It turned out to be quite an adventurous day...which started at 4.30am...I awoke to the sound of banging & yelling at a door across the corridor from my own in the hostel. For some unfathomable reason, the security man was banging on this door and yelling in Arabic at the occupants. I assumed he was giving someone else a wake up call - I was expecting to receive the same treatment half an hour later, but I got up then anyway.
The previous evening, Jimmy, the guy on the front desk had told me that I would be called at 5am and he would take me to the security check point outside of Dahab to meet the coach to Petra. 5am came & went and there was no sign of Jimmy. The security guy had no english, I didnt have enough arabic and the security guide's sidekick would just smile at me & say 'yes'. After half an hour of trying to explain that I was waiting for Jimmy and did not want to hail a non-existent taxi from the street, I gave up and wandered out of the hostel complex. There was a 24 hour supermarket across the road and I went over to check if the guy there spoke english. By some miracle he did, I explained to him my problem and he came back across the street with me to talk to the security guy. The security guy explained that he was told to wake Jimmy at 4.30am (that was the banging & yelling from earlier) but there was no response from the room and he didnt know where he was or what was going on. I thanked supermarket dude who went back to his shop and I went back to my pacing.
Once back at his shop, supermarket dude told the story to a random passerby who also spoke english, he came in to me, and when I explained again that I was waiting for Jimmy, he said, ok, hang on, and then ran off down the street and around a corner. OK :-/ He came back with a phone & Jimmy was on the line! It seemed so amazing - I had given up all hope of finding Jimmy & our link to the coach.
Turned out Jimmy had not liked the room he had originally told the security guy he would be in, and decided to move, without telling anyone. We took off like a bullet down the road, at double the speed limit, to reach the coach in time. Got on the coach and slept like a baby all the way to the ferry port to Aqaba.
On reaching Aqaba, there wasnt enough room in the english speaking tour bus - so four indedpendent travellers (including me) ended up on the russian speaking tour bus.
After another 3 hour journey to reach Petra, we eventually got to walk down As-Siq and stand in front of the Treasury. I made an absolute fool of myself singing the tune to Indiana Jones - da da da DAAA, da da DAAA, da da da DAAA, da da da DA da...etc...
Petra was cool, but the 3 hours afforded by the day trip to explore was not enough & I would like to go back again, hike to the Monastery and just spend some more time there soaking up the atmosphere.
Before we were allowed back into Egypt, we were checked for Swine flu, by having our temperatures taken, by 2 guys in the full outbreak gear! I met up with some Dutch travellers who were also staying in Dahab, shared their bus back, which was much quicker than taking the coach I had that morning. On returning to Dahab a full 17 hours after departure, went to a fabulous fish restaurant for dinner.
A great day with some real Indiana Jones adventure :)
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