{JORDAN ~ January 28 – February 05, 2017}

AQABA ~ January 29-31, 2017

After 4 hours driving thru desert, Aqaba felt like being back into civilization. We entered the city and saw the Red Sea from the distance.


AQABA – DRIVING INTO THE CITY

Our hotel was the Movenpick Resort & Spa Tala Bay, around 15min outside of Aqaba city towards the Saudi Arabian boarder. The hotel was right at the beach and we had a walk along the beach front. From where we are we were actually able to see 4 different countries: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. That was pretty cool!


AQABA – THE RED SEA

We ordered some room service and called it a day. Too tired from the long drive, but we also had to get up early for our dive the next morning.

I booked one dive with Aqaba’s Anchor Diving Center. Isaac, who owns the dive shop, and his buddy, picked us up and we drove down to Visitor’s Bay for a shore entry. “Japanese Garden” was our dive site. I did some research on Red Sea diving but I guess not well enough: the dive was far beyond my expectations. Visibility over 20m! Corals, schools of fish, colors so beautiful that I thought I should have booked more dives. We stayed for around 50 min – taking it all in! What an amazing dive!

The rest of the day was exploring Aqaba. There is not a lot to do or see in Aqaba. People are mainly going there for diving or snorkeling. We went to the dive shop to get a stamp into the dive log-book and asked the guys if there is a good restaurant they can recommend. And they did: we went to Al-Shami right beside the Al-Hussein Bin Ali Mosque. Amazing food!


AQABA – AL SHAMI RESTAURANT


AL SHAMI – WHAT A FEAST


AQABA – AL HUSSEIN BIN ALI MOSQUE

We strolled along the beach, thru the city center, organized some snacks for the next day and slowly went back to the hotel.

Our plan was to get up early the next morning. We had a 80 km drive in front of us. Normally not a big deal, but in Jordan, 80 km can take 2 hours or longer and we were supposed to meet Ahmed our Camel Tour guy at 9:30am in Wadi Rum Village.

Please continue reading: JORDAN ~ WADI RUM: A NIGHT IN A BEDOUIN CAMP