The Best of Egypt: Aswan and Luxor

After settling into our train cabin we invite some of the more thirsty members of the tour group around for a sneaky vodka served into water bottle cut in half and dessert bowls. We quickly run out and make our way the bar carriage. Like bars and restaurants Egypt over this one has the lingering haze of chain smoking staff unable to drink or eat during Ramadan. The bar is seedy with a few overly ocker Aussies on a similar tour to ours (we end up on our next tour with one of them but he was not one of these) and we turn in early walking back through the air-conditioned cabins until we reach ours – the one with broken air conditioning.

We don’t do much the day we arrive in Aswan, a tourist town serving as gateway to Abu Simbel. is overrun with white cars that are a similar make to those of the Ghostbuster-mobile. There wasn’t much to the town: three streets, one full of hawkers selling every type of souvenir and approaching us offering quietly illegal alcohol or Viagra, we need neither. Beyond the hawkers at the local produce market we buy juicy mangos that we later enjoy poolside with Fred the Finn and fruit I call a passionfruit-pear (guava/faragello) that we don’t really enjoy. Devin goes for a run by the Nile and we start to think that the heat has affected his rationalism. By mid-afternoon we make tracks towards a camel ride. My camel doesn’t pay any attention to his ten year old handler and completes the 4km ride at his own pace. It’s a leisurely pace that separates me from the peloton but at least I didn’t get Cordell’s camel who took to biting him whenever he received a whip.

That evening we take a boat to a Nubian village and feast on a spicy meal of soup, fried chicken, potatoes, beans and thick chewy bread under an attempted fresco outlining that we are ‘Wellcome’. As we snake our way back to the Nubian harbour Mamdah approaches some of the local kid’s player football on a dustbowl of a ground. We played by the lights from bordering houses with Mamdah taking the side of the locals. Where as in Tanzania our like hearted bear hugs stopping the opposition were laughed at, here there was instant demands and taking of a free kick. These kids took it seriously and soon were 5 – 2 goals up. The kids didn’t much like it when our time was almost up and we scored the suggested next-goal-wins.

The next morning we are out the door by 4.30 am heading south to be at Abu Simbel. Being close to the Sudanese border and fearful of further terrorist attacks (shotting at temple of Hatshepsut in 1997 massacring 62 people) all vehicle travel in convoy with escorting armed guards. Abu Simbel was a very impressive temple the pharaoh Ramses II carved into the side of a mountain. Ramses built the temple to declare himself a god as not to be thrown from power by the high priests. We ensure that Vince is loaded up with enough Egyptian Pound coins to use every public toilet between Aswan and Luxor as he is suffering from a case of dessert-belly. It was a hot morning and by the time we got back into the bus much of Mamdah explanations are lost to us.

That afternoon we spend in the pool as traveling Egyptian pharmacy reps eye of the girls in binkies. We hit up the street markets again after a meal on a ferry gently rocking by the Nile. Devin either gets smashed smoking shisha but more likely suffers from dehydration. We keep an eye on him as Mamdah leads most of the group to a Nile-side bar he has called and asked to stay open for the group. It’s getting late for the bar located in the centre of a hotel so it is meant to be closed, but Mamdah having often brought groups here is an exception to the rule. The bar side pool is too much of a temptation for us and we strip (not that we were wearing much as it was still 35 degrees at 11pm) and have a swim. Devin pulls up a seat in the pool and drinks triple whiskies until he’s drunk enough to buy the rest of the bottle to take with him. We get pool service washing back black olives and potato chips with Sahara Gold lagers. We look out over the Nile to a soundtrack of Harish screaming “I’m Ramses b****” whilst we trade travel stories. It’s a definite ‘I’m in Egypt moment’ and my favourite time of the tour.

Nursing a hangover from the previous night we head lugging our gear down to the Nile and onto one of two Felucca’s. The smaller of the two carries six people and so we banish the three couples to it and christen ours the party felucca. The ride was a bit of a sham, we only travelled about 5km through the heat of the day, not that anything could be done as the Niles runs South - North and the winds run either East –West or West – East. So for us to gain any distance the captains of the feluccas zig zag back and forth. We fill in the time playing a game of ‘what would you rather’. Natalie our American occupational therapist in the making, having never played the game before has a natural, disturbingly sadistic skill in the game; if she even feels the need to leave OT I am sure she will get a job writing movie scripts for the “SAW” producers. We stop at one point where there is some protection from the Niles current for a cooling swim. There are some concerns of the completion of last wills and testimonies as Dagmar and Jac get mouthfuls of water. The feluccas are close enough that the crews can call out to eat other, in Arabic it is very difficult to interpret if the conversation is just animated or if it’s a heated debate. When we docked at sunset and one of the captains rams and breaks our felucca’s rudder it is easy enough to interpret the exchange. We have time before dinner to set up for our night sleeping on the deck as our captain and his crew roll out their prayer mats and face towards mecca. Bobbing on the Nile as another cruise-liner steams past, watching the sunset with the smells of spicy beans and fresh pita bread wafting past – there is no were we could be anywhere but Egypt.

On the bus to Luxor the next morning, Mamdah, in a single moment of tour guide brilliance has called ahead and bought us all falafels. As we tuck into our still warm bread, falafel and grilled eggplant we all decide that the only thing better than a falafel is a surprise falafel. Luxor was another tourist town, where tourist carriages dragged behind thin horses have the right of way in the busy markets. The newly reclaimed land of the sphinx walk leads to the temple, a few sphinx short. The walkway was previously residential and a few entrepreneurial individuals had dug up their basements and sold the sphinx’s on the black-market. These residents have since all been relocated to a ‘new’ development on the outskirts of town. Back at the hotel that night I spread my gear across the room and realise it’s the first time I have stayed in a hotel by myself.

The next day we ride the Egyptian Mercedes. The donkeys took off ignoring the handlers beatings and our pulling on the rains. When we are all mounted the handlers gives up and tell us to stick to the right hand side of the road and trust that the donkeys know the way. They did and took off at a surprisingly speedy pace. Cordell again lucks out with animals and has to keep his at a distance from the others after it bites Devin’s and tries to kick Vince’s. Devin has to man handle his frisky donkey from a passing by female mostly due to the story that Modaha had told about the time one donkey had mounded another. My highlight of the ride is taking off my thong, smacking Vince’s donkey and in my best Arabic ‘YELLA’ (go-you-good-thing) of which it picks up its cadence and Vince bobs away to the front of the pack.

The tombs of the Pharaohs at the Valley of the Kings are only a donkey’s ride from Luxor, we rode half way there; lucky as I was starting to get a little saddle sore. By midmorning we scaled the stairs and entered our first tomb. Inside at 50 degrees and 100% humidity I felt like a bug was crawling down my arm – in my mind I could already see one of those beetles from “The Mummy” movies starring Brendan Fraser but it was just a tsunami of my own sweat. It pooled in my thongs and I struggle to keep my toes grip on them. We drop by the Temple of Hatshepsut (she recycled Ramses idea and declared herself a god as to rule after her husband, the pharaoh, died).

From Luxor we all fly back to Cairo for a half day exploring the citadel and Coptic sites with Mamdah. Out at the airport Jac and I have American sized cheese burgers and monster Cokes using up the last of our Egyptian pounds. They aren’t particular nice compared to our calamari we were enjoying that night in Istanbul.