Sick Day in Jordan

  Aquaba, Jordan
Friday, May 4, 2007

We woke up today, bright an early, to see an amazing sunrise over the desert of Wadi Rum.  After breakfast, in our Bedouin camp of goat hair tents, we prepped for a morning of fun and adventure... camel riding!  We were met by a pack of Bedouin dudes (many of which talked on cell phones beside their camels!) and their camel pack.  Each taking a mount, we trekked off into the desert, taking a tour of the country side, camel style.

For safety, we each had a guy leading our camels.  Gabrielle's was a ten year old named Ahmed.  Didn't speak a lot of English... smiled a lot, gave her a thumbs up occasionally.  Dan was in the lead pack, and was briefly assaulted by one of the mother camels (baby following along on tied rope) who tried to chew his water bottle off his belt clip.  It's a very strange feeling being on a camel, but we eventually got the hang of it, rocking with the camels walk.  Dan managed a running dash for the finish line, taking the other Canadian guy, Paul, along with him, despite Paul's protests. 

The desert landscape was amazing, with multicolored sand and mountains that look like melting chocolate.  We were sorry to leave Wadi Rum, and headed off to Aquaba, our gateway to Egypt.

Aquaba was a small and dirty seaside town with what would have been a lovely beach, if not for all the rubbish.  We were both feeling pretty ill, Gabrielle especially, so we spent most of our time inside our hotel room with the A/C blaring.  Our room smelt of Turpentine, but was otherwise nice!  It even had a TV, with one English channel (Arabic Subtitles) that basically consisted of the worst of American Television (Worlds most Amazing Animal Rescues! LA Cops! Magnum PI! Lost!) - the last was our first ever viewing of the show.  With such amazing plot line, incredible dialog, and believable characters, I now understand why this show has lasted so many seasons (extreme sarcasm)

After several litres of water and some plain rice, we're off to bed to prep for our mad dash tomorrow, over the border to Egypt.

All our best from Jordan