At one stage in the night, I got out of bed as something was knocking or rattling in the breeze. I couldn't see anything amiss, but later in the day, found out that it was one of the balcony chairs that was sitting unevenly and wobbling…
A leisurely breakfast and a chat to Ron and Angela who we know as dancers from previous cruises. None of us are too happy with the dance set up this time and really miss Alana's input. None of us has learned much and the dance practices haven't been well attended either.
We wandered out OK and took the (free) shuttle bus, which took us to the far side of the town centre. We opted to follow the signs to the City centre and walked clockwise, noting that even though it was a Sunday and a country with a strong Muslim presence, there were three or four booze shops open!
Initially, Paula's attempt to buy a sun dress failed – they wanted $28US, way too much. The next shop just around the corner and she managed to get one for $10.
The town has several large resort hotels with good security and apparently the location of Aqabar, with its close proximity to Israel (just across the bay) and Petra (two hours by coach) and a country noted for being fairly neutral, makes it quite popular. The recent troubles around them has severely dented their tourism trade and we heard from one source that our ship was the first cruise ship in since April.
The people were friendly and there was a strong local presence in the town judging by the shops and the clientele, with nut shops being very popular, and a small local fruit and veg market. In the butcher's shop, the window was notable for goat carcasses hanging up, skinned, but complete with untouched heads and horns!
The pavements were very grubby and dirty with cigarette butts everywhere. The cleanest place was the 1970's built Mosque. We opted for McDonalds for an ice cream and a coke. A very pleasant crew, who accepted USD and gave us the change in local currency, which we popped into the charity box. Outside was a very well presented camel where the minder was taking people for a short ride for about $5US.
The shuttle bus back so soon after the coke meant I wasn't really ready for a coffee, but Paula had her mango juice. Another cheap day!
Then we crashed! Whether it was the intense heat or not, who knows, but apart from a visit to the HC for a quick snack about 3pm, we just crashed again! It is understandable why so many countries close up from 1pm to 4pm. It must be the heat.
The rest of the Dawn Nomads were a bit late for the 7pm sail-away so we ended up outside the deck 14 grill bar, where M & M and Paula had chicken burgers (and chips) but I went to the buffet and emerged with spicy prawns and rice. M & M did the Wadi Rum tour today and enjoyed it before going into town, where Megan managed to get slightly lost. She made it back to the ship OK where Mal was scanning every shuttle bus as the passengers hopped off, looking for the love of his life!
Afterwards, we moved out of the heat and down to our regular spot near the ice cream parlour and Mal used his corkscrew to open one of our €3.80 bottles of French Rose. It wasn't really to my taste, but the others managed to polish it off.
Just Paula and I downstairs for a coffee and back to the cabin again about 10pm. With the afternoon nod, I am not too sure that we'll sleep right through tonight. The evening entertainment wasn't really appealing so no real reason to stay out late and it was still very warm out on deck.
Now we have 4 days at sea, ahead of us, but no doubt tomorrow, half the ship will be recovering from their tours to Petra, but their day would have been shorter and no doubt less tiring than our 2011 visit, as I remember us getting back totally exhausted at about 8:30pm.
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