Thursday I went on a 6 hour felucca trip with some French people to various islands including a botanical garden which had some weird birds who sounded like they were drowning.

Friday I got up at 2:45am to arrive at Abu simbe at 7:30 - a temple built by rameses II which has 4 20m high statues of rameses guarding the entrance. In the 60s they had to cut it into over 8000 pieces of 20-30 tonnes each and move it to higher ground to save it from being flooded by lake Nasser. Also went to elephantine island - aswan's earliest settlement is a village in ruins called abu (over 5000 years old), also saw temple of khnum and Nubian villages. At dinner a strange Egyptian father and son invited me to sit at their table and gave me a some beer and half a crisp. It was really confusing and awkward because they didn't speak any english and I don't speak Arabic and they kept trying to make me drink beer and asking to eat my food. I eventually worked out that they wanted me to pay 2 dollars for this awkwardness and when I declined the strange man thought that trying to kiss me might change my mind.

As you can see in the picture, the view from my window is lovely. I also somehow have a cold and yesterdays dinner was not kind to my stomach.