After another unsuccessful morning at the Sudanese embassy Ruth decided that we should leave our passports and money with her for our visas and go and catch our Felucca's for a few nights sailing on the Nile. Originally we were going to spend 3 nights onboard, however with visa delays this got cut down to 2.

We boarded the Felucca's just down from our hotel in Aswan and set sail on the Nile. We had 2 Felucca's with one boat having 11 people and the other 7 people. I was on the bigger boat which ended up being the quieter, less drunken boat which I was rather pleased about. We also did not have the captain who was openly looking for a Western wife so we got a lot less leary looks when we went swimming or sun bathed on deck.

The Felucca's were about 25m long and had a floor which was built across the deck which enabled the area underneath to be all storage. The deck area was all thin mattresses and pillows which meant you felt like you were floating at water level. We had the kitchen on our boat which was 3 gas burners. All washing was done in the Nile which to our surprise was crystal clear and freely drunk by the locals! We did not have great luck with the wind and we were more sailing by the movement of the current than wind, however we had a lovely time playing cards, reading books, sleeping, sun bathing and eating. At night we would pull into shore and have dinner and then sleep for the night. We even had a bonfire one night with the crew playing drums and singing us local Nubian songs. They would teach us one line 'the chorus' which we would have to repeat every second line basically. We danced, drank beer and generally looked like we were doing some type of witch craft especially considering all the crew (men) were in their traditional dress and basically dancing around a fire in white dresses!

The Nile was both our bath and toilet! It was very interesting that when one had a call of nature you simply made the captain aware, we would sail to the shore and you would use the shore as your toilet. At one point we all just needed to pee so jumped over board and had a group pee! The captain was rather worried about us all and insisted that he put the life ring in the water in case we got caught by the current. This actually served the better purpose of allowing us to relax our legs enough to allow us to pee. At least he had our best interests at heart.

Still getting used to the very public way in which we are going to the toilet these days, but am sure that by the time I am in Capetown I will be able to go to the toilet in the middle of Oxford Circus without a concern in the world.

A few people have already gotten vomitting and diahorrea and general sickness but apart from a quick 2 day head cold I seem to be fairing ok. Pharmacy's in Egypt are willing to dispense everything over the counter so much so that when I told them I had a sore throat I got presented with a massive box of antibiotics. I decided to run with decongestants and strepsils and hold out on the antibiotics much to the staff's disgust as I clearly had an infection! 1 day later on my medication path and I was fixed :)

The group as a whole is getting along great and there has not been any tension or concerns to date. The first love story of the trip seems to be shaping up between Mayke (Dutch) and Brian (Alaskan) but then it seems that others are trying to fight for some attention - which in a nutshell is just all very entertaining to watch play out.

Got off the Felucca this morning and got a bus to Luxor where we will stay for the next 4 nights. The country is now shutting down for a festival and Eid so there will be lots of animals slaughtered in the streets tomorrow all in the name of festivities. Ruth has rejoined the group after further negotiations with the Sudan embassy yesterday and is now hoping that we will have some luck in getting our visa's when we return to Aswan in a few days.