http://quitealone.com/2009/07/05/on-the-waterfront/ "To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world" – Freya Stark Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:02:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://quitealone.com/2009/07/05/on-the-waterfront/#comment-12 Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:05:47 +0000 http://quitealone.com/?p=52#comment-12 Well waht do you expect!! Look at how Aqaba has developed over the past few years.. If your name fits and you have mega $$$ you get exactly what you want.. i.e. a chunk of land on the beach front to build your multi Million hotel project and never mind those who cannot afford to use the facilities afterwards (locals as well as tourists – oh I fogort locals are being shipped out of Aqaba!) or whose “face does not fit”… Ahh.. locals again…
Try using the Intercon beach at JD 50 per person!!!
Aqaba had a charmm years ago… a village .. maybe not so idyllic, but an Arab identity at least.. Now? It is striving to join the faceless other touristic concrete jungles…
Of course there is one “highpoint”.. excuse the pun! come the rising o sea levels with global warming .. well those High Rise tourist complexes will be the first to “go under”.. Just what Aqaba needs, new exciting DIVE SITES!! Why??? Oh yes forgot to mention… part of the result of all this new development, beach front hotels, moving the cargo berth to accommodate the new development… has decimated this once unique coral reef environment. A few more years from now.. there will be no more reef system here to dive. Great pity that.. and hugely short sighted as one marine biologist said Aqaba and a select other few reef systems are unique in that only these coral reefs will survive the warming up of the seas as only they are nourished by cold water upwelling from teh deep (rift in case of the Gulf of Aqaba) brign nutrients.. BUT if Aqaba’s are reefs are detroyed before that by developments.. then…… and one has to ask the bigger question… where was the EIA on these new developments..??

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