Petra, the ancient rose colored city carved into the rocks in Jordan is almost a required travelers destination if you are visiting the middle east region. The ancient city is supposed to be incredibly beautiful... but we're not going. It's not for a lack of trying.
Today we took the bus to Nieuba - the Egyptian port town where you can catch a ferry to Aquaba on the Jordanian side of the Gulf of Aquaba. We'd heard the rumors that foreigners could only pay for ferry tickets with US dollars, but had been assured by several people (who we thought were "in the know") that Egyptian pounds could be exchanged for USD at the National Bank of Egypt in Nieuba.
We're not sure what other travelers do, but we aren't traveling with a huge wad of US cash. I'm not talking $100 in small bills... we can see the sense in that for certain parts of the world... but what you would need here would be quite a bit more. The ferry to Jordan was going to cost $46 per person one way, and $28 per person return. Add to that the cost of the Jordanian visa (about $50 for the two of us), the possible extension/upgrade of our Egyptian visas ($30) and just for good measure throw in the overnight train that we'd previously tried to take from Cairo to Aswan with no success. ($100). If my math is correct, that's an outlay of $328 that you'd have to have sitting somewhere in your wallet or backpack. Traveling for any length of time, you'd have to have quite a bit more... and that's a fairly large stash of cash to be carrying around.... and prone to being stolen or lost. Call us chicken, but we're just not willing to take that kind of risk.
Anyhow, with a dim outlook on the fat that we'd actually be able to exchange our money... we packed our bags and headed to Nieuba. Bank #1 looked at us and laughed when we proposed an exchange of pounds for dollars. Banks #2 and #3 did pretty much the same. And that was it. We'd exhausted our banking options and the clerk at the ferry counter wouldn't sell us tickets in pounds even with a hefty bit of baksheesh. We had no other choice but to head back to Dahab.
Sure, we could've found a way to exchange pounds for dollars on the black market once we were back in Dahab, but the prices were high... and to be honest, we just couldn't be asked to deal with all the hassle. Many of the boats from Jordan back to Egypt are full anyway as the muslim pilgrims make their way back home from the Hajj... plus, our flight to Amsterdam and onto Seattle is looming. The last thing we'd want to do is get stuck and miss a connection.
We're not sure how we will spend the rest of our time in Egypt. Our plan was to return to Dahab, after a few days in Petra, to climb Mt. Sinai which is still something we want to do. However, now we'll end up having more time before needing to get back to Cairo. We're considering the options... a trip to the colored canyon, mushroom stone and white canyon is possible... or we may head out to Alexandria for a day or two.
