Jordan: Aqaba

We just returned from an 11-day trip to Jordan; we started in Aqaba and worked our way north through the country with the help of a tour company and local driver (I wouldn't recommend visiting Jordan without a driver - driving yourself in Amman is a sure way to die). Aside from the crazy drivers, I highly recommend visiting Jordan - you've never met friendlier people than the Jordanians and there is so much history there.

Anyway, we're starting in Aqaba. We stayed at the Kempinski hotel for 3 nights, which was a nice 5-star resort that we chose in order to have a few days of relaxation and pampering before we started touring around. The breakfast buffet was extensive, the resort itself was quiet and not too crowded, and the staff were very friendly and helpful. This was our favorite hotel that we stayed at on our trip.

One of the neat things about Aqaba is that it's nestled between Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt. The view to the west of the hotel is of Eliat, Israel, and when we left by boat to go snorkeling the view to the west quickly turned into Egypt. These countries are mere kilometers away when you're in Aqaba.

Here's the hotel itself:



And a few views of the beach and pools. I didn't get a full shot of the pools because the view from our room didn't fully face the pools but they were really nice. Note the abandoned hotel next door to ours in the second picture. Since the Syrian war began 5 years ago, tourism in Jordan has dropped by more than 70%. So there were several abandoned hotels in each area we visited, and most tourist sites were nearly abandoned. It's too bad because Jordan itself is very safe but most people don't want to take the risk of visiting a country so close to Syria.



These cute little boats took people from one hotel to another, as each hotel had its own dock in the Red Sea. They played really loud Arabic music, which was fun. Some even had disco lights.



There were always a few cargo ships in view in the Red Sea. The main source of income for Jordan is phosphate mining, and they load up these cargo ships with phosphates not far from our hotel. Also, the first picture below shows Eliat, Israel on the hillside. You could practically touch it. It was actually hard to see it a lot of the time because the winds come from the west and bring in tons of sand which made the air really hazy.



After spending a full day relaxing, we went on a snorkeling trip on our second day in Aqaba. Snorkeling and diving are what you do in Aqaba - there isn't really much else. There are many areas to snorkel there but the best one is the Japanese Garden, where we went. We could only get there by taking a boat trip with about 30 other people, and the boat had a glass bottom so we spent a lot of time looking through that instead of being in the water, but it was still worthwhile. We saw a pod of maybe 10-12 dolphins on our way out to the reef, which we attempted to photograph:



Fun fact, the Red Sea is FILLED with jellyfish. Thankfully they don't sting, but it took some getting used to when we first jumped into the water and had to swim through a bunch of them. The second picture below is through the bottom of our boat.



After we snorkeled we were dropped off at the Berenice Beach Club for a few hours, which is a day resort located out by the reefs for snorkelers and divers to hang out, eat lunch or have a beer, and swim at. We were fed an excellent bbq lunch here with a buffet of various salads to go with it. Sorry I didn't take a picture but every buffet we went to had hummus and pita bread, salads with cucumbers and yogurt or tomatoes, and more hummus. We ate so much hummus and it was so good. Below are a few pictures of the pool and beach at Berenice. I actually don't recommend staying here for very long because Jordanians love to blast music at full volume at their pools and beaches. It's hard to relax; it's really way beyond a reasonable volume level. While this didn't happen at the Kempinski, it happened at Berenice and one of our later hotels.



Some scenic pictures from our boat ride back to our hotel. Martin really loved the flag below - it's really huge.



We also ate the best dinners in Aqaba. We ate at two restaurants - Ali Baba and Floka. We had seafood at both places and everything was delicious. At Ali Baba I had something called Sayadiyah, which is a white fish like monkfish on top of a bed of cinnamon-flavored rice with some browned onions in it. Pictures below are from our dinner at Floka, where I had a Beryani with fish in it (the fish is hiding in the rice) that had the most colorful rice. We also ate some yummy baba ghanoush there, which is in front of my rice.



After dinner we would wander around in downtown Aqaba a bit. There's a lot of shopping there but most of it is touristy and/or cheap. There are a few higher-end stores but not many. It's most interesting just to wander around and be surrounded by locals out shopping in the evenings when it's cooler. Daytime highs in Aqaba are regularly over 100 degrees F. There were always tons of people out and about in the evenings, watching soccer games at cafes or shopping and the city is extremely safe. I never felt unsafe wandering around anywhere in Jordan at night.

On our final morning in Aqaba, we lounged on the beach (of course) and Martin went for a little swim.