After spending the morning at the beach resort, we headed to the ferry terminal to board a ferry to cross the Gulf of Aqaba to Jordan. There is only one daily ferry from Nuweiba to Aqaba. This ferry has no set schedule and is extremely erratic, as it waits in Jordan until it is full and then makes the crossing to Egypt to collect passengers and return to Jordan.
When our bus arrived to the terminal, we hundreds of people lined up to take the ferry. Fortunately, our guide had us to stay in the tour bus until the gate was opened to tourists, and then we were rushed into the terminal. After we got into the terminal, we went through the customs and started to wait for the ferry. We waited in an area, with a big sign with red Arabic writings. I assumed the sign said this area is for tourist because all the locals were separated from us.
Our guide left us after a while. He told terminal personnel to let us know when it is time to get on the ferry then he left us to make the journey to Jordan alone. So we waited, in the past, the waiting time could last 4 to 8 hours. One time a group waited for 12 hours!!! After 2 hours of waiting, they started to let people to get on the ferry. All the tourists from the red sign area took a bus with only around 10 seats and an open area in the middle for people to put their luggage. Most of us stood the whole way before we were dropped off closer to the boat.
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After getting off the bus, we started to line up with the local people, and the late comers started to line up in front of us. It was strange but we waited, until someone from the ferry directed all the foreigners to bypass the crowd and enter the ferry. We left our luggage at the bottom of the ferry, which was scary because that was all of our possessions at the time, and then we entered the air-conditioned interior.
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A ferry employee gathered all of our passports and then took them to the customs official on the ferry. So there we were, no passports, no luggage, on a ferry to Jordan. We didn’t see our passports until we got into Jordon and were about to leave the ferry terminal. While we were waiting in the ferry to get to Jordon, there was a line of local travellers waiting to get through customs on the ferry. The line was so long that not all the travellers got through the line when we landed in Jordon.
After getting off the ferry, we got our passports and met our Jordanian guide. We were all relieved. It had been an eventful day for all of us!
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We had dinner at a Jordanian shwarma place. Their shwarma is different from the Egyptian style. They use a wrap that looks a lot like a crepe or a tortilla, and then stuffed it with meat, vegetables and French fries!
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