Our Nile Cruise

The following is a recap of our recent trip down the Nile River for our 40th anniversary.  We had a great time, saw lots of old things and relaxed some as we travelled the Nile.  What an experience we had meeting some interesting people along the way.  I hope that you enjoy the blog.  Get a cup of coffee and sit back and enjoy the photos.  There are a few of them.

John is ready to go on his first Cruise

Everybody told me that I needed to dress appropriately if you are going on a cruise, so I brought out my best outfit.  Why do you think people thought that I was weird?  Diane was not real happy herself with the way I looked but this is our 40th wedding anniversary dear please accept me as I am.  Well she has and I am thankful for her.

Friday/Saturday just getting started

We left Cairo for the short flight to Luxor, where we stayed overnight at the Mercure Hotel.  Our room just happened to be right above the disco, which sounded more like we were in the disco, so that made for a loud night until the wee hours.  Later in the morning our guide took us to our boat docked near the Sheraton Hotel on the Nile, The Admiral.  We got to check into our room fairly early, so it was nice to just relax.  We are pleasantly surprised with our room.  Since this is our first cruise experience, and this boat isn’t nearly the size of the ocean liners, we weren’t sure what to expect, but our room isn’t all that small and has a nice bathroom, too.  We toured the Karnak  and Luxor temple compounds this afternoon in incredible heat….about 45 C they estimated.  Broiling.  The Karnak area is enormous, monuments everywhere, countless pillars shaped in the form of papyrus and lotus blossoms, carvings everywhere and statues of pharaohs.  This is the anxious capital of Egypt once called Thebes, dating from 1550-1069 BC…..hard to really grasp that many years past, especially to see what they created  with no tools.  Solid rock.  It was a tourist attraction even for the ancient Romans and Greeks.  We’ve seen statues of Ramses and King Tut.  

We share a dining table with a couple from Johannesburg, South Africa, Clive and Sharon.  We’ve enjoyed our visits together during meals, and I think they will join us tomorrow for the tour of the West Bank.  We are actually supposed to leave at 6:30 AM, a bit early, but after the extreme heat of today, I would rather beat the heat, see things before we broil and chill for the afternoon. 

Pictures of the day:

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileCruiseKarnakAndLuxorEgypt#

 

Sunday on the Nile river

We had an early  wake up call, 5:30, to try to beat the extreme heat.  We headed to the west bank of the Nile to the famous Valley of the Kings where numerous tombs have been uncovered, some even recently, of Egyptian rulers.  What was t so remarkable is the condition of the painted hyroglyphics on the walls of these temples.  The colors are so deep and well preserved.   With the erosive nature of time, sand and flooding, you’d think that these would have been destroyed as well.  All the contents of these tombs are now in the Cairo Museum, with the exception of the body of King Tut.  Because of the hasty mummification of his body (apparently the boy king was murdered rather than dying of illness), it has deteriorated, and they fear it would not survive moving it.  Just to think of how these were built, buried for centuries, found and excavated is pretty amazing.  Our next stop was the temple of Hatshepsut, a huge multi-story temple built into the rock.  The story goes that when she became queen at the death of her husband, she did not want to share power with her son, made him a commander of the army and sent him off to war, thinking that he would probably be killed.  Contrary to her plan, he became a strong warrior, came back as victor and defaced every monument made for her.  So much for close family ties.  Last stop was the statue of Colossi of Memnon, once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  There are actually two statues, 60 ft. tall, standing in the desert of the west bank.  Again, the heat took its toll, and we were ever so thankful for the AC on the bus.  This has been the down side of this journey, the inordinate heat which prevents you from being outside for half the day; just unbearable.  Once the sun begins to go down, you can stand to be outside or on the upper deck.

Tonight there was a cocktail hour before dinner with elaborately carved fruit and vegetables used for candle holders.  We had a long chat with a couple in our tour group, Russell and Diane from Melbourne, Australia, before dinner.  What a hoot he is!  And we witnessed and took part in the most “bizarre  bazaar”shopping experience we’ve ever seen…..from vendors in boats coming up alongside our boat,  yelling in various languages (for some reason, a lot of Spanish) to get our attention.  They began to throw garments up to the rooms and the upper deck!  Apparently the procedure is to take a look, yell back to them to bargain price if you are interested, and throw the money back down to them in the plastic bag that the garment was in.  Now this is something to see!  I came up to the deck at the end of this whole shopping spree, just before entering the locks of Esne, which was as far as these vendors could go, which turned out to be the best bargaining tool.  I got a lovely dress for  30 pounds, the equivalent of $6, which only an our ago had gone for 200-250.  I had no idea, but it turned out to be a good shopping/bargaining strategy.

The evening ended with a very interesting time of bingo, unlike any bingo we’ve ever seen, just numbers on a very different looking grid, to accommodate all the various languages on board. There are just a hand full of us English speaking folks, so this was interesting indeed.  John won one of the games, the prize being a gold Egyptian cross pendant, another neat momento of the trip.

