Luxor, Egypt - Aswan, Egypt
(Thursday, May 19th)
I woke up at 3am completely petrified about our train ride—two and a half hours earlier than I needed to. Nervous, mostly, about the obnoxious men that would swarm us the moment we entered the station. I was so nervous that I couldn’t eat, which was incredibly sad because of the amazing breakfast waiting for us (remember the angels?), but then along came our hero and driver, Arabi.
He not only took us to the station, but took us to our platform, and stayed with us until our train came, making sure to get us on the train before he left. And since our train ended up being an hour and a half late, he stuck around for a long time. It was really fun chatting with him—he learned English on the street by listening to the tourists he would drive around. He spoke pretty well, but there was a lot he still didn’t understand so we were having interesting conversations. Miriam and I have noticed we have started talking in broken English to help them understand! American English is much harder for them all than British English. We were having fun swapping words with Arabi—he taught us some Arabic and we taught him some English—and he was enjoying reading some of our things out loud (he confessed that although he picked up speaking English pretty quickly, the reading part is a lot harder).
(Arabi, wearing a traditional galabiyaa)
(Arabi gave us a natural fruit drink called Rani. It had big chunks of fruit inside. We loved it! Miriam is amusing Arabi with her need to get all the fruit chunks out of her can)
When we were finally on the train, we noticed a TON of other young tourists in our car. We were not alone! Yay! And what was funny was that the touristy things to do in Aswan are so few and small that we kept running into our train mates all over town!
The train took us through the Egyptian countryside, which was beautiful and interesting to watch—all the farming families in their fields, the donkeys pulling carts, the women carrying things on top of their heads—we kept seeing the lush countryside replaced with desert and vice versa as the train snaked through the land.
We finally arrived in Aswan and immediately began to breathe a little easier, even though it was almost 20 degrees hotter than Luxor (the temp in the shade was around 110 degrees...I here a musical in there!). For the most part we were being left alone by the people. Yay! We met up with Waleed, our travel agent for this leg of the trip, and checked into our hotel, the Isis Corniche.
Because most people who visit Aswan stay on cruise ships, the hotels aren't that great. We were prepared (slightly) for a less-than-perfect experience...
A word on the room: dis-gus-ting! The hotel was groups of one floor bungalows along the Nile. The reception looked beautiful as well as the facades to the garden view rooms, but the facades of the Nile view rooms were not looking so pretty…We were told we were upgraded to a Nile view room. Yay! Except that I had BOOKED a Nile view room…In the room, the Nile view was AWESOME—it was literally right outside the window—but the floor felt and looked like it hadn’t been swept in ages (we almost refused to take off our shoes) and the bathroom was so horrifyingly disgusting that we vowed we would not take a shower in the filthy tub (sooooo gross!). Sponge-bathing it is!
As soon as we threw down our stuff we headed out to start our tour of Aswan with our guide Eslam. Aswan is a little big city, if you know what I mean. There is a lot of life, especially with the Nubian people who have lived on the Nile for generations upon generations (the story of Aida is a Nubian story), but there isn’t a whole lot to see in ancient history when comparing it to Luxor.
Eslam took us first to the granite quarry, also home to the Unfinished Obelisk. Ancient Egyptians would build large obelisks (much like the Washington monument in DC) out of the granite and carve them with hieroglyphics before shipping them down the Nile in pieces to the various temples. It usually took around seven years to complete an obelisk. However, this obelisk started cracking and breaking apart during the construction process and was abandoned and left, you guessed it, unfinished.
(The Unfinished Obelisk)
(Miriam tempted to walk off with a piece of granite)
It was pretty neat because our guide was so knowledgeable that we learned the whole ancient process of building one of those. How in the world the ancient Egyptians figured out all that is beyond me! They were extremely intelligent people.
We were then off to the High Dam, a large dam created to stop the Nile from flooding for three months of every year. This dam helped create Lake Nasser, the largest man-made lake in the world, but it also displaced the Nubians who were living and thriving along the Nile right where the dam was built.
(Miriam on the High Dam)
(A tank still keeping order by the High Dam)
Our last stop was at Philae Temple, a temple located out on an island in the middle of the Nile, so we boarded a motorboat and sailed out there. Being on the water was beautiful, and I even got a chance to stick my hand in the Nile! It was soooo lovely. I would have loved to have jumped in to the water like the young Nubian children by the docks. We were quite envious of them.
Eslam showed us all around Philae Temple and even taught us a little about reading hieroglyphics. There were only a handful of other tourists there when we first got there, so we practically had the place to ourselves, the big busloads of people were sailing over as we left! Phew!
(View of Philae Temple from our boat)
(The Coptic Christians had burned Christian crosses into the walls)
(With Eslam, our fantastic tour guide, on the boat back to the mainland)
We headed back to our hotel to freshen up and then headed out to the street. Remember what I said about the men leaving us alone? Well, it no longer applied. We wanted to grab a bite to eat, and the only good restaurant we had heard about was a cab ride away, so we decided to hit up our favorite fine dining establishment. Sing along with me now! Doo doo doo doo doo!
(The view from our hotel window)
Fully re-energized, we decided to hit the souq, or Aswan Market, as It’s supposed to be the best one in Egypt for souvenirs. The market was really neat, as there are spice shops everywhere, so it’s very colorful, but the people, like in Luxor, were very pushy. The best part was that they kept coming up to us saying, “No hassle shop! Come into my shop! We don’t hassle you!” Apparently, they don’t know the definition of the phrase “No hassle.” One young boy (why are the young ones always the problem?!) kept following us down the street trying to convince us to buy his postcards and saying he doesn’t hassle so please buy. I told him, “You are the definition of the word hassle, honey.”
(A spice shop in the souq)
(Learning to play the drums, badly)
We only went into the shops that really didn’t hassle us—the ones where the men sat outside their shops and asked if we would like to come in. The ones who got in our faces and wouldn’t leave us alone didn’t stand a chance. It’s a shame, too, because we would have loved to have gone into some of the shops, but the minute we turned our heads towards them they were on us like vultures—a HUGE turn-off.
We ventured into a music shop and the owner showed us how to play the various African instruments he had, and because we were stressed out from the hassle from the other street vendors, we took his card so we could possibly make some purchases the next day. Today there would be no buying anywhere.
We headed back to the hotel and collapsed into bed. We have another early morning—2:30am alarm—to join the convoy to Abu Simbel in the morning! Can’t wait!
(Good night from the Nile)
