At the Airport

 Another trip - this time to the Middle East.   

 Like many people the Pyramids have always been on my bucket list.  But the Middle East is not exactly the safest place in the world and I'd pretty much written off any chance of ever going to Egypt because I wasn't willing to risk staying in country for a week or more. So what happened?  Well I was browsing through small ship cruises for 2023 with no particular destination in mind.  Only to come across an Emerald cruise called "Marvels of the Red Sea".  This was the answer - I could see the pyramids without staying on land.

So here I am at the airport at the start of my adventure. The cruise doesn't leave until 9th Feb, but it's going to take me a while to get there.  The cruise ship departs from a port in Jordan called Aqaba, but it's pretty hard to figure out how to get there.  Aqaba has an airport but you can count the number of incoming flights a day on one hand.  Basically, there seemed to be less than 1 flight every  24 hours from Amman (Jordan's capital) and the only international flights are by a couple of low cost airlines (EasyJet and RyanAir) who fly from a few airports in Europe - but only 2 flights a week.
I started off by trying to fly direct from Canada, but there are few flights to Amman from Canada and the connection time between landing in Amman and being able to travel on to Aqaba was over 12 hours.  Too short to exit the airport, but way too long to sit around in an airport.   As I was going on this cruise with my friend Denise (who is based in Britain) I then decided to fly to London first and meet up with her and then fly on to Jordan from there.  But again, flying from London to Amman had the same problem with over 12 hours stuck in Amman before we could fly on to Aqaba.  In the end we decided to take the EasyJet option and fly direct from London-Gatwick to Aqaba - but the flights are only twice a week, So we're getting into Aqaba about 36 hours before the cruise starts and staying 2 nights at a hotel there before boarding. 

So here's the run down - flying from Toronto tonight and arriving at Gatwick tomorrow (6th).  Then I'm meeting up with Denise, staying overnight at a hotel in Gatwick and flying on to Aqaba with her on the 7th.  Arrive in Aqaba on the evening of the 7th and staying in the designated hotel for Emerald cruises until the morning of the 9th when we board the ship.   The cruise itself takes in Jordan, 4 stops in Egypt (including Ain Sohkna - from where we'll take our excursion to the Pyramids), Israel, and ends back in Aqaba (with a trip to Petra on the last day).  

Wish me Luck!