Nuweiba to Aqaba by ferry

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Getting the ferry from Nuweiba in Egypt to Aqaba in Jordan was probably one of the worst travel days we've ever had, and I can't not write about it! Everyone in our tour group has travelled widely, all over the world, and no one could think of a more exasperating day. We left our beach camp at 12.30, with the aim of catching the 4 p.m. ferry, and arriving by 5 p.m. Instead, we spent a very long day sitting in the ferry terminal, with our ferry not arriving until 8.30 p.m. By that time, we'd all lost our syndicate as to when the ferry would arrive! However, Dan was closest guessing 8 p.m. The time in the ferry terminal was spent reading, being hungry (there was only crisps and biscuits to eat) playing cards, playing soccer with local children and being the object of Egyptian men's staring. They could make a spectator sport out of watching western women! We were entertained by the local men washing their feet in the basins of the toilets opposite where we sat. I think they have to do ablutions before prayer time, but it makes the washrooms filthy.
One of the frustrating things about the whole ferry experience is that they give priority to foreigners, meaning we were always first in passport checks and boarding. I worried that such preferential treatment breeds resentment, although maybe I'm overreacting and it's just traditional hospitality.
Onboard the ferry, we had to hand over our passports, presumably so they could add our Jordanian visas. At the end of the ferry trip, all the foreigners were called into a little room where we thought we'd be given our passports. Instead, a group of official men took turns staring at us and taking cigarette breaks, with no explanation as to why we were there. Eventually the ferry docked and we were told to disembark, still with no passports. We walked to an isolated carpark where we boarded a bus to take us to the passenger terminal. Our group was meant to be being met by a guide to help us through customs, but we waited a long time before he appeared and gruffly said our tour name and then demanded our passport receipts and walked off.
We waited and waited until midnight and eventually he appeared with our passports in hand, stamped with the visas. We were then taken to a different hotel to on our trip notes and introduced to our trip leader who had a different name to what we'd been told. The hotel turned out to be nice and our tour leader is lovely, but we did at first wonder whether we were with the right tour!
Twelve hours after we left our Nuweiban camp, we arrived at our hotel in Jordan. It should have been a one hour ferry trip!

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