This is an article about taking a holiday on the Sinai penninsula, and about how to get there from Syria or Jordan.
Damascus To Sinai
(Photo opposite: Damascus) Winter is coming, and the tourist season seems to be ending in the Sinai peninsula, but right now, the beaches are still warm during the day, and the mountains still red at dusk. This is a guide to taking a break from Damascus, getting down to Egypt as cheaply as possible, and then relaxing on a beach by the Red Sea. Have a look at some weather reports before you leave, as when I reached Sinai last week (about the 20th of November), the evenings were becoming very cold indeed.
From Damascus to Jordan: The newish big business station in Damascus is called Samariyeh, and it’s a long way out of town. You can catch a blue and white bus outside Bab Tooma gate, and this will take you to Barumkeh, where you can catch a second bus (a blue and yellow one) to the bus station. You can catch this bus right outside the immigration office, which you’ve presumably already visited to renew your visa (if you are visiting the Middle East on a short holiday, the route I’m going to suggest is probably not worth the time and effort - just buy a plane ticket). At Samariyeh, you have a choice of taking a communal taxi or a bus. The buses are cheaper and involve less stress, although they leave infrequently. I paid 350 Syrian lira for a bus ticket to Amman, and 600 on another occasion for a seat in a “servis taxi” - with both forms of transport, there will be delays while the driver attempts to smuggle duty free cigarettes across the border.
At the Jordanian border, you will need to pay the ten dinar immigration fee (This is about 14 US), and you will need to pay this in Jordanian currency, so probably they will direct you to the money changers and ATM nearby.
Amman to Aqaba: In Amman, which is a pleasant, friendly capital city, you should be dropped at the Abdali station, which is really a collection of ticket offices and small car parks where different buses linger. Catch a bus to Aqaba, and this journey should take four to six hours, depending on whether you are stopped in customs at the edge of the Aqaba trading zone. The ticket should cost 5.5 dinars. You cannot really travel by bus directly to Sinai if you want to return to Syria, as the road passes through Israel. If getting an Israeli stamp in your passport doesn’t matter to you, take the bus, because the ferry is slow, expensive and a fair amount of hassle. If you can get your Jordanian exit stamp within 24 hours of entering the country, you don’t have to pay the usual 5 Jordanian dinar exit fee.
In Aqaba, you will probably have to wait for the ferry to leave the next day, unless you can arrive in the city before 2pm. There is a slow ferry, and a fast ferry. The latter is very expensive (100 US for a return ticket) and not especially fast, and leaves at 2pm (but check this with travel agents in Aqaba’s centre as you as you arrive, because it would be a shame to miss the one boat per day). Aqaba is a nice town with a good, cheap Pakistani restaurant, and has hotels that can give you a room for five or six dinars per person. It is very important to go to the ferry station with enough cash for all your ferry tickets, as there are no banks over there, only money changers, and they are very aware of their monopoly position and will rip you off.
Once you get into Egypt, your entry visa to Sinai is free (a full visa for Egypt will cost something, however), and can withdraw currency in one of the banks some way outside of the port. Now you have only the pleasant decision of what beach to stay at. The long coast of Sinai is crammed full of cheap beach-hut-resorts, and the prices and set up seem pretty similar in all of them (about 20 Egyptian guineas a night - they make their money on your food). My friends and I stayed in three of them during our four day trip.
1. Soft Beach: this is really close to the port and well run. They are clearly trying hard to maintain a professional and clean place, although, because it’s Lonely Planet recommended, there is a more main-stream tourist feel - if you want to realign your chakras or sleep with a good looking Israeli hippy, this may not be the beach for you. The other great thing about Soft Beach is that it is in easy walking distance to the town of Nuweiba, and there you can buy supplies and generally get a break from your hut-life. In Nuweiba, an Egyptian called Alex (who looks oddly like Michael Caine) runs a fantastic sandwich shop, and for ten Egyptian dollars a person, he will serve you a vast set of salads, omelettes and dips (it’s easy to find - it’s the only small sandwich place in the town). To get to Nuweiba town from Soft Beach, simply go out to main road, turn left, and walk towards the minaret of the mosque in the distance.
2. Big Dune: This is not too far from Soft Beach, and much more isolated. We had a hut right on the beach, and the waves rock you to sleep. However, during the day flies were a hassle, and during the night mosquitoes were horrendous. The well-holed mosquito net we were provided with didn’t help either. If you can bring your own net and repellent, and are looking for quiet, this is a good place.
3. Castle Beach: A long way up the coast, towards the Israeli border, the beach turns more gravel-like and the reef becomes more intense. This place is apparently very popular with musicians, and good looking hippies are everywhere, giving off superior expressions and practising their juggling. It is very badly run, and managed by a peculiar, skinny man called “The Doctor”. In backpacker resorts, all you usually do is talk, smoke, relax and eat, and so the food on offer is actually really important - however, in Castle Beach, every meal took half an hour to appear, and we frequently had to remind the Doctor of our existence. They also had no blankets, which made the nights uncomfortable.
Returning to Aqaba: (Photo Opposite: Aqaba) Getting back to Jordan is far harder than getting to Egypt, because it seems that no one in Sinai has any idea when the ferry leaves for Aqaba, and they will give you all kinds of conflicting suggestions. Here is the reality, at least for late November 2007: the fast ferry departs from Jordan at 2pm, and then will leave the Egyptian port some time after it arrives. So, expect it to actually leave around 4pm. You will have to wait in a huge hall full of people, and when the slow ferry opens for passengers around 11am, the hall may fill with a shouting crowd of men desperate to push their way to the front. If you are a woman travelling alone, I suggest you be rather careful during your wait for the boat - find some other backpackers or an Egyptian family to befriend until boarding begins.
Aqaba to Damascus: We stayed in Aqaba overnight, and then took the bus back to Amman and then on to Damascus. The JETT bus company leaves from near the Movenpick hotel (you can try asking the police for “fendoq movenpick”), and it costs 5.5 dinars to get back to Amman, and about seven to get to Damascus. It may be very useful to keep one of your ticket stubs from the ferry, to prove to Syrian immigration that you didn’t travel through Israel, but they didn’t ask me any questions.
Best of luck
Daniel
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