos of the Ferry. Wow!

So here we sit on the Ferry waiting for it to load and move. It is 3:30PM and it’s a 2 hour Ferry ride. Then it’s supposed to be another 1.5 hour bus ride and we’re supposed to ride camels into a Bedouin camp for the night. I don’t know how this will work out. The Ferry finally pulls away just before 4PM.

We arrive in Jordan around 6:30PM. It is not difficult to get through Customs in our group. We board a bus with our new guide, Bilar, and 3 more hours later we are pulling into a Bedouin Camp for the night. Think rustic. Then downgrade a little more. But they serve us a fabulous lamb dinner which they dig up from the ground when we arrive. I even manage to score a glass of wine!

Then it’s off to our rustic room for the night. At least it has a bathroom!