Day 58 ~ Welcome to Aqaba, Jordan

“Oh, Earth! You’re too wonderful for anyone to realize you!”
~ from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town

During the night, our excellent bridge crew negotiated not one, not two, not three, but four reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba to bring us safely to the city of the same name. Jordan is a Muslim country, but they are tolerant of their small (read: 7%) Christian population. Its present king’s mother was British. He was educated in America and his step-mother Queen Nuri (that may be misspelled) is American, so Jordan is very friendly to the west. They have a stable, safe society and, even without a drop of oil, their dinar is a solid currency that’s stronger than the dollar. They would like to encourage more folks to visit, but they live in a rough neighborhood, sharing borders with Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territory, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.  

Aqaba is Jordan’s only sea port, and its hub for tourism, offering the trifecta of exceptional diving and 5 Star hotels, the Lost City of Petra (popularized by Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade), and Wadi Rum. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and where the real Lawrence of Arabia started his campaign to lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Also where they shot the movie Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O’Toole, who looked uncannily like the real Lawrence. Was that good casting or what?

And more recently, The Martian with Matt Damon. They didn’t have to alter anything but the color of the sky for Wadi Rum to be a convincing stand-in for the red planet. So we decided as long as we’re going around this world, we may as well visit a place that can pass for another one.

Since we weren’t visiting a mosque, I didn’t have to refrain from wearing white. But I did need to dress modestly. So in addition to my white tunic, black pants and black & white scarf, I wore my red loafers and socks because we were going to be walking over sand and uneven terrain.

But we didn’t have to get going as early as the Petra people, so we lingered over a leisurely breakfast and took a stroll up on Deck 10. The Pacific Princess was practically deserted. Over 300 passengers were headed for the two hour ride to Petra, and grueling, dusty 2.7 mile walk under hot sun, down through the Sique (pronounced “sick) where Indie and his dad rode their horses through that narrow canyon on the trail of the Holy Grail. Our tour was going to be much friendlier to someone with a lung condition.

Before we headed for Wadi Rum, our guide Akram gave us a quick tour of Aqaba.

I was sad that the archeological museum that was near the ruins of a 16^th century fort was closed for renovations, but from our vantage point near the water front, we were able to see three countries—Jordan, Israel and Egypt.

This is Elat, Israel, snugged into the Gulf of Aqaba on the Sinai Peninnsula. It’s only eight miles away, but Princess does not recommend that passengers travel there independently. Getting through customs to leave Jordan and visit Israel isn’t a problem, but being readmitted to Jordan from Israel evidently is. Like Moses, we can see the Promised Land, but we can’t cross over.

South of Elat, Akram pointed out these white buildings across the water, and told us they are in Egypt. We’ll see more of Egypt in the coming days as we sail around the Sinai and through the Suez Canal, but sadly, we will only look and not touch. It’s maddening to be so close to these places that have meant so much to humankind and we can’t actually visit them.

But we did see the ruins of Ayla—the remains of a 6^th century BC settlement in the heart of Aqaba.

And these striped mountains on the way to Wadi Rum. The dark layers of igneous material actually have a greenish cast and locals mine them for jade and copper. In this picture, these deposits are nearly horizontal, but we also saw places where they were nearly vertical. I could almost hear my dad saying, as he did when we camped the American West when I was a kid, “Some Great Upheaval has pushed that mountain up, girls.” (He always said “Great Upheaval” with such emphasis, even as a kid, I capitalized it in my mind!)

And camels, both domesticated and running wild…

It occurs to me that I can’t get everything I want to share into one post, so I’ll spread this over the next sea day or so. (What will I do once we hit the Med and we have a port almost every day???)

So tomorrow, I promise to share more about our trip to Wadi Rum. (Or as the DH puts it, “The Badlands on steroids!)