Egypt Part 2: Nile Cruise. After our extremely early morning flight, we landed in Aswan and met our new driver who took us over to our river cruise boat the Esmerelda. Our boat was lovely and the cabins were huge with a king sized bed, a sitting area and a desk. On the Nile, there are 350 cruise boats. Since there is only a certain amount of docking space, the boats line up down the dock and tie off. Then, another line of boats lines up behind the first line and ties onto the first line of boats. And so on and so on. Therefore, if your boat is last on the depth chart, you walk off the dock into boat number one, cross through the lobby and enter boat number two, cross through that lobby and continue until you get onto your boat. Quite the unique system but the uncontrolled chaos seemed to work. The first hour, we explored the boat which had a pool and sundeck area, a restaurant and a lounge. We met a few of the people who were going to be on our tour group with us and then we met our guide, Mohommad Sultan. Everyone in Egypt was either named Mohommad or Achmed. And I mean everyone. I think we only met two guys the entire time that had different names. We called our guide Sultan and he called us “my Sultans” or “my dears” the whole time which was cute. Our first outing was to the unfinished obelisk. Sultan told us about how they made obelisks and moved them by using flood waters to float them down the Nile to their destination. The unfinished one cracked during construction so it just remained in the quarry. Evidently, Cleopatra was very disappointed because there was only unfinished obelisk under her reign! Next, we saw the Big Dam which was built to control the flood waters so that there was better irrigation for the crops. Behind the dam, they created the largest man made lake in the world called Nassir Lake. Prior to the dam, crocodiles were all in the Nile and on average, 4 out of every 10 deaths in Egypt was due to a crocodile attack. Once they built the dam, they trapped all the crocodiles in the lake so the river was safe. Needless to say, the locals don’t swim in the lake! Finally, we hopped on a small boat and headed to the temple of Philae. When they built the dam, the temple was going to be buried under the lake. So, they moved the temple. Sounds simple when you say it but considering there were 43000 pieces that had to be disassembled, moved 500 yards away and then reassembled exactly, it was a great undertaking! The next morning, a few of us headed over to the Nubian village. The boat ride to the village was amazing and there were lots of migrating birds and we even had to maneuver up some rapids which was fun. The Nubians are a tribe of people who have the custom of the women painting their houses every three months with bright colors. We looked forward to seeing some color since the entire trip in Egypt had been brown on brown on beige. The village had evidently fallen on hard times because only a few of the houses were painted. The rest of the village was a lot of Chinese trinkets being sold on the street and lots of trash. The Nubians only marry within their culture so over the years, the bloodline has been muddied. Many of the people had deformed extremities or were Little People. Our guide said they will not change their ways so it was sad to see a culture that was going to be gone in a couple of more generations. The craziest part of the visit was their pet crocodiles. They kept them in the house for luck. One was about 6 feet long! Not very lucky, I think! After the village, we returned to the ship to get ready to set sail. We were late leaving because with all the boats tied together, the captains were at the mercy of the boats that were on the outer tie. The sail on the Nile was an easy one but because we were late leaving, we did not make it to Kom Ombo temple until after dark. Luckily, the temple was just across from the dock. Unfortunately, all 50 to 60 boats stop there at the same time so the temple was packed full of people. It was not a very enjoyable experience but we survived. When we got back on the boat, we were given the times to visit the Edfu temple the next morning. Wake up call was at 5am. Seriously? Not the relaxing cruise I had pictured in my mind! Edfu temple was basically a duplicate of the Philae Temple so when 5am rolled around, we voted to sleep in and skip Edfu. We were very glad we did because our group said it was even more crowded than Kom Ombo so it was miserable. At 9am, the boat readied for sail in order to make the lock by 12:00pm. The boats leaving was much like the temple visit. Total chaos. Boats were everywhere, horns were blasting, two boats next to us came within inches of crashing into each other. We found out that the boats go through the lock two at a time and it was first come, first serve so the captains were determined folks. We were close to last leaving. Once we got to the lock, we had to anchor and wait our turn. Two hours later, we were ready to pass. Then, the lock gate broke so the lock would not drain water (we had to drop the boat 8 meters to continue down the river thus we needed the lock). Finally, a very nimble worker crawled out onto the gate, shimmied under it with a wrench in one hand and his cell phone gripped tightly between his teeth and managed to get the gate unstuck. By this time, it was 3:30pm so we knew we were not going to make Luxor by the 4:30 goal. Since we could not do