Day 73
Sleeping location: Arab Divers, Aqaba, Jordan
Distance (km today/total): 24 / 6053
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 53700
State: relaxed
Day in three words: Down the coast
We enjoyed the luxury of a lie in and relaxed in the weird hotel until checkout at noon. We didn’t want to stay there another night (too weird) and we wanted to do some diving, so Rebecca had researched a dive centre a bit down the coast from Aqaba itself. Before we left town we bought out tickets for the boat to Egypt - they are valid any day for the next three months, but we planned to go the next evening (it leaves at 11pm...ish). After a short hot cycle we arrived at the place, but it turned out to be not as nice as the place across the road, so we went there instead. After booking a room and a couple of dives for the next day we spent the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool and catching up on admin.
For dinner we dressed up a bit and cycled to a very posh private resort called Tala Bay. They took our passports and made us deposit 10 JOD just to get in*, which was redeemable at a local restaurant or shop. It was like another world, a town purpose-built for rich foreigners which felt so quiet and sterile compared to the rest of the country. As is often the case when you have loads of rich people floating around (both metaphorically and literally; there were a lot of expensive yachts) the restaurants were fancy and overpriced, and we had a meal that was decent but way more expensive than anything else we’d had in Jordan. It was nice to be able to get a bottle of wine though. After dinner we went to a supermarket which had all kinds of cool imported stuff that we hadn’t seen in weeks. We wandered around in a daze for ages and then bought a few luxury items, including a 4 JOD tub of ice cream that I ate in minutes. Back at the hotel there was a comfy bed and air conditioning. Better not get used to this kind of lifestyle...
*The average Jordanian earns about 15 JOD a day
Distance (km today/total): 24 / 6053
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 53700
State: relaxed
Day in three words: Down the coast
We enjoyed the luxury of a lie in and relaxed in the weird hotel until checkout at noon. We didn’t want to stay there another night (too weird) and we wanted to do some diving, so Rebecca had researched a dive centre a bit down the coast from Aqaba itself. Before we left town we bought out tickets for the boat to Egypt - they are valid any day for the next three months, but we planned to go the next evening (it leaves at 11pm...ish). After a short hot cycle we arrived at the place, but it turned out to be not as nice as the place across the road, so we went there instead. After booking a room and a couple of dives for the next day we spent the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool and catching up on admin.
For dinner we dressed up a bit and cycled to a very posh private resort called Tala Bay. They took our passports and made us deposit 10 JOD just to get in*, which was redeemable at a local restaurant or shop. It was like another world, a town purpose-built for rich foreigners which felt so quiet and sterile compared to the rest of the country. As is often the case when you have loads of rich people floating around (both metaphorically and literally; there were a lot of expensive yachts) the restaurants were fancy and overpriced, and we had a meal that was decent but way more expensive than anything else we’d had in Jordan. It was nice to be able to get a bottle of wine though. After dinner we went to a supermarket which had all kinds of cool imported stuff that we hadn’t seen in weeks. We wandered around in a daze for ages and then bought a few luxury items, including a 4 JOD tub of ice cream that I ate in minutes. Back at the hotel there was a comfy bed and air conditioning. Better not get used to this kind of lifestyle...
*The average Jordanian earns about 15 JOD a day
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