Day 114-115: Ferry crossing from Aqaba, Jordan to Dahab, Egypt

Judging by a lot of travellers, you would think that the best and most memorable parts of their trip would be the time they got to an air-conditioned hotel, or got to take a hot shower after a hellish 2 days of doing without (i.e. usual standard of living in the middle east).  But for me, while it's nice to get a chance to stay somewhere nice from time to time, the hotels are quickly forgotten, the air-conditioned mini-van is at best a journey snack, greedily scoffed but it's memory evaporating almost as soon as it has left the taste buds. Seeing Wadi Rum, Petra and wandering the lanes of Aleppo will always stay with me, but just as memorable are those hardships- the moments you complain about at the time, but prove to be so bizarre, so testing that they stick firmly in the mind.  And often they tell you more about a country than any amount of touristing around can ever do.

Enter the ferry crossing from hell.

Egypt is a short 4 hour ferry ride from the Jordanian port city of Aqaba.  It's actually even less if you choose to drive, but that requires a detour through Israel, which is a career-limiting move for tour leaders who hope to continue on to Syria, not to mention onward tourists.  As with all passenger transport, you are required to arrive in advance of departure time, and with a 1am departure time, we can expect to begin loading sometime around 9pm.  To be safe you need to be there 2 hours in advance of loading, so we're back to a 7pm arrival time.

A good scenario would see us arriving at 7am the next day, Inshallah.  Inshallah is an Arabic phrase which means 'God willing', but can variously (and more accurately) be translated as any one of: perhaps, I don't know, I don't care, not my problem, or go fuck yourself.  Or quite possibly all of these at the same time.  So when the port officials say you will depart at x time and arrive at y time, they may as well be plucking figures out of the air.  You pays your money and you takes your chances.

By 9pm there is very little sign of movement at the terminal.  Our carrying ferry has not even arrived in port yet, so far to say loading will be delayed.  Worryingly, all the other prospective passengers look they are settling in for the long haul, unrolling bedding consisting of sleeping bags, thin mattresses or flattened cardboard boxes, or simply collapsing in their car seats.  Not the actions of passengers awaiting imminent boarding of the 1am express ferry to Egypt.

More time passes, and it's midnight now, and by this point a crude shanty town has developed in and around the parked cars.  Kids play football in an empty lot.  Roaming vendors sell tea and cakes.  Stray, malnourished search for scraps.  And somnolent human detritus is littered over any and all available surfaces.

No one seems terribly bothered by any of this.  The occasional official who wanders through is not accosted by impatient passengers, demanding to know just when the goddam ferry will be leaving.  The relaxed expressions on their sleeping faces say "perhaps we leave soon, Inshallah".

I must have drifted off to sleep myself at some point (the refreshing sleep of 3 hours shut eye sitting upright in the back of a truck) as I awake with a start as engines fire into life.  We're moving.  At 6am loading commences, and by 7am, with the sun already well on its way to another day of scorching menace, the ferry pushes off.  I'm not sure if I am supposed to get up or go to bed.  It seems that god intends the former, as our promised cabins are no longer available (don't even try and get an explanation why- there isn't one).  Instead, I am immersed in what could colourfully be described as a 'cultural experience', surrounded by old women sleeping cross-legged, one of whom wakes every quarter hour to expel a globule of phlegm which is delicately wrapped and placed into the folds of her burkha.  Add in crying babies and continuous pages and announcements from a public-address system (which has one volume setting- cacophonous) and it's a fitful morning sleep, half-draped as I am on a 2 seater couch.

Although time has lost all meaning for me now, it's officially 10am when we hit Egyptian soil. Well, Egyptian sand and trash, at least.

The key phrase from this point is no longer Inshallah, but baksheesh.  Another multi-definition word, baksheesh means a tip, a bribe or just plain paying people to do their job.  Cos while there are hundreds of people employed at the port, none of them seem to be working.  Walking into the tourist visa offer we stumble across 4 immigration officials smoking, eating breakfast and watching tv.  They tell us we have the wrong room and push us out.

It takes around $150USD in bribes to clear a truckload of passengers through the official process, and while this is the expedited process it still amounts to 5 hours of endless back and forth and time wasting, variously sitting around, wandering to arbitrary offices, filling in forms.  As a tourist, we get the VIP treatment, as a parking lot of cars are awaiting their turn to be processed, in the interim being unpacked, inspected, and repacked, then having their registration changed (Egypt handily has a unique vehicle registration which is incompatible with other Arab nations).  All the cars are loaded 4 to 5 boxes high with cheap Saudi goods (not that there are roof racks of course, just strapped to the roof) and in some cases every box and suitcase is opened for inspection.  Perhaps 1 car emerges from this labyrinth of bureaucracy, ineptitude and laziness in the 5 hours we are milling around.

At 3pm, we are free.  A 19 hour marathon assault of sleep deprivation and frustration.  We leave the locals to wither in the sun.  Maybe they will be out soon.  Inshallah.