Jamaliah and Rudy went for an early (well. It’s early for Jamaliah anyway especially on weekend) 9am morning walk to the Petra ruins for a last look at the Treasury building. It was an awesome (teenager talk) walk through the gorge. The boys of course decided to wait for us at the hotel. We stayed for some 20 min there admiring the structure before walking back up the canyon. At the hotel we had a bit of a shock. The desk clerk on-duty knew nothing about our passports and money we gave them for safe keeping 2 days earlier. (No safety deposit box in the room). Fortunately after some phone calls he found them in another drawer. It did not seem that he understood how serious this was. Even after paying he still expressed disappointment of not getting a tip. We drove further south from Petra to Wadi Rum.
We went into the reserve and had lunch at a tourist stop. We considered staying there for a night. They have tents for rent. But we decided to carry on to Aqaba. The eroded sand stone rock formations were nice but I don’t think it was that impressive to stay a night. The official camp sites were out of reach for our 2WD and we would therefore have had to rent a 4WD to get there. Aqaba is a small modern city on the Gulf of Aqaba. From the water front you can see Egypt and Israel across the bay. You can also from here drive across to Israel or drive south to Saudi Arabia or take a ferry across to Egypt. Rudy, after checking in, decided to go for a shave with the local barber and later went for a walk with Jamaliah along the beach front. We stopped at a pub and had a nice draft beer for a change. There are also a lot of fast food places so I assume that is where we will end up for dinner. Well, that is what the boys were hoping anyway after suffering the past few days of local dishes.
Rudy Welling's Travels 