Aqaba is Jordan’s popular holiday spot on the shores of the Red Sea. We had planned to spend 5 days here but extended it to a week, not because we wanted to lounge a bit longer on the beach but because we were tired of traveling.
My many blog posts about Israel give you a bit of an idea about how much we experienced there. As much as we love sightseeing and experiencing new things it is actually quite exhausting – to continually be staying in new places, seeing amazing sights, learning about history, as well as the ‘ordinary’ life stuff, getting from A to B, buying and cooking food and planning the next steps.
So by the time we crossed the border into Jordan we just needed a break. We also needed to do some work and trip planning, plus I wanted to catch up on some blogging. So we stayed a week in our air bnb and only ventured out a couple of times. Accommodation here was so much cheaper than in Israel!
Our apartment was out in the suburbs so not many if any tourists were around there. It was spacious and had tables for working – unlike the smaller places on offer downtown. We went for a couple of walks in the local area to get groceries and some fresh air. Our first walk to find a bakery led us to a waffle place which was a bit of a treat! We ventured further next time and found fresh bread, wraps, a supermarket etc.
The main thing we noticed on our walks was that the footpath outside each house was different. Where in New Zealand the local councils sort the pavements, it seems that in Jordan when you build a house you are responsible for the pavement outside it. So as a pedestrian you walk over so many different types of paving, then if there’s a gap because a house has yet to be built there is no paving!
It was really rather curious. In one place the owners had fenced off the footpath and incorporated that space into their front yard, so pedestrians had to walk on the road around it. Others had planted trees in front but you could still walk on the pavement. It seemed like there were no rules.
Our accommodation provider host was a friendly, helpful chap and organised a reasonably priced snorkeling tour for us. He picked us up and drove us to a few good snorkeling spots south of Aqaba’s main centre. His brother took us and another couple from Italy out snorkeling and we used these facemasks with snorkels inbuilt rather than the old-school snorkel. We looked ridiculous but it worked really well. The coral reef was quite washed out in colouring but the beautiful coloured fish were great to see. We saw a sunken plane and an armoured personnel carrier (APC) underwater too.
After we’d finished snorkeling we hung out on the beach and watched the sun quickly disappear over the Egyptian mountains across the water from us. It was pretty crazy to be in Jordan, yet see Eilat in Israel, the mountains in Egypt and further south Saudi Arabia.
Our hosts cooked some fish on the barbecue along with tomatoes, onions and chicken. We were given drinks, bread and the grilled food. I’d made a pasta salad in the apartment that I brought along and ate instead. It was just lovely to be on the beach, relaxing and enjoying pleasant company. Evenings were a really nice temperature – the days were a bit hot, 30+ degrees most days, and this was November – almost winter!
We took the local bus down to town a couple of times, the first time was great… the boy collecting the money on the bus was so friendly and we talked with him, the driver and another passenger with the very limited English they had. They really made us feel welcome and we enjoyed the experience. The small buses follow set routes but pick passengers up anywhere along them. There weren’t any specified bus stops or timetables. Quite different to Israel where you could see on google maps when the bus was scheduled, even where it was on the route etc. Buses here departed when there were enough people on them and then the driver spent a lot of the trip gently honking the horn to let people know that he was approaching if they needed a ride. The fares were dirt cheap – the more passengers the better for the driver. It was interesting to see how it worked.
We mostly cooked in the apartment but did go downtown for a look and a couple of meals. Cheaper to eat here than Israel which is a bonus. By the way, if you are wondering about coming here from Israel, the border crossing from Eilat to Aqaba was quite simple. You have to pay an exit fee in Israel (which was quite a lot), get your passport scanned etc. then you walk through to the Jordan side. We had purchased a Jordan Pass online (highly recommended to anyone coming to Jordan for more than 3 days) which included the fee for the Jordanian visa. This was then processed and took a bit of time to get things stamped then we walked out to the taxi service where we had to bargain for our ride into town. It’s easy to just pay and get the visa on arrival if you don’t have a Jordan Pass. The whole process took about an hour.
It seems Jordanians like to socialise, especially in the evening when it’s a bit cooler. We saw kids and young people playing football in the roundabout public space and cafes full of men smoking shisha. The city centre is right by the beach and we walked along here one evening – there were so many people hanging out, playing music, dancing, singing, smoking shisha, having picnics etc. No-one was drinking alcohol – everyone looked so relaxed and happy, it was such a nice vibe!
There were a lot of people in close proximity to each other on the beach so the lovely acapella singing of four young guys was drowned out by the arabic pop music others were dancing to a few metres away. Then not far from them a group were playing musical instruments – they had a microphone and a speaker and had attracted a bit of an audience. Each group of people seemed to have or make their own music so it was rather noisy but a great atmosphere.
After a week spent mostly in our apartment we were feeling refreshed and a little further ahead in the work/ planning/ blogging department. We hired a driver to take us to Wadi Rum for our next desert adventure.