Nightmare in Nuweiba

After finishing in Cairo, I had to make my way to Aqaba by ferry via Nuweiba.  I had read on other people’s blogs that this could be a trying experience as neither the bus nor ferry were particularly reliable - but I wasn’t quite prepared for the difficulty and length of my stay in Nuweiba.

I took a bus from Cairo on Tuesday night, which was a crowded, uncomfortable affair.  The only good thing I can say about the bus is that it left and arrived when it was meant to - which put me in Nuweiba at 7am on Wednesday morning, but with barely any sleep.  Arriving to the port in Nuweiba was unnerving because there was an absolutely massive crowd of Egyptians just sitting on beat-up old luggage waiting for the ticket office to open.  Luckily, Hot Rock was coming through Nuweiba on the same day and I was able to offload my luggage onto the truck - but was told I would still have to arrange for the ticket and visa on my own.  I headed over with the trip leaders to the ticket office, where we waited in line for the ticket window to open for well over an hour.  At one point we asked when the window would open for sales, and the man in front of us replied in broken English with a shrug - “maybe it open, maybe not”.  Finally, one of the trip leaders Lianna got in touch with a contact in town who went inside on our behalf and for a decent bribe was able to procure everybody on the truck (and me) a ticket - but only after 2 more hours of waiting. 

Finally it seemed as if we would be on our way - but we sat in the truck for several hours being moved from one area to another until we were finally told that the 12pm ferry would not take trucks - we would have to wait for the 6pm ferry.  And so we sat in the car park doing a whole lot of nothing for 6 more hours before we were finally given the go-ahead to move.  Another 2 hours of waiting in line to get on the ferry, we finally get to the doors of the ferry only to be told that the truck would have to go on a separate ferry from the passengers - and the truck would not arrive until at least 2 hours after we would in Aqaba.  We boarded the ferry, which was a very modern affair - showing on TV a lengthy slapstick comedy starring a very hairy Arab man - which none of us could understand, but the Egyptians seemed to find hilarious.   After sitting on the ferry for about another hour - we finally departed for an hour’s journey into Aqaba.  Arriving in Aqaba we got a taxi to our campsite, were we sat around a fire on comfy blankets for several hours before deciding that the truck (and hence our clothes, tents, etc) wasn’t coming any time soon - and went to bed.

After all that, we are finally in Jordan - and it is absolutely beautiful.  The campsite is right on the Red Sea, which is a deep blue set against the sandy backdrop of the mountains of the Sinai and Saudi Arabia in the distance.  It’s warm, sunny and there is a cool breeze blowing - and so far today we’ve wandered around Aqaba gathering things we’ll need for tomorrow, when we pile in the truck and set off for the short drive to Wadi Rum - which as I’m told has some of the best climbing in the world.  We’ll be there for 9 days, so I’ll try and give an update when I return.  As for the pictures - I have to blag a SD card reader off someone on the truck for my next entry so I can put up photos from Cairo, Aqaba, Wadi Rum and of course of BiRT, my home away from home for the next month.