Pictures of the day:

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileCruiseSunday# 

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileCruiseSundayAfternoon# 

Monday on the Nile

Monday

We were scheduled for a tour this morning in Edfu of the Temple of Horus, but I had gut rumblings during the night, and knowing the heat index, opted out of the tour and left John to take lots of photos.  He said it was one of the best so far since it is almost entirely intact. His pictures were amazing.  It is still hard to comprehend how these buildings were constructed thousands of years ago, the enormity of them and how it could be done without tools.  It would be a feat even today with the tools we have.  After the group returned and we had lunch, we had some time to look over traditional Egyptian dress and think about how we would “dress” for our final dinner tonight.  Everyone is supposed to “come Egyptian” style, and then there is supposed to be a party following.   Should be interesting.  We have really enjoyed our small English speaking tour group, led by Abdallah, who is from Luxor.  Since I missed the tour this morning, he recommended the “local cure” for the Cairo crud…..swallowing the tea leaves from an ordinary Lipton tea bag, chased by lots of water to get them down!  No chewing, just swallowing.  Guaranteed to work with no side effects.  Couldn’t seem to hurt, so I managed to choke them down.  I have to say that I have had no more symptoms since.  Not sure if it “mind over matter,” as Abdallah shared tonight at the Kom Ombo temple as he discussed the ancient Egyptian’s expertise in medicine, but I won’t argue with the results.

Our room attendant, Hassem, has been entertaining us with his “towel creations.”  Yesterday it was two giant swans made out of our comforters, complete with my hat for a personal touch.  Another small swam surrounded by flowers completed the “scene.”  Today, he surprised us with a crocodile stretched across our beds, with jaws propped open by the TV remote control and eyes made with shampoo bottles.  I walked in just as he was completing his creation, so he added my sunglasses to the croc for a funnier touch.  Of course, he’s hoping for a good tip, but it’s entertaining and fun to watch the waiters create things with the napkins at the tables.  Our waiter created an amazing “balancing act” with two forks intertwined with a toothpick stuck in the tines, balanced on the tip of another toothpick stuck in the salt shaker.  It stayed balanced for quite a while.  Neat trick.

As the  sun began to sink and the heat somewhat subsided, we walked down to the ruins of Kom Ombo Temple.  It’s another huge group of pillars, famous for its hieroglyphics, especially those depicting medical techniques and tools.  There is also a section on child birth, showing the birthing stool and breast feeding of the child.

All the while we have been here, we have been anxious to get news from home, since Hurricane Ike hit Houston this past weekend after we boarded the boat.  We haven’t had any news channels, only able to text to family, since there has been no power in the city since it hit.  We heard today that we will not likely have power for another week or two; horrible to think about and hard to imagine.  Though everyone seems to be ok according to text messages, it is terribly hot, no power, food and water in short supply.  Thankful that everyone is safe, but know that they are so many are suffering.

Pictures of the day:

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileRiverMondayMorning#

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileRiverMondayPM#

Tuesday our last day

We docked in Aswan last night so we were ready to see the historic sites early this morning.  First, we drove across the famous Aswan Dam, a pretty remarkable structure that has made a huge impact on this country, finished in 1902 by the British and for many years, the largest dam in the world. Across the river is a peninsula covered with caves, Tombs of the Nobles.  During the day it isn’t extraordinary to look at, but at night it is lighted dramatically. Once across the dam, we boarded a small boat to take us to the Angilika Island where the Temple of of Philae is now located.  Before  higher portion of the dam was built, the temple was in a lower area and would have been destroyed by the river flow, but in l971, they decided to completely remove the huge temple and relocate it to the island.  The same hieroglyphics are repeated on all the temples, story after story of the Egyptian gods and their legends.  This temple has been remarkably restored and has intricate pillars and drawings. After the tour of the temple, we went back to our boat briefly before taking a ride on a traditional Egyptian sailboat, a falucca, to glide around the area of the dam and several famous islands.  We saw the Elephantine Island, which was once a famous ivory trading post. We also sailed around Kitchener’s Island which is now preserved as a beautifully landscaped botanical garden.  As we glided along, we could see the mausoleum of the Aga Khan, then leader of the Shiite Muslims.

We also saw Lake Nasser, the largest man-made lake in the world created by the High Dam and an amazing sight in the middle of desert.

This is our last day on the boat; we fly out tonight to go back to Cairo for a few days before returning home.  We have had a wonderful time with our guide, Abdallah, and our tour group from Australia and South Africa.        

We’ve had some restful times, laughed a lot, and sweated more than I imagined possible.  This is a fascinating part of the world, complex, confused and bound by Islam.  To think that we can understand this culture is naïve at best, but we’ve met some amazing people and had very hospitable treatment during this cruise.

Pictures from this day:

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnacrews1/NileCruiseTuesdayLastDay#