Day 10 – The End of the Nile
We woke up in Aswan, the same dock we reached yesterday at
8pm, the same city that we all went for a stroll and a sheesha last night. The
boat would not move again, until the next cruise begins – the road back up to
Luxor. For me, the ‘sailing down the Nile’ portion of the cruise is over, and
even though there were many sites to still see, and a few meals left, and
hopefully another nice, wind-swept night on the sun deck. I’m not ready to
leave the boat. Not yet, anyway.
The day started early, as the tour guides try to get as much
done before the most oppressive of all heat starts to set-in. Being closer to a
major city, my phone network was 10% better than before, and I woke up to the
note on the home screen that it was 88 degrees (at 6:45am), and the high for
the day in Aswan was a tidy 111. For all I know, it has been similarly this hot
in Luxor, Edfu and Kom Ombu before this, but having proof and evidence only
made it worse.
Aswan, as stated, is a city, housing about 2mm people, with
business beyond tourism to generate income – unlike the Edfu’s of the world.
Unlike Cairo, it doesn’t have terrible traffic, but the well paved streets make
it clear you are in a city. Most of the tour sites were South of where we
docked, centering around the Old Dam and High Dam, two dams that segment the
upper Nile from Lake Nasser and the Southern Nile that extends from Sudan
(south of Egypt) down to Lake Victoria. The dams were built to prevent flooding
up north, which has been effective in not creating disaster zones.
The High Dam
is a pretty impressive feature, and gives a nice view of the winnow of the Nile
River to the North, and the great expanse of Lake Nasser, which extends about
400 miles further south into Sudan, to the South. North of the High Dam, and
south of the Old Dam (built in the 1850s) are a number of small islands, one
including Phillae Temple, which was the next site.
The Phillae Temple, built to honor the Godess Isis (wife of
Osiris, mother of Horus), staked its claim on top of one of the islands – of
course, it wasn’t always that way. Following the creation of the High Dam, and
the intentional flooding into a mini-lake between the two dams, the temple
would have been flooded over. So, with the help of the Americans, they moved
the temple up to the island in a process that took about three years. You can
barely tell now.
The Phillae Temple was similar in style to the one in Edfu,
with giant facing wall with huge carvings of Isis, Horus, the Ptotylemic
(Greek) King at the time, and the rest. Each side of the main face flanking the
main door had the same images, though notably one half of it was fairly ruined
by the good ol’ Catholics. The inside of the temple was a series of columns and
cascading mini shrines, speaking to Isis’s fertility and motherhood of Horus,
her protecting husband Osiris from an evil brother, and many other great
Egyptian stories of a civilization long ago. Roman King Trajan built his own
little piece of the temple on the side, but like the other Greek and Roman
kings, they at least had the nicety to keep the building in Egyptian style.
The other nice aspect of the Phillae Temple was that since
it was an island, we all had to take little motorboats from a dock. It was a
fairly simple 10 min ride in the calm waters, but it did give me an opportunity
to put my hand over the low-side and into the Nile River. Again, this is purely
a mystical feeling rather than a substantive thrill, but over the course of the
cruise, I’ve come to be enchanted by the Nile River.
The next stop was a return to sales tourism, with a trip to
the Phillae Perfume Factory, a three-level house of perfumes, essential oils
and aromatherapy. They claim to have a more refined process, one that the
French stole from recipe cards found in the tombs from ancient times. No idea
if this is true or not, but they certainly smelled nice, and I was able to
barter my way into two small bottles that at least seem affordable.
The final stop on the mornings half of the tour, right
before the heat reaches that 111 pinnacle, was an old granite quarry, that
purports to be the site of many of the original obelisks that were quarried in
Aswan and transferred via Nile to various temples (Luxor, Karnak, etc.), many
of which now site in various cities and museums around the world. The star
piece, however, is the ‘unfinished obelisk’ which still sits in the quarry. It
was supposed to be commissioned by Queen Hatshepshut to be the tallest Obelisk
made in ancient times. It was unfinished due to a large crack that appeared in
the body of the obelisk.
As claimed, in the heart of the quarry was the giant
obelisk, with visible crack. Not sure why they let it just lie there, as it
took up a significant portion of the quarry, but you can really enjoy both the
size of the obelisk, and the lengthy, churning process it was to create it out
of the quarry – a process that undoubtedly cost many lives.
We finally reached the boat at 11:30am, yearning for the
relative frigidness of the boat compared to the blistering heat outside. The boat
is our refuge, just as it was for all those people all those years ago that
sailed down the Nile.
After some daytime R&R under a canopy on the, for once
aptly-named, sun deck trying to get acclimated to the daytime heat of Egypt
right as I am about to leave a place coming out of its winter, I embarked on
the final cruise-sponsored tourism activity, a trip to a Nubian village. This
was very touristy, in that the village basically only exists due to tourism,
but some times doing hella touristy shit is fun.
The Nubian Village was on the west bank of the Nile, whereby
we took a motorboat to get there. The motorboat passed multiple swanky hotels,
Elephantine Island (so named due to them bringing Elephants from the south and
selling them on that Island) and numerous other smaller islands on the way. The
motorboat is purposefully slow, allowing us to take in the various lush scenery
in this more islandic part of the Nile River. As you approach the West Bank
however, the relative urban sprawl of Aswan is replaced by sweeping sand dunes.
This isn’t the heart of the Sahara, it isn’t close. There
are, the guide told us, far more towering sand dunes a few miles further
inland, but even these were imposing, terrifying, and altogether beautiful. We
first reached an embankment about half a mile from the real Nubian Village, one
where people were swimming in the Nile (sadly, this option wasn’t properly
explained, so most of us came sans-bathing suit), and dozens of camels, waiting
to be ridden to the village. Despite being with hump and bony as all hell, the
camel was a surprisingly smooth vehicle, and gave me as close a view to a full
sand dune/hill as I’ll come.
The Nubian village itself was cute, with nice shapely houses
so built to deflect heat. The main house that we went to contained a cornucopia
of tourist stuff, like crocodiles both in tanks and ones small enough to hold
(still terrifying, but I did it), views of the town and the Nile from the roof,
a sampling of Nubian snack food – soft bread with dips of molasses, sweet
seseme, and a old cheese that was far too sour for my liking. They even gave
coffee which was substantially more bitter than the Egyptian coffee, and
therefore a lot more effective as well. The Nubian people are more ethnically
African, and have a culture all their own that they like to hold dear, and it
was nice to see this little slice of life.
When we got back on the boat, we all said goodbye to our
tour guide, a fairly emotional affair. He informed us he is heading back to
Luxor, and he will be the tour guide on another boat come the following Monday,
doing the same Luxor to Aswan route. It all makes sense given he knew about 80%
of the other tour guides we crossed paths with. It is more than the tour guide.
It is amazing how parallel these cruise itineraries are, enough so that there
were people on other boats we saw enough times to acknowledge for each run in.
Before dinner, and our goodbye show (with belly-dancer), I
headed back up to the sun deck one last time. Overall, this cruise was
fantastic, and I would easily recommend the most efficient way to see the Nile
Valley. You can probably hop-scotch your way to each site and pay less overall,
but the cruise experience when added on top of the sites themselves made it
worthwhile. The food was actually quite good, with a good mezze section and
multiple meats that were different each meal each time. The drinks were cheap.
The sun deck was nice, especially during the sailing periods (quick aside, if
there is one criticism, it is the cruise doesn’t involve enough actual
sailing). The lounge was nice. The staff were nice. It was all in all a great
experience, and quite affordable. I can’t recommend a Nile Cruise, and on the
M/H Alyssa if it works out, enough.
