Day 14: Crossing borders is always worse than it seems, Part 1
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007One last set of banana pancakes stuffed in our mouths, our laundry all cleaned and collected, and our hostel room paid for, we are sharing a mini bus with some other travelers today to Nuweiba, where we have heard mention that a ferry to Aqaba, Jordan leaves every day (a fast ferry and a slow ferry). We are definitely aiming for the fast ferry, which is said to be 2 hours, while the slow one is more like 5 or 6. And that’s estimated best possible time that has ever been clocked for either one of those, which means adding a multiplier to the figures will give you a better description of actually time in transit.
This mini bus, which, as all things that are suggested by your friendly neighborhood Egyptian guy hanging around outside a hostel, should have been sketchy and probably not as advertised, actually worked well. We stopped a few times to pick up some other backpackers (unfortunately the kind that give Americans and other travelers a bad name clueless, loud), but then were on our merry way for the next hour and a half in a vehicle that did not once have to stop for oil or additional water. Our luggage was more than a little precariously perched up on the roof, but it made it as well.
Yes, again, I’m sure we were ripped off, but it was becoming more and more clear to me what the lines were between crimes that locals felt were swell: stealing, price inflation, swindling, guilt inspiring haggling, and what were things they would never consider: leaving you in the middle of the desert to die when they said they’d take to you so and so town. Its like they followed all the commandments, (which by the way, we were in the shadow of Mt. Sinai and the burning bush, but once the lazies got us, and we realized it was well below freezing on that mountain, we quickly forgot about all 10 commandments, the hike and Moses – who definitely was wearing more than that robe and those flimsy sandals on his way up, btw)… anyhow, they follow all those commandments EXCEPT the ‘thou shalt not steal’. Maybe that doesn’t translate well in Arabic or something. Oh, and also I can’t blame them for their lack of being able to do anything quickly. Bryan and I have been reduced to boneless heaps since we got here. Slovenliness must be in the air supply, and its not a commandment anyhow, just one of the seven deadly sins, and those aren’t from around here, so they are irrelavent at the moment.
The place they dropped us off was something else. Imagine a long abandoned military base. Monstrous, empty colorless buildings in various states of disrepair, a lot of fencing, and an enormous amount of barren space. The bus driver insists that the guy to buy our fast ferry tickets from is in that (pointing right) big building. So, heaving our packs up as our ride basically abandons us, driving onward with the rest of his riders, we take in this town that isn’t a town outpost and walk toward the deserted boarded up building. Sure enough, around the corner of the building is a guy at a ticket counter, ala 1932 Coney Island, filling out the space of the sole window that was’t boarded up. Fast ferry I say, hoping English is understood. He says 32 dollars. I say “ okay fast ferry” he says “32 dollars”. Slow ferry?, “yes yes”. How much? 32 dollars. For the fast ferry? Yes, Magic carpet ride? Yes yes. Unlikely, but what do you do? We WERE getting on this fast ferry, which by the way, was not anywhere around, and we really could only assume there was a ferry doc around here somewhere in this little military outpost.
The only other person there, a girl who spoke neither Arabic NOR English well, had it worse, because apparently she did want the slow ferry, and from what I could tell, it wasn’t coming, and potentially might be mythical. So, she bought some ticket leaving on some ferry, and the three of us wander off to the dusty single street outside the ‘ferry compound’ (as I’m going to call if for lack of better term, though we still saw no evidence of ferrying, or for that matter, passport control, other people etc.)
We had hours of waiting ahead of us. And it was a one café town. I use café in the vaguest sense here. Again, for the sake of your minds eye, picture a dusty dirt bowl town in central America, completely made of concrete blocks long ago painted brightly, flies buzzing around a precariously set up electrical system, a back counter and a bunch of old style classroom tables and chairs. Though the requisite group of guys in white robes, smoking hookahs sort of dispelled the, “I’ve traveled across the world” feeling. Not much to do here. It was actually difficult to order anything, besides black tea, hookahs and coke. Twiddle thumbs twiddle thumbs.
2 hours later, we left our ‘slow ferry’ companion with her coke and her guidebook, and approached the set of fences and buildings, looking for anyone who could tell us what to do here. Was it really possible that tens of thousands of passengers pass through here yearly, yet there was no clear instructions as to what was supposed to happen? Or even a vague concept of some sort of organization? As tempting as it was to wait for someone else to come by, it really did look like it might be hours before that might come to pass (and it would probably be the girl on the slow ferry). So we find someone, who of course, points to another abandoned looking building and tells us no problem.
yah.
jessicab