So Very Cold

In Cairo now, after another over-a-day of traveling, and the Damascus-Cairo route is starting to get a little routine (third time). Rachel and I left Damascus in a shared taxi at about 3:30 Thursday to Amman. In this trip, Jordan is always just something you want to get through before spending all your money.

From Amman, we caught the bus to Aqaba, arriving after 2am at the port. We bought tickets for the slow boat to Egypt as we were told this would leave at 7am, while the fast boat wouldn't leave til noon... or so. After a night spent huddling together for warmth and attempting to sleep on outside benches, all while eyeing the "High Quality Blankets" being sold (but who wants to carry it) the sun came up and we were told the slow boat wouldn't leave until 9am. All right, whatever, we just wished it wasn't so cold.

What was cool was, as we bought the tickets and went through Jordanian immigration, I was asked if I was Syrian (the accent must be getting better!). No. So who is Syrian, your mother or your father? Um, neither, sorry, no Arab here. At every step of the process it was the same thing, so that's fun right?

We were in the duty free store, trying to stay warm when the guy said, sit down, have some tea, the slow boat doesn't leave until 2pm. Information confirmed this and we got our tickets changed, with 7 more dinar each, for the fast boat, leaving at 12:30.

It left about on time, and there it was a short 8 or 9 hour bus ride to Cairo. A short, cold, bus ride. And I'm back!