Aqaba, Jordan

Aqaba is a pleasant enough city in Jordan several hundred kilometres from Amman, the capital. Jordan is a very small country known officially as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and just happens to have within it's bounds a remarkable place called Petra, an area inhabited thousands of years ago by Nabateans who cut buildings into the local sandstone creating some stunning, symmetrical designs, the one called the "Treasury" being most often shown on travel brochures.

There is much more of course than the travel brochures show. Also, Wadi (Arabic for river) Rum is within a stone's thrown of Aqaba and Amman and a popular tourist spot because of its natural beauty.

As we had visited both Wadi Rum and Aqaba some years ago, we didn't see much sense in paying to visit them again, so we did a a one hour taxi tour of Aqaba driven by a very nice man called Ibrahim.

Ibrahim took us to some ancient ruins that we wouldn't have seen if we had eg, taken the open top bus tour of the town, which was twice as expensive. We also visited a Thursday market where locals buy their fruit and vegetables each week. It was nothing flash, just a lot of people in an area selling foodstuffs from the back of trailers, utility vehicles, boxes and so on. The produce all looked fresh and enticing, especially the huge apples and smallish bananas, a couple of which we tasted.

Our first stop a was Mc Donald's outlet (yes, even at Aqaba) where we bought a cup of coffee so we could use their internet which was much better than that provided on the ship. We paid some bills, updated some apps and wrote emails to the family and a few others. Thank goodness for Maccas!

After our tour with Ibrahim, we walked about the township for an hour or so and decided to return to the ship. Christina had bought a couple of pairs of cheap tights and a black shailer to put over her shoulders.

One of the most interesting things about our visit was Ibrahim showing us an area of many hectares that had been purchased by the UAE royal family in which it intended to build a modern accommodation suburb complete with hotels and shops.

It's a huge area and will probably use tens of billions of the UAE's oil money. From what Ibrahim said, I'm not sure that all the locals are impressed with the idea, but in reality there is nought they can do to combat money.

Robin