We headed off to Sinai in the morning - a long day of driving. I cannot fathom why so many nations have fought over the peninsula for so many centuries - has to be the geography because it's really inhospitable terrain. It was pretty clear at this point that the tour leader had read the surveys and was making some pointed remarks to people about comments they had made in them (really professional - I wonder how many of these made it back to Peregrine?). Anyway, fairly relaxed day, until a border patrol came aboard and demanded passports - nearly had a coronary after my airport experience, but it all seemed ok (except that the guy was smiling at my photo and then looked at me and looked really disappointed - pretty sad day when your passport photo is more appealing than you are!).
Got to Sinai, and had a pretty quiet night as Tamz and the rest were getting up at 2am to go up the mountain. I had decided that it was idiocy for me to attempt it given my general lack of fitness, and didn't particularly fancy the thought anyway. Tamz got a camel up and actually managed to doze off on the way up, then walked back down.
The next day we had another long hair-raising drive to Nuweiba to get the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. Once at Nuweiba, true to form, our great leader dumped those of us going to Jordan at the terminal, and gave us absolutely no instructions about what to do inside the ferry terminal. To our dismay we found everything written in Arabic, and no english-speaking person in sight. After meandering around trying to work out which of the enormous hanger-style buildings to go into, we picked the closest and managed to find a tourist policeman who spoke English. He helped us work out what to do, and we got through passport control and then on a bus to the ferry. Once on the ferry, people kept trying to make us leave our bags behind, which we refused to do. We worked our way round the boat, and then found there was nowhere to sit except on the outside deck on a bench with a shelf of wood sticking out over it, so you couldn't sit back. It was quite possibly the most hideous five hours of my life so far - made worse by us not having the faintest idea what to do and what to expect. At one point one of the guys went exploring and came back saying we were to give our passports to these guys inside for processing. We all pretty much refused to give them up, since we had no idea why or whether we would ever see them again. We also seemed to be the only entertainment on the boat, and groups of men would just come and stand and stare at us with no expression at all for ages - it was really really spooky.
Eventually, we arrived at Aqaba, and finally something went right. The Peregrine tour leader for Jordan actually came onto the boat to help us off, and was pleased we'd kept hold of our bags and passports, as apparently otherwise it can take hours (once again, thanks to the Egyptian tour leader for his stunning lack of assistance in this regard!). Anyway, we were now in Aqaba, and it seemed really nice and relaxed - and very welcome after the ferry ride from hell.
