So out of the frying pan and into the fire. Aqaba, at the southern tip of Jordan on the Red Sea, is a good 10-15 degrees hotter than Amman – are we crazy or what! We got off the bus and we were like man, we need to get out of the exhaust of this bus! Then we did and it didn’t get any cooler. But that beautiful gulf of the Red Sea made it all worth it.
First we had to find our hotel- not too hard, we purposely got one near the bus stop. It was worth it. Our hotel was a resort hidden inside a fortress. It had two main gates, each with guards. Inside of that was a door with metal detectors and a man who whisked our bags away to be screened. All of this happened in the blink of an eye; after that we went to the front desk, where we were met by mint lemonade and excellent English. We were quickly led to our 6th floor room, which (along with every other room in the Kempinski Hotel) had a fabulous ocean view, ranging from Jordan, to maybe Saudi Arabia (but maybe not), to Egypt across the gulf, to Isreal further north across the gulf. Our room was magnificent, with a big shower, a nice bath, a balcony, robes and fuzzy slippers, a free minibar stocked with water, sodas and beer, and free high speed internet (and an LCD with a bunch of channels that we never got around to watching at all). We dropped our bags and ran out to the beach. The sand was hot, and the water was the nicely cool (but way warmer than the Pacific Ocean in CA) and extra salty Red Sea. Floating was effortless, although the salt crusted quickly if you didn’t rinse right away – ther were outdoor showers for that. The staff opened up shade umbrellas, layed out towels, and brought (non-alcoholic) drinks. The next day we went Scuba diving. We were stuffed in wetsuits and we set off. The water clarity wasn’t perfect but there was a wide variety of types of coral – brain and blue and others; they even sunk a ship to collect more. There were also colorful fish, small darting ones and medium size swimmers with stripes of bright blue/yellow and other contrasting colors. We were careful not to swim into Saudi Arabia because I forgot to wear my burka and I didn’t want to get arrested ;>)
They layed out a fabulous breakfast, also included. There were walls dedicated to fruit (mixed, strawberries, peaches, apples pineapples, melons and more), pastries (from basic breads to hearty rolls to croissant with apples, chocolate or sesame), cereals hot and cold of a wide variety including gluten free, paninis, and freshly-cooked omelettes, all of which were excellent, along with large areas of “oriental”, i.e., Arab foods, like dried yogurt balls with zatar or peppers, salty string cheese, olives, faul, pickles, the ubiquitous tomotoes and cucumbers, and also European style cold meats and cheeses, a variety of yogurts, . . I get hungry all over again just thinking about it – it took quite a bit of will power to not just sit there and stuff ourselves silly! (No, wait, Calvin says I’m already silly!) The wait staff was unbelievably attentive- we think they may have been overstaffed given that the hotel was not at all full, we were told because of Ramadan. Overall we think that our Carpinteria family vacation should be relocated here- except for that 20 hour flight!
Walking around was a stark contrast to Amman. They gave us nice tourist maps, the sites are marked, with traffic lights, continous sidewalks, crosswalks and landscaping! Overall a very nice beach town with historical sites. We had a good buffet dinner out where I probably knew half of the foods – a fun way to find out what things taste like without commited to a full order of unknown edibles.
It’s obvious that Jordan is trying very hard to build their tourism industry, and this showed us that they can do top-end very well. The English was excellent, the manners were impeccable, the experience was wonderful. Whether they can do mid-range as well is more of an open question.
After the lemonade, in their excellent English, did they invite you to a presentation on timeshare opportunities? If not, then they deserve a lesson in opportunistic capitalism!!!! =8^)
I’m envious. Scuba diving! Umbrellas! Crosswalks! Fuzzy slippers!
Happy labor day.