Boat ride on the Gulf of Aqaba

We decided to take a little boat cruise on the Gulf of Aqaba.  We took a "cab" to a bigger boat that was two-storied, the lower deck was glass, so you could see the sea underneath and the top was open.  It was beautiful.  The weather was perfect, in my opinion, the sun shining, and we were out on the water, the colors of blue changing as you look out to the horizon. 

Leaving the hotel, on a water "taxi" to the boat

We passed several docks and kids playing in the water, they saw us pass by and jumped up and down waving and squealing at us.  I was so surprised to see the water speckled with light purple jelly fish!

purple jelly fish in the red sea

We sat on the top deck listening to music and chatting with the other passengers.  After some time, we were called down to the lower deck to see the coral reefs through the glass bottom of the boat. 

Captain of the boat plus the Jordanian flag

View of the coral reef from the glass bottom boat

Coral

There were tons of fish of many different colors, feeding off the coral.  It was beautiful! It was quite amazing how the schools of fish move together as if they're one big beast, something startles them and it appears as if the beast flinches! We saw a sunken ship, the coral was growing on the ship.  Really amazing how life can exist in even the most unexpected of environments. 

The boat was parked and we were told that if we wanted to swim, we could.  I love the water and couldn't wait to get in.  I stripped down to my bathing suit and got to the edge of the boat but freaked out.  There were jelly fish everywhere!  I went and asked one of the members of the crew if the jelly fish stung, can't they be poisonous? He reassured me that these jelly fish are perfectly safe to swim with and even touch.  Ok.  I dove in the water and it was refreshingly cool.  Salty.  I guess that was to be expected, it was a sea but I'm always surprised by salinity.  I was Dodging jelly fish, even though I had been told that they were benign, I couldn’t help but steer clear from these creatures.  I got out of the water and it stung.  There were 2 hoses with shower heads attached to them coming out the back of the boat. I rinsed off, hopped on deck to grab a snorkeling mask and got back in the water.  

There was a different type of jelly fish in the water! It was clear, oblong and had a some fluorescent color that appeared to move from around in a circular fashion, from cell to cell down in its center, like Christmas lights.  I wasn’t going to touch it either.  I swam out towards the coral reef, the water changed from warm to cool depending on the depth of the water underneath me, what a sensation! I spotted a huge school of  tiny fish, the group parted for me to swim through.  Zebra striped fish fed on the coral, orange and red fish, bright yellow fish and green fish.  I went back to the boat, I wanted dad to come snorkel, he’d never been.  He wasn’t too keen on the idea so I started to swim back out to the coral reef when I heard a big splash behind me, one of the crew members had put on a mask and flippers and had come out snorkeling.  He motioned for me to follow him, and showed me how to swim with my body as flat as possible so as to not rub up against the coral when the water covered the coral by just about a foot or so.  He showed me all sorts of cool fish and coral, then he did a flip in the water and dove down to the bottom of the sea, releasing all the air from his mask.  How cool!  When he came up for air, he explained how to do it, and we dove down to the bottom to look at the corals and baby eels that were sticking out of the sand.  I swallowed a bunch of sea water and swam to the surface.  I motioned to him that I wanted flippers, he went back to the boat and got me flippers, I put them on and was able to swim with more force.  There was an opening in the coral, all of a sudden the water got really deep and at the bottom of this gap was this yellow coral that resembled a rose.  It was beautiful, we dove down to check it out.  

Every once in a while I would hear small splashing sounds, I would look up and there would be small fish jumping out of the water, to avoid being eaten by a bigger fish.  At one point, we swam by a jelly fish and I squealed underwater.  He looked at me and grabbed the jelly fish with his hand, I quickly swam away shaking my head.  Eventually I got the courage to touch the little critter.  It felt slimy and stiff, like uncooked chicken breast.  I hope I didn’t hurt it by touching it.  He would cup it in the palm of his hand and push it around in the water.  Eventually it was time to go back, everybody else was done snorkeling and it was time to eat lunch.  The crew had prepared a lunch for us while we were out snorkeling and swimming.  They had made fish (hamour, also known as grouper) in curry sauce, meat kebobs, chicken kebobs, rice, a Greek salad, cole slaw, hummus and babba ghanoush (like hummus but made with roasted eggplant instead of garbanzo beans).  The food was delicious and tasted even better after a couple hours of swimming in the sea.  We sat on the deck, in the sun eating and chatting…life is great.

lunch

Wadi el Mujib

We had an adventure the other day. Pops and I rented a car.  My cousin called the car rental place for us and spoke to the salesman, turns out she works with his sister-in-law. We agreed on a time and car and he brought it to our house. We didn't pay or give credit card information, we just signed a contract and took the car for a week, or so. 

