May 3 (Leah's)

 

We spent our last day hanging out with Gene, Jessie and the kids before we had to take the ferry. For the morning, Gene and Jessie made us a delicious tradition Arabic breakfast. We had foul (mashed beans, veggies and spices), pita bread, fried cheese, tea with sage, and zatar (spice with sesame seeds in it) and olive oil to dip the pita into! It was so nice. We sat outside on the porch and ate our wonderful meal!

I attended my first Zumba class with Jessie. The organization they work with has Well-fit programs for men and women. We did the one-hour Zumba class, it was fun. I am pretty sure my hips haven’t moved like that ever! We were sure sweaty by the time it was done. Spencer and Gene were working out on the homemade TRX That Gene got for us. I joined them for a bit.

After showers and lunch we had some prayer time with Jessie and Gene and a few friends of theirs. I then skyped with my mom. We spent a few hours at the house until it was time to go to the ferry. Gene and Jessie had to go out. We had some leftover chicken biryani for dinner and then went outside with our huge packs to catch a taxi. As we waited a guy in a Hilton Hotel van stopped and asked us where we were trying to go. He gave us a free ride to downtown where we were able to catch a taxi to the Ferry Terminal.

We were met by this huge (bulky and muscular) Jordanian man, Sala, who would be our “guide” on the ferry. He helped us with passport control, and getting us on the ferry (skipping the big lines). We sat up on the outside of the ferry and enjoyed the last remaining view of the sunset. We were even served complimentary pop and “croissants”. A little while into the trip Sala told us, and the other “white foreigners” that we had to go to the VIP area. There was some problems with some of the Arabs. We weren’t sure what this meant, but we followed the French Tour group and other “whities” to the VIP section where we spent the rest of the ferry ride. Everything seemed to be okay- minus a little bit of boredom.

We got off the ferry and Sala helped us with our visas and passport control on the Egyptian side. We got in a van with another couple to get through the ferry port and Sala got us connected with a taxi van. We found out the beach camp we booked was farther out of town than we expected and so we thought about going to a hotel close in town. On the way the driver asked us where we were going after Nuweiba (as there is nothing there) and we said Dahab. He told us he could take us now (It was now about 11pm at night). Not really sure what we should do, we said yes, and he drove us the 1hr to Dahab.

Thankfully we were able to get a room- big bed, bathroom to ourselves, A/C and breakfast included. It was about 1am by the time I crawled into bed. Even though I was so tired I couldn’t sleep. I had a restless sleep.