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Colleen & Tom's Explorations
What an interesting day! We had brekky at 7am by the pool - pancakes, toast and black coffee. We then walked down the street to the beach and along the pavement by the seaside. The owners of the glass bottom boats kept wanting us to have a trip to the reef. We were amazed at how close Israel is. There were people swimming down there at 8am - I think they had slept there overnight and were bathing! They sit in the sand on plastic outdoor chairs!
We walked down the to ancient fort - the tourist office was closed - and paid to go the museum, then bought some souvenirs from the handicraft centre. After that we caught a little local bus out to the aquarium. There wasn't much to it, but it was full of Jordanian tourists, mostly men. We were worried about how to get back to town (it's quite a long way out) but as we got to the highway a taxi reversed at a rate of knots to pick us up. We asked him to take us to the Safeways supermarket. He took us to one out in the suburbs (we had thought it was closer to town). It was full of men (and the odd woman) and was very cheap. We bought cheese, water, unlevened bread, water, m&ms with Arabic writing (made in Australia), and water. They also had Calrose sunwhite rice and Kraft cream cheese spread made in Australia. We were worried about getting back to the hotel but there was a taxi out at the front. This taxi driver told Tom he looked like Robin Williams. We had lunch in our room, and then a nap.
The shops are open 9-1 and 5-9, even though it's the sabbath. After our nap we walked up the street and checked out the local shops. We bought some t-shirts, sand in a bottle and 2 lapis lazuli bracelets for Shannon and Jess. We couldn't ring the girls this morning as we didn't have a phonecard until it would've been too late. We had tried to use a phone at Dubai airport, but our Optus Phone Home card didn't have a UAE number.
The main street of Aqaba has lots of ATMs and people who sell phonecards. It was easy to use the phone (out in the street) to ring and talk to Shannon - gave up trying to wait until it was a good time in Australia - we were tired from all our walking and wanted to sleep (ready for Petra) so we rang at 9.20pm our time - 4.20am (Saturday) NSW time - it was great to hear her voice.
We walked down the to ancient fort - the tourist office was closed - and paid to go the museum, then bought some souvenirs from the handicraft centre. After that we caught a little local bus out to the aquarium. There wasn't much to it, but it was full of Jordanian tourists, mostly men. We were worried about how to get back to town (it's quite a long way out) but as we got to the highway a taxi reversed at a rate of knots to pick us up. We asked him to take us to the Safeways supermarket. He took us to one out in the suburbs (we had thought it was closer to town). It was full of men (and the odd woman) and was very cheap. We bought cheese, water, unlevened bread, water, m&ms with Arabic writing (made in Australia), and water. They also had Calrose sunwhite rice and Kraft cream cheese spread made in Australia. We were worried about getting back to the hotel but there was a taxi out at the front. This taxi driver told Tom he looked like Robin Williams. We had lunch in our room, and then a nap.
The shops are open 9-1 and 5-9, even though it's the sabbath. After our nap we walked up the street and checked out the local shops. We bought some t-shirts, sand in a bottle and 2 lapis lazuli bracelets for Shannon and Jess. We couldn't ring the girls this morning as we didn't have a phonecard until it would've been too late. We had tried to use a phone at Dubai airport, but our Optus Phone Home card didn't have a UAE number.
The main street of Aqaba has lots of ATMs and people who sell phonecards. It was easy to use the phone (out in the street) to ring and talk to Shannon - gave up trying to wait until it was a good time in Australia - we were tired from all our walking and wanted to sleep (ready for Petra) so we rang at 9.20pm our time - 4.20am (Saturday) NSW time - it was great to hear her voice.
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