Yep, I finally did it, after lingering and enjoying everything the red sea and Dahab have to offer for 18 days, I left and found my way to Jordan.

I left yesterday morning at 10AM. It took me 1 hour to reach Nuweiba where I bought my ticket for the fast afternoon ferry that was scheduled for 3PM.

I went through the police control inside the port and found a place to seat while I was waiting for the boat. Around 2PM, I started to kind of wonder if I was at the right place since there was not that many people around especially no foreigners! I started walking around the docks and found a policeman that told me the boat would be here in 15-20 minutes. Once it got there, I waited outside and came aboard once everybody coming from Jordan had debarked the boat.

The immigration agent that controlled my passport was not happy since I did not have a departure stamp… Well, nobody really told me about that at the first place and since I could not read any of the signs, I did not end up where I should have been and I did not get the stamp. Anyway, we are in Egypt and police has its way so they stopped one of the big empty tourist bus that was driving by and ordered the driver to take me to the right place, once there, an agent filled the form for me and stamped my passport in less than 30 seconds without much questioning, then another policeman stopped another of these empty bus that took me back to the ship. All in all, it took 5 minutes to get this stamp while I am sure it would have taken me an hour in line to get it if I had known I needed to go to a specific place before boarding the boat! In place, I had plenty of time to read the Jordan section of my Middle East Lonely Planet and listen to my IPod. I also stroke a conversation with one of the guy moving stuff in between the trucks and the boats.

The boat trip went very well. I gave my passport to the Jordanian immigration agent early in the boat and recovered it once we had debarked in Aqaba. I found the way to forget it in between that moment and the bag check though but I realized it and got it back without much trouble. It might not have been a good day after all since I usually do not loose or forget things!

Anyway, I found a hotel in Aqaba. The first thing to know is that things in Jordan are way more expensive than in Egypt. The country is way more developed. Looking around at the type and quality of the cars that Jordanians drive is just one example of that development. It really looks like a European city.

I am now planning my trip through Jordan. I will report about that later :).