Turtles in Aqaba

The morning began with final packing for Aqaba and Jerusalem.  It’s amazing how many electronics we travel with now!  Once we got everything we needed into one duffle and our backpacks, we got in the truck and headed 4.5 hours south.  If you’ve never been on the Desert Highway in Jordan, you might not realize that the name is completely accurate.  It’s mostly used by trucks bringing shipping containers, new cars and other items up from the Red Sea port, so in addition to being in a true desert landscape for hours, there’s almost nowhere to stop but truck stops—some of which are little more than oil drums with a hand cranked pump attached.  There are a few small towns, but they definitely don’t cater to tourists.  Eli slept most of the way and Eva plugged in to a movie.  We did get them to look up as we entered the sandstone formation area just north of Aqaba.  It’s a dramatically beautiful landscape.

We experienced U.S. privilege at least once today, and probably twice.  There’s a drive-through police stop just outside Aqaba.  The people in front of us probably had a 5-minute conversation when it was their turn, with lots of papers being passed back and forth.  When we pulled up, Jason handed over our U.S. passports and the policeman said, “United States? Welcome!” and waved us on through.  The second time was when we got to the Movenpick hotel.  After getting handed our passports, they upgraded our room from a regular room with 2 beds to a suite with 2 balconies, a full kitchen and a living/dining room. We had just spent 4.5 hours in the car, and were traveling with backpacks.  They weren’t giving us the upgrade because we looked like we’d fit in with people in the rooms next to us! Here are Eli and Jason—the kitchen is to their right.  The bedroom is off to the left.  At one point Eli couldn’t figure out where the bathroom was and I had to say, ‘It’s down the hall near the big bedroom’.  I’m sure I’ve never said that at a hotel before!

There are three pools at the Movenpick, as well as the Red Sea beach.  We convinced the kids to go to the Red Sea first, since it’s not something they’ll get to do very often.  There’s a wide range of bathing costume choices in Jordan.  Everything from women covered head to toe (though no faces or hands covered while in the water that I saw), to European women in teeny bikinis.  For men there was less of a range—mostly shorts, with some smaller European styles as well.  Outside of the water you see a wider range of coverage, including women who are fully covered except for a strip along their eyes.  By fully covered I mean they even have on gloves.  We assume these fully covered women and their families are from Saudi Arabia.

We expected that Aqaba in July would be quite hot, but it turned out that it was really pleasant.  Because we didn’t get in the water until 4 pm, we didn’t even need sunscreen.  You can see some of the boats in the background.  In the foreground you can see Eli’s at the age where he can’t just smile in a photo, he has to make a goofy face.  What’s extra funny is that this is his ‘supermodel’ face, in which he’s mimicking his sister’s earlier pose.

As we got out of the water an elderly German woman sitting in the shallows called Jason over and said, “She’s getting away!”  He thought she meant Eva, but she actually meant one of her pet turtles.  I ran after it, picked it up and brought it to her.  She washed off the sand on the turtle, gave it a kiss and asked me to put it in the basket on her walker with her other, larger, turtle.  I couldn’t make this up if I tried!  We then helped her out of the water and to her walker.  Unfortunately, her English wasn’t good enough, nor was our German or Arabic (which she also spoke), so we never got the whole story on the turtles.  We did find out that she comes to Aqaba every year.  Not sure if she always brings the turtles along or not.

After the turtle incident, we decided to try out the two outdoor pools as well.  At one point we realized that Eli was the only blonde kid in either pool.  Actually the only blonde person.  Last time we were here, he got a lot of attention for his blonde-blue-eyed-ness.  Today proved that things haven’t changed.  After dinner, we went for a walk to get out Eli’s wiggles.  Even in a suite, there wasn’t room to contain all his energy.   We stopped at a small shop for a snack on the way.  When Eli came in, one of the shopkeepers played with his hair.  Eli tried to squirm away, so the guy laughed and bent down and kissed him on the cheek.  This happened again as we were leaving, and he gave Eli candy as well.  We explained to Eli that this happens because he’s unusual/special with his blonde hair.  He decided he liked that, but you can see how something that’s acceptable in one culture can be seen as totally creepy in another.

Outside of the shop we saw a camel eating a frond off of a palm tree.  I didn’t realize that camels could eat that!  Eli calls them pom-pom trees and believes that some grow mangoes.  We explained that palm trees here mostly grow dates, but he didn’t know what a date was.  You can also see how the camel is marked.  Eva thought it was really cruel—this was the second camel with scars we’d seen on our walk—but we explained you need to be able to tell whose camel is whose out in the desert.  I like thinking about someone riding their camel in from the desert to do some shopping, though I’m sure some are around just for photo ops with the tourists.

The kids are now watching The Muppets on the iPad.  Tomorrow we pack up and head for the Israeli border in Eilat, then get our rental car and drive up to Jerusalem.  Here’s hoping everything goes smoothly!