Catching up...Crossing Jordan

I have some catching up to do.  Since the last post from Dahab, Egypt, I've been into Jordan and Syria and now back in Jordan waiting to cross the border into Israel.

From Dahab, I took a bus to the port city of Nuweiba on the Sinai Peninsula in the Gulf of Aqaba where I caught the ferry into Aqaba, Jordan.  This ferry crossing has many horror stories from other travelers with long wait times, ferries stuck at sea for hours, and one alleged sinking several years ago.  To cross into Jordan by land you risk having unwanted passport stamps from Israel which would have made things difficult further down the line so the ferry was my only option.  After enduring this, I have to say that everything that is said about the ferry is understated!

We bought our ticket ($70 USD!!!) and were told to wait.  Then after about 2 hours we were told to hurry up and go down to the ferry landing and board the ferry.  With no real direction, the whole mass of us rapidly wandered around until we found the landing where there was more waiting while we watched this...

For about 20 minutes, the driver of this tractor was attempting to load the ferry with the luggage trailer.  I think this is the ideal situation to inform everyone out there that tractors are to remain in fields and not as a loading device.  I'm not even sure how they did get trailer on because they gave up and let the foreigners on first.  I was the first one on the ferry.  The group was told to come up the ramp then no, wait here, then ok go, go, no wait, wait, ok now go, no wait so I just pushed past and walked up the stairs.  When I arrived at the top of the stairs it was almost of a surprise to the crew that there were to be passengers on this passenger ferry.  Two men began talking back and forth with eachother and pointing...a lot.  Then one of them escorted me past the seating area then walked around and then back to the seating area.  This was when I realized that no one else had boarded yet.  They were still down doing the go, no, wait, ok now go game.  After about 10 minutes the rest began to arrive.  Tourists first then the locals.  After about 1 1/2 hour the ferry was ready to leave.  They closed up all the doors and then more waiting.  I swear that the only way this much confusion and disorganization is possible is that the entire crew and ferry was doing this for the first time of their lives.  Sadly this is not the case.  This is what they do every single day.  Maybe one day they will figure out a routine but undoubtedly any time soon.  Immigrations was done on the ferry (another long messy process) and off we went.  Finally we were allowed to walk around a little where I found the duty free shop on the ferry with some amazing designer perfumes, bootleg of course.  Here are a few of the classics there.  

And my favorite...

Total time: entirely way too long to account for what should have been 1 hour shore to shore.