Leaving Egypt /Arriving Jordan

Sunday, March 29, 2015
Qesm Dahab, South Sinai Governorate, Egypt
Leena, Anastasia and I were up to greet the dawn. We woke at 5.30 to watch the sunrise over the Red Sea. It was a nice moment that we shared. After a bit of a walk along the beach it was time to finish packing, have brekky and say our farewells to Mayer. There were a few drops of rain - Egypt was crying her farewells to us!
My god that guy can talk! We had a little meeting and then it was time for us to say "Shukran" . We played a little joke on Mayer by putting only 250 Egyptian pounds in our dodgy home made card, made from a placemat from a restaurant chain in Cairo. He had told us a story about a woman on one of his tours who had collected money from all the group and made a profit for herself of $2700 US!
Mayer was a great CEO. His love and passion for his country, his people and the history really shone through. He certainly went the extra mile to ensure everyone's needs were met, but hey Mayer, if you're reading this you won't get any evaluation till we get that felafel recipe!!!!
After our farewells we boarded vans to take us to Nuweiba Port for our Ferry ride to Jordan.
Mayer is such a schmoozer. He schmoozed and talked us straight through all the checkpoints. We walked through the terminal which was filled with men from all walks of life. They openly stared at us as we walked past them all as they waited. We felt a bit bad that we got to go straight through but it would have been far worse sitting in the terminal with 500 or 600 men (all men) looking at us . It was intense. When we arrived on the ferry itself there were some women (and men) already on board so unsure if women boarded first because there had not been a single woman in the terminal. We saw every type of Middle Eastern headgear imaginable on the ferry. There were Arab headscarves, turban type wraps, bits of cloth draped or tied. Even one or two who had a samurai type head band. Of course there were men with no head wear at all. We had to wait on board the ferry for about an hour and a half before it started moving and the trip takes between two and two and a half hours. People moved around a bit and mingled. Many of the passengers are people who have been looking for work in the region but cannot find it so are returning home. There was a group of women nearby who brought their own kettle to make cups of tea. They plugged it into a power point on the wall that was about 5 foot off the ground so it was balancing precariously on a seat. Then they merrily filled cups with boiling water for people . It was an accident waiting to happen.
Leena, Julia and I went for a bit of a walk on deck to have a look around. Back down below a man in the seat ahead handed me some flat bread to share. It was so lovely of him. It was about the size of my hand and lightly flavoured with a little cardamom. Very kind of him. This is indicative of the welcome we received from the people. Once the ferry docked we were approached by a security person who led us out. All the regular passengers were lining up but we were taken through straight away. Once again we felt uncomfortable about this process however the locals truly were not fazed. They would all have a very long wait ahead of them (8 hours for some) and they didn't seem to mind us getting through.
Thank goodness we had security/police guiding us because the system seemed very chaotic - from getting our passports checked, meeting Zuhair, our CEO for the Jordan leg of our trip, and then getting our luggage. The luggage all gets thrown together and when the luggage cages come out, they get swarmed on by passengers, like ants on sugar. Luckily our luggage was a little separated so it was (comparatively) easy to find. On the way out Anastasia had her bum pinched by the policeman who had been escorting us through. Us girls all then thought that the men here would be sleazy but when Zuhair heard about it he seemed genuinely shocked so hopefully it was a one off.
We noticed that there were large pools of water everywhere - in the arrivals area flood water was being cleaned up, outside the ground was wet and muddy. Of course I dropped my scarf in it and when I picked it up mud flicked all over me. I arrived at the hotel absolutely filthy! We had fifteen minutes to change and then headed out to dinner. We had a nice meal and a proper intro to Zuhair. After dinner we went for a bit of a walk through the local market but we were stuffed. We heeded back to our room to crash.
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