I wanted to go to the Dead Sea again and now that we had wheels, we could do whatever we wanted! I looked up on tripadvisor.com for "things to do" in the Dead Sea area.  The #1 hit was this Wadi Mujib Nature Reserve.  I read a bit about it, googled it, looked at pictures and was sold.   I showed dad some cool pictures and he was quickly convinced.  We packed up the car and were on our way. My aunt sent a Tupperware of cherries with us and some apricots, 2 very Mediterranean summer fruits.  They taste very different here. The ground is so fertile, it's no wonder the Levant region is referred to as the fertile crescent, it's seemingly desert but then the agriculture is magnificently prolific. I wish for you to taste apricots and cherries in a Mediterranean country on a hot summer day.
 
First we needed to fill up gas. Let me tell you a bit about driving in Jordan, forget everything you learned in driver's ed, except that a red light means stop,  green light means go and you stop at stop at stop signs, most of the time. Otherwise, it's a dog eat dog world, no signalling, no lanes, heavy horn usage, basically automotive chaos. My dad doesn't want to drive, which is funny because this is where he learned to drive but he finds it too hectic, so I'm the designated driver. We got to the gas station and I need to parallel park, on the left hand side.  I love parallel parking and my driving teacher, Mr. Ellisher, God rest his soul, taught me a great technique that is foolproof. I parked, perfectly, if I do say so myself and got some looks from the attendants (all male) I will speculate that the looks are a. because I'm a woman, b. because I'm driving and my dad's the passenger, unusual, and c. I parallel parked successfully. They filled up our gas, cleaned our windows, we paid for the gas and tipped for the window cleaning and left.  We found our way to the highway and headed down, down, down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.

We got to a military check point, I slowed down, and stopped, the guard waved me through, I gave him a very serious wave and drove on.  You must remember, the Dead Sea is the Jordanian, Israeli border.

The drive was beautiful, red-brown marbled rocks, desert to the left and glistening water to the right with a backdrop of beige mountains, Israel.  Eventually we reached the reserve, we pulled in a gravel parking area, parked and went to check it out.  (Website)  We paid the entry free, were given safety precautions, instructions for walking through the gorge and life jackets.  We crossed a bridge leaving the Dead Sea behind us and entered a gorge in a beautiful canyon, there were birds flying all over.

near the end of the river, the start of our trek

Dad wading in the water

We had been told that we were going to be walking through the river for most of the time so we got in the water and began walking upstream.  The water felt really nice, cool in the hot desert sun.  After a while actually, when the sun was no longer directly above us, it was actually quite cool in shade of the canyon.  We walked for a while as the water slowly got deeper, over rocks and through gravel.  We walked and scaled big boulders, using ropes that were drilled into the top of the rock to help ourselves up.  It's amazing how forceful water is.  I mean if you lose your balance just slightly, the water will push you down and throw you into the water.  We walked and walked, through the water for over an hour, people stopping to help one another over rocks and down waterfalls.  Finally we made it to our destination, a 40m waterfall! It was beautiful! There was a little swimming hole and we threw off our life jackets and went to play under the waterfall.  Sorry, I don't have any photos of the waterfall because by that time I had put away the camera in several plastic bags and a waterproof backpack. 

While we were walking slowly back, we made friends with a guy from New York and a guy from Denmark.  They had been at a math conference in Israel and drove over to visit Jordan for a few days before heading home.  They got to talking to my dad about the fish.  Fish?  I said I didn't see any fish and the guy from New York said "they must be attracted to hair," apparently the fish were nibbling at the legs of the men! Bummer - I didn't get to experience that sensation...

Look at the color change in the rocks!

Bougainvillea above the Dead Sea

Rear view, heading back to Amman