Jordan Trip: Part 2, Aqaba

Day 3: Tuesday, October 21 

We drove down to Aqaba. The mountains are so beautiful!

I love all of the camel crossing signs. 

When we got to Aqaba we drove a little ways down the coast, got lunch, and checked into our hotel. We went down the coast to one of the public beaches. It's not the greatest playing on beach like Monterey. Lots of rocks and sea urchins. But the snorkeling was amazing! We bought a disposable underwater camera, but have to find a place that will develop it. So here are some pictures I found online of some of the things that we saw. 

So many fish! Most of them were no bigger than about 5 inches but some were quite large. 

Josh, Joshua, Joseph, and I were all able to see a lion fish. 

Joshua's favorite was the clown fish in their anenamy.  

A lot of puffer fish of different colors and sizes.  

 There was even a sunken ship. It was pretty creepy. Very dark and deep. This picture might not be the actual ship we saw (there are several and also a tank that we didn't see). Josh and Katie swam all the way from the front of the ship to the back and said it was huge! 

 The kids had fun playing in the sand. Josh and I took turn going snorkeling. He usually took Katie and I took The smaller kids. We had some tubes, and a small blow up boat. We tide Them together and I swam them around the reef.. It one point I had Joseph, Joshua, Michael, and Hannah out with me. Hannah and Michael weren't fitting any goggle, so they just looked over the edge of the boat. Katie, Joseph and Joshua loved snorkeling!  

Hyrum was pretty content to sit at the edge of the water throwing rocks in.  

 Joshua was very proud of his sand castle. 

Thankfully it wasn't deep and Hannah was able to swim around in her tube exploring.  

  

 On our way back to the car, the kids saw a park and begged to play. The parks here are pretty scary. Broken slides, stairs, and old fashion metal sea saws.  I knew better than to let the kids play on the sea saw, but they were having so much fun. Until Michael bite his tongue. It went all the way through. Very bloody with lots of crying. A nice Jordanian family came and helped us. Poor kid. I told him about my brother Michael who also bite his tongue really bad when he was little. Michael asked if we could call him, I'm sure my brother wouldn't appreciate a call that early in the morning!  After telling the kids that I knew better than to let them play on the see saw Micheal said, "That's okay Mom, I forgive you." ! I love this kid!

Our hotel room in Aqaba. It had a living room and 2 bedrooms.  The kids watch some Arabic cartoon. Good thing Tom and Jerry have very little talking!  While walking on the side walk one evening we had to walk around a man on a camel. On our drive to the beach (on a big main road, we had to drive around a random lone horse in the road. 

The kids went swimming twice at this hotel. Again the pool was on the roof. My kids love the water!

Day 4: Wednesday, October 22  

 Our second day was so fun! We love Aqaba. The kids had fun running around playing.

 Josh and Katie snorkeling. 

 Josh caught a scorpion fish, right by the beach.  

After looking it up online later we found out they have poisons spines. Good thing no one got poked.  We made a new rule of no touching!  

 Hyrum cried anytime someone tried to take the bucket with the fish away. He was pretty distrot when we let it go. 

Day 5: Thursday, October 23

The beach was crowded and had people trying to see rides on camels and horses. It wasn't quite a good as the other 2 days. 
 I got a kick out of all the women in their berkas and yellow tubes.