Out of Jordan -- into Egypt
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
167
228
Trip End
Jul 15, 2008
Nuweiba,
Egypt
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Nuweiba, Egypt
It cost us each 10JP for our exit stamps to get out of Jordan. We took a ferry with the romantic name of Queen Nefertiti across the Gulf of Aqaba to the port of Nuweiba on the Egyptian side, for the price of 85.50JD for the two of us (actually 85 Jordanian Dinars and 500 fils, the three digits after the decimal point always confused us, and though they say there are 1000 fils to the dinar we've only taken it two decimal points in this blog). When our boat makes port we go through a rather complicated immigration process in which we first have to go to one of three or four bank and buy our Egyptian visa stamps for $15 each, and you have to have US dollars. An American college student ahead of us only had Jordanian money so he had to leave and exchange it for dollars and then return to get his stamps. Irina fortunately had enough dollars hidden in her purse
16-01
. After we get our stamps we go to the immigration office where our passports, which we haven't seen since we turned them over to the ship's crew when we boarded the boat, are waiting. After the necessary bureaucratic delay the immigration official calls us forward and we hand over the little stamps. He stick them in our passports, ink stamps a seal over them and scribbles something in Arabic. Then we take our bags through customs, which in our case means they asked where we were from and when we told them we were from the US they waived us through without opening our bags. We noticed that none of the half dozen other westerners on the ferry remained in Nuweiba but arranged transportation immediately to places like St. Catherine's Monastery or Dahab. But we've read that the beaches are nice here so we are going to stay and check them out. A taxi from the port to our chosen hotel costs 40 Egyptian pounds. We are staying right on the beach at a resort called Morgana Camp for 50EP per night. The exchange rate is 5.56 Egyptian pounds to the dollar. We arrived at the resort shortly after noon and laid in the sun the rest of the day.
December 17, 2007
Nuweiba, Egypt
The beaches in Nuweiba are very nice, but they are deserted when we arrive. If you like to be alone this is the place to be, at least in mid-December. There are about a half dozen resorts along the beach and maybe a dozen hotels off the beach, so there must be a tourist season here. We have the whole beach with the hammocks and beach chairs all to ourselves. The temperature is around 65ºF with a stiff wind, but, if we arrange to beach furniture to block the wind, it's comfy in the sun. We even have real margaritas which Arvid made from the last of the Jose Curavo and Contru we've been carrying since the duty free store at the Turkey-Syria border, along with a local lemon juice. Around 2 PM a Russian tour group shows up for a buffet lunch at the Morgana Camp. A few come out where we are took take photos of each other laying in the rough rope hammocks. After lunch they were off and we were alone again.
