Under the Sea
Trip Start
May 04, 2007
1
15
19
Trip End
May 20, 2007
Aqaba,
Jordan
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The point for this visit was to find a snorkeling tour. I'd never been snorkeling before and Rachel suggested that it would be very different than anything else we had done during this trip.
After a 3 hour Jett bus ride we were back in the familiar city. As soon as we found a place to stay we were off to look for a place that might rent snorkeling gear or might give us an afternoon tour. We found two different companies. One was willing to charge us the full day rate for a half day tour (turns out the tours leave in the morning); the other was willing to rent gear for the cost of buying our own.
With that idea shot we decided to head down to the Red Sea bank to check it out see if there were any other places left that we could ask. As soon as we grew close we could see just how dirty and gross the water looked. Despite this there were still loads of children playing in the water. There were even some women in full dress, including burkas wading waist deep in the water. Their costumes floated around them oddly, like some sort of unnatural seaweed. They were moving around as if they were catching something, we were not able to figure out what.
I was still determined to do something that had to do with the water and a glass bottom boat ride seemed like the next best, and most available option. I was able to talk Rachel into it, although I'm not sure if she really liked the idea or not.
After some bargaining we got a price that we were willing to live with and climbed aboard the small boat with our barely English speaking guide. He kept referring to us as Mademoiselles. After a few minutes he told us that we wanted to take us to a place that required a 2 hour trip, not the one hour that we had paid for. We told him fine, but we were not able to pay any more than we had originally set. A one hour tour it was.
During the trip our guide/captain, had a fishing line going out the back of the boat. The first fish he caught was of a descent size. He dumped out a nearby bucket after posing for photos with the fish. The second one he caught was huge. I mean, this thing was massive. It wouldn't fit in the bucket so he was looking around for another way to hold it. First he cut it, then he broke its tail. The worst part was when he tied the fish half in and half out of the water to the side of the boat. Not only must it have been in pain, but what torture to not be able to get away when you are so close! I was really unhappy about this.
Our one hour tour consisted of our guide steering the boat over half dead and full of garbage coral. It was really quite sad, but I was happy that I didn't swim in that water. One of the best parts was when we floated through a sea of purple jelly fish. I'd never seen a jellyfish that was so beautiful before.
We still had a lot of time ahead of us when we climbed off the rickety boat. When we had been here before we noticed that there was a place called Friends Café. We headed there. Upon arrival we ordered the one beer that we didn't recognize the name of. As soon as we tried it we both reacted with sour faces, it tasted like peas. Turns out, we had ordered non-alcoholic beer. It was beyond disgusting. We went to abandon the nasty pea drink when the waiter asked us what was wrong. We told him that we had not realized that we had ordered non-alcoholic beer, and that we really disliked it. They offered us each an amstel in the pea-beer's place. It sounded like a good swap so we sat down and finished our alcoholic beers.
At this point we were at a bit of a loss of what to do. It was too early to go out and there really wasn't anything else to do in Aqaba. Rachel had the idea of finding some wine, getting some food, and watching Nip/Tuck. I couldn't think of anything better so we went in search of some wine. We ended up with two bottles that had chickens and fish on them, respectively. Rachel isn't a fan of pizza, but we got the four cheese pizza (including laughing cow cheese) at a corner pizzeria anyway.
For the next few hours we happily drank our wine, and ate pizza.
I think we both fell asleep for a while and neither of us felt much like going out partying when we woke it. However, we both did want some dinner and ended up at Popeye's.
Our travel luck was slightly improving, but there was still room for growth.
