Despite the stifling heat, traffic noise and lack of air conditioning, or even a fan, we slept quite well. Yesterday had clearly taken it out of us.
One of the bonuses of staying in a rubbish hotel is that I don't feel guilty about lighting our stove in the room, so we were able to have coffee in the morning.
Heading out into an already hot day, we went first to the ferry office where we received the shock news that the one ferry a day now only goes at midnight, instead of 1pm! This means that we are going to have a very long day tomorrow, hopefully we can find somewhere to leave the bikes or it will be even longer. On a plus point, with an early arrival in Egypt we should have a good run to Dahab. Especially useful, as the first 10km is an 8% gradient up to just over 800m.
With the news about the ferry, we decided to head to the Egyptian embassy to try and get our visas. This would give us one less thing to worry about on arrival in Egypt. Queueing for a visa at 6am when we would rather just get going, is something we could do without. The embassy was really helpful and we were told to come back at 1pm when we could pick up our passports.
Filling the time until then, we had a walk along the seafront and visited the not that impressive castle. After a lovely, but overtly expensive fresh juice drink each and a cup of mint tea, we went back to the hotel to wait out the rest of the time.
True to the embassy staff's word our passports were ready to collect; if only all visas were that simple! On the walk back we stopped and used the internet, no WiFi in our hotel, and booked some accommodation in Dahab. We have seven nights in a nice sounding hotel close to the seafront. It will be good to have a proper break from the cycling, where we can just relax in a very chilled resort.
Some supplies shopping aside, we did very little for the rest of the day. Aqaba is a pleasant enough place and certainly cheaper than Wadi Musa, but we will be glad to be moving on.
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