Dahab! Again!

Good morning from Dahab!  Again!  My first attempt at Jordan and Petra was unsuccessful.  Yesterday morning after a dip in the surprisingly warm Red Sea (22 Celsius), and a surprisingly emotional goodbye to the folks at El Salaam camp, I hopped a taxi to Nuweiba before the normal bus left, hoping to get a ticket and be ready to go for the ferry to Jordan.  I arrived and saw about a hundred people lying around on luggage and sitting in large transport busses, trucks and the like, and approaching one dude sitting solitary on a curb.  I chatted him up a bit, and found that the windy weather of yesterday was still knocking boats around in Jordan.  This side of the sea was totally fine, calm even, but the port in Aqaba was closed.  He and I hung around for a while, neither of us very conversational (he having taken the night bus from Cairo and having waiting since 6AM).  We later joined a couple, the dude from Belgium and she from Canada, and three siblings from the states, all very cool folks, all trying to get to Aqaba.  So after a somewhat uncomfortable morning feeling chilled in a hot sun, dust blowing around, sitting with some limited conversation, we spent the afternoon playing dominoes and drinking tea, waiting without knowing a damn thing, rumors circulating around about when the boat would leave – in an hour or 72 hours, who knows?  Eventually the sun started going down and we decided to return to Dahab, as there wasn’t much in Nuweiba in the way of sleeping and eating.  So we enjoyed a night of beers and playing games, and this morning I’m writing to you from another dive shop slash hostel, Seventh Heaven in Dahab, trying to figure out if and when the ferry will be leaving.  

The couple from Belgium/Canada have been traveling around the world learning and playing games with different folks.  They are learning about how games and play can create relationship among people with or without a shared language – so not exactly a Taboo or Apples to Apples crowd.  We played with some wooden trick games, and a card game involving shapes and colors that was a lot of fun.  This morning we will try for Aqaba again, though from Dahab this time,  doing our research, and laying low in a resort type town 65km away.  It’s Monday – my hope was to be in Petra by 8PM tonight (which is still possible) for the candle lit walk into town.  If there is no ferry tonight, I might still try for Petra by Wednesday evening, then on to Amman and a flight to Istanbul from there.  Maybe even do a dive in the meantime.  Another possibility at this point is to head back for Cairo and fly from there.  Who knows.  But I feel relaxed, and the real goal of Istanbul and C on the 19^th remains totally solid, either from Amman or Cairo, and that’s what counts for me at the moment.  Thanks for reading!