beach

So we are in Aqaba. A place in the south that was a sleepy fishing village until the British started feeding supplies through here during teh Arab Revolt and the Ottoman overthrow of the early 20th century.

Now it is Jordan's only port and rpetty important for shipping Jordan's number one export (Potash!!!!!!!) and bringing in gear for Iraq. There is also some nice reef and coastline (Jordan traded 6000 sq. km of desert for a few extra of coastline from Saudi Arabia a few years ago) and as a result there are a few luxury hotels here and some nice beaches.

Since the girls we're with want to wear something more revealing than a towel we must go to the private beaches that come with a fee and a slightly more discerning clientele. Yesterday being our day off we decided to set out in search of just such a beach (Baracuda in the guidebooks). Of course I managed to lead us a astray, around a large development (which we subsequently found out will be all lagoony and fancy and add 12km to Aqaba's coastline) along a "private road", towards a bunch of tire spikes, and straight to ... dah dah dah daaaaah, gate number one of the King Abdullah's Aqaba palace. I had a very friendly chat with a special forces paratrooper who spoke virtually no (but also strangely virtually perfect, accent free English). He was able to tell us where we were and also (by clamping my wrist) that if I tried to go through the palace to reach the beach, I would be arrested. Miming swimming actions all over the place I tell you.

Some other guy drove up "I'm so glad I caught you" reclarified everything and we were on our way. No idea if the king was actually in that day, but I really enjoyed it and they were super friendly dudes. I think they were more worried that lost white tourists might raise a stink. No such thing. Back we went, eventually getting a cab because Kristin had broken a flip flop and was now barefooted on the scorching cement and construction sites we were crossing.

Finally we arrived at Aqua Marina hotel beach, determined Barracude had been subsumed by the ongoing construction, paid our 5 dinar and rocked into the place. Amazing. There was a bar and a pool and beyond that a patch of sand and volleyball court and through a low door with a signh marked beach...a cement pier. The sandy part in the middle was a beach, but to get to the red sea you had to wade out a channel between the volleyball court and a chainlink fence on cement piles.

You see, because the frontage is limited and the Intercontinental Hotel is much nicer than the AquaMarina, they have a wide sinday beach and we had a wicked prison beach. Walls and fences all sorts of fun. The water was the same though, and we had a few nice and cool dips between lounging on our sculpted fibreglass beach chairs.

Very nice.