any touring of the Luxor sites this day, we did a horse drawn carriage ride through the city of Luxor. The term ‘tour’ was stretching it because we passed by: the bus station, the hospital, the church, the mosque, the shopping area, the ‘rich’ houses, the ‘ladies shopping street’ and the market. All the ships must sell the same tour packages because there were tons of carriages everywhere. At one point, I felt like the Queen because all the little girls would smile and wave and they would get so excited when I waved back. Gotta love little girls! The next morning, we prepared ourselves for another pre-sunrise wake up call. However, this day was easy to hop out of bed because it was Valley of the Kings day! Our first stop was the Temple of Hapshepsut, the first female pharaoh in Egypt. It was quite the saga on how she took the throne that had espionage, murders and trickery. She summoned the High Priest who declared he had turned her into a male so she could rule and whatever the High Priest said was law. Turns out she was one of the best rulers because they lived in peace with no wars and prospered. Until her half brother grew up and had her killed. Tough times! After her temple, we drove into the Valley of the Kings. If you did not know what you were looking for, you would assume it was just a valley….which was the idea. The pharaohs got tired of their tombs being robbed so they began to hide them. They have only excavated a small portion of the tombs that are in the valley. We had a ticket that allowed us to go into three tombs. Sultan pointed out the three “most colorful” tombs that were “the best ones”. We made our way into the first tomb which had amazing mosaics on the walls. The tombs are empty (of course!) but the mosaics were in amazing shape. The selfie brigade drove us nuts as usual but we survived. The second tomb was the most colorful and was very deep. When Bill and I made our way to the last recommended tomb, the line was very long and we were quite done with people so we set off to find a different tomb to visit. We happened upon a small one that had no one in line. The ticket man took our ticket and said, “Wait, you have only one tomb left on your ticket. Are you sure you want THIS one?” When we said yes, he was the most joy filled man I have seen in a long time! I am guessing he sits at that tomb all day, every day and has no visitors. He followed us through the tomb and with his very limited English, he gave us a tour. He even let me stand up on one of the restricted areas to get a picture of the sarcophagus! We decided we enjoyed his tomb the most. After the Valley, we headed to Luxor Temples and Karnak. To try and describe the size of these temples would be impossible so I will let the pictures do the talking. The entire day was like a dream. Overall, the people in Egypt seemed to tolerate the tourists. In addition to the joyful tomb keeper, the other most joyful man in Egypt was our room porter on the ship. Every night, he would make a surprise towel creation in the room. He would wait until we returned to the room and he would follow us down the hallway to our room like a puppy. He would clap and say, “See what happened in your room! Someone has come!” We would throw open the door and whatever greeted us, we would laugh and cheer which made him the happiest man on earth. As you can see from the pictures, he was quite talented! It was on the second day aboard the ship that we noticed there were only male employees. No females anywhere. We did see some females working in the shops in Luxor but overall, the males were dominant. While the vendors in Cairo were a bit obnoxious, they could not compare to the vendors in Luxor. They would shove things in our faces, follow you incessantly and get louder and louder. At one point, there was a woman behind us that was being accosted so roughly that I asked Bill to intervene. He did so and after he threw the wares back at the vendors, they finally backed away and let the woman pass. It was a scary moment but I was happy Bill had helped her since she was alone. I do not recommend travel through Egypt without a personal guide or a tour group, especially for a single woman. It’s just not safe. I would describe the entire vibe of Egypt as “Frenzied”. That word sums it up best. From Luxor, we flew back to Cairo to catch our flight to Jordan the next day. The only hiccup was that our tour booking manager forgot to inform the driver that we were all on an earlier flight so we had to wait at the airport for an hour. Luckily, our Jordan flight was at a reasonable time (because I had booked the flight) so we slept in and enjoyed a quiet morning. Jordan was a unique experience so I’ll get that blog done as soon as possible! I will do my best to get pics uploaded! They are amazing but our internet is currently not amazing! Ratings for Nile Cruise section of tour: Overall: 9 Points of interest: 10 Ease of communication: 8 Ease of transportation: 10 with driver and captain; it would be 0 without a driver Friendly people: 8 for tourist people; 0 for vendors Food: 6 Cost of living: n/a due to tour we could not judge for ourselves Weather: 9 Bill’s favorite thing: Luxor Temple and Karnack; Least favorite: vendors Sally’s favorite thing: Temple of Philae and Valley of the Kings; Least favorite: early wake up calls
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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