Please excuse the extreme lateness of this post, apparently a few hours means a few days in my head.
In any case, The Nile Cruise. No we didn't sail out from Cairo, in fact the trip itself started with getting on the mini-bus at our hotel at 3:30 in the morning for a 5:45am flight from Cairo International down to Aswan...so the cruise started 25000 feet up in the air on an Airbus A320-200. As I said in the previous post from "a few hours ago", Air Egypt domestic was surprisingly comfortable and I would gladly make that hop of an hour and 15 minute flight again.
We were met outside the airport by our tour guide for the 3 day trip Marwa and we proceeded to the great dam in Aswan. We all were a little tired from having to get up so early and then proceeding to tour right after landing, so we probably made a bad impression at first of being slow and uninterested when in fact, at least for me, I was very interested in the dam having been to the Hoover Dam in Nevada/Arizona a few years before. After the dam we went to the Friendship Building that President Nasar built to show thanks to the USSR for helping to fund the dam project. It was an impressive building, hollowed out in the center with four arms being linked together at the top by a ring...at least I think it was joined by a ring. I could be wrong, my camera ran dead and I left my spare batteries in the car so I don't have pictures of it. I do however have pictures of the last place we toured that day, the unfinished obelisk of Hatshepsut. What an impressive sight to see because as it is unfinished, one gets to see the process of making those gargantuan in progress...sort of. The fact that they could "cut" those things out of the side of granite mountains and somehow manage to roll them down to the Nile, which was about 3-4 kilometers away (or in American 1.8-2.5 miles), and then manage to sail them down (which is north towards the Mediterranean) the Nile to their destinations, and then install them...it is just absolutely mind-boggling. I might begin to subscribe to the theory that extra-terrestrials played a part in all this...just kidding.
After the obelisk we headed to our home away from home, which of course at the moment is Cairo, the MS Esadora II...or as we called her, the boat. The first visit to the boat was to see if we could check in of yet and have access to our rooms. As we got to the boat around 10:00am and they weren't ready yet, we decided to do all the paperwork and leave our bags there and then go to a garden island in the middle of the Nile. I have a soft spot for gardens because I practically grew up in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden back home, and even participated in their gardening classes for kids for a year or two. The garden we saw in the middle of the Nile didn't disappoint, and in fact was a pleasant surprise. So, if you would like an escape from the heat while you visit Aswan, I would highly recommend the garden in the middle of the Nile...if I actually remember the name of the place and bother to edit this post so that it is here as well, then be sure to tell your boat driver that name and not the garden in the middle of the Nile...although that might actually work :)
When we got back to the boat it wasn't quite lunch time yet so we went to our respective cabins to wait for lunch. In our cabins we discovered beds that gave nary an inch when sunk into...in fact one didn't sink into the bed so much as bounce up in recoil as if you had walked into a door. Ok it wasn't as bad as walking into a door, but may as well have been. The saving grace was the huge sliding door window we had that allowed us to stick our head out to check on our nautical progress, or to prop our feet up and enjoy the hot weather of Egypt from the comfort of our air conditioned cabin. As we had the rest of the day off after lunch, much time was spent in our cabins, or on the top deck in the pool, or in the forward part of the 4th floor where there was a balcony, and at night in the bar. Well in addition we still had access to the city of Aswan herself well into the night because our boat didn't shove off until 6am the next morning, so actually a few of us went into town to their market and did a little shopping before calling it a night.
As I said we set off from Aswan on the way to Luxor at 6am the next morning, so I left the curtain open in the hopes that I would wake up to the Nile sailing by...and it worked. I happened to roll over just as we made the U-turn out of port to head on down the river. After waking up for good around I went up on deck to see what was going by, and my goodness the view was beautiful. Most of the time there was greenery as far as the eye could see, with the occasional people sightings. Seeing the other side of Egypt that we previously hadn't seen was worth that cruise alone, and gave us all a much needed break from Cairo.
Our day consisted of two stops, the city of Edfu's eponymous temple, and the temple of Kom Ombo. Kom Ombo was first and is the only temple in Egypt built to honor two of the Ancient Egyptian gods. The level of detail that was still abundantly clear after 5000 years was incredible, and its Nileometer (the ancient way of measuring the Nile and therefore floods) was still intact as well. Conversely, the temple in Edfu was a massively facaded building that is truely a wonder to behold, and causes one to wonder how the ancients managed to build such huge structures without the aid of modern technology. The Ancient Egyptians were some truly smart and ambitious people.
After Edfu we had the night off and sailed on to Luxor, arriving sometime around 1130-midnight. In the interim, our group took the bar over on the boat and enjoyed a few drinks and watched the opening day of World Cup action, especially the American tying effort against our beloved Lucie's redcoats. The night was also gawlabia night (thobe in gulf arabic, or the long dress like thing normally worn in the Middle East) and Emily's birthday. The next day and the day after that was spent solely in Luxor. We visited the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepshut's temple on the other side of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak amongst other sites. Out of those places, Karnak was especially amazing. The entire complex was just massive, it felt like it was the size of F&M's campus...and I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I can't really do it justice with words so following you will find pictures of the places we went minus the Valley of the Kings which didn't allow cameras, so the pictures will start with Hatshepshut's temple.
Again, thank you for reading!
-Diggs
Posted via web from Diggs' Posterous
