Jordan: Chapter 1 - to Petra

It was late when we finally rolled into Wadi Rum, the tourist-town just outside the old Nabatean capital of Petra in Jordan. We were a motley group: 9 AUC'ians and Julia the German. Together we had braved the overnight bus across the Sinai and spent all morning and afternoon figuring out how to get on the Nuweiba, Egypt speedboat ferry to Aqaba -- Jordan's port on the eastern finger of the Red Sea.



It was a close thing: Since Annie looked like the ticket seller's daughter, several of us got to buy the ticket in Egyptian gineeh instead of US dollars we didn't have. Our time in Nuweiba reminded me of of how a World War II fighter pilot once described his job: long hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.