Nile River Cruise Day Five

Nile River Cruise Day 5
26 December 2011

The day starts off with us docked in Aswan. The first site was the Philae Temple, very unique in that it actually was moved to a higher elevation over the course of seven years while the Nile High Dam was being built. As amazing as the temples are in their own right, picturing how a site such as this is broken into 1200 pieces and moved a kilometer or so makes that feat even more amazing in its own right. Also, the temple required a boat ride to reach, making it unique in another sense.

Next was the Aswan Dam, which supplies power for half of Egypt. As such, you can imagine security was tight, with tanks (literally tanks) and machine gun-toting soldiers guarding the dam and the surrounding substations.

After the dam we went to the Unfinished Obelisk, which would have been the largest in the world, but it was cracked during an earthquake while still on its side being built and today lies horizontal in its ceased state of construction.

Following that, we toured the Aswan Botanic Garden, which was not all that remarkable to me, other than to note it odd to find such an oasis in the middle of a barren land.

In the afternoon I went on an optional tour of a Nubian Village taking an hour long boat ride down the Nile to where the Sahara Dessert actually begins. It's quite a bit different as you go further south in Egypt: Around Cairo, most of the people could easily be mistaken for Greeks or Italians, but as you go further south the skin color definitely becomes darker, more what you think of in terms of African people. We arrived at the village to tour a “normal” family home, complete with crocodiles caged up in the welcome room! I got picture of myself with one of the baby crocs around my neck, and I think that will become my new profile picture.

On the way, our boat was “attacked” by a ten-year-old boy who was drifting on a board and then latched on to our moving boat, belting out songs for the next three minutes or so. We were all shocked by the rather daring display of bravery. I felt sorry for him and gave him ten pounds, and the mom with the children did so as well, so he made off very well financially for his few minutes.

A video of his exploits can be found here.

Most of the tours today included boat rides, albeit on tiny vessels. One was a sailboat of sorts, while the others were motor boats, but all had one thing in common: We had to embark and disembark via a tiny plank, barely a foot wide. This was challenging enough for me, but for some of the older passengers it must have been very frightening. As in Australia and Venice, I was to be the unofficial helper who escorted them on and off.

Then, there was the High Tea Crisis! As mentioned earlier, I was the only passenger with this group booked on an Insight Vacations tour, while the rest were booked on a Trafalgar tour….same parent company, and essentially the same itinerary, but I apparently received a few extra perks since I paid a bit more (note to self for next time!). Mohammed, our tour guide, announced to the group at the start of the day that I would be leaving the tour today. This certainly was a shock to me, and I’ll even say I felt a sense of surprise and disappointment from the other passengers. After a few minutes, he clarified that I would “leave” the tour that afternoon for an English High Tea, something not included in the other tickets, then return (in other words, it was not that I was getting kicked off the tour!). Unfortunately, all day long the juggling of this High Tea caused problems, to the extent that on the ride back from the Nubian Village, after a phone call from the tour directors, that they stopped the boat and were ready to make a special detour back to the river hotel where the tea was held in order to drop me off. I finally convinced them I would be more than happy to waive the tea, and it was a running joke from that point on with my fellow tourists.

The weather today was warm but windy, so not many were sunning up on deck.

Also, I noticed that while nobody in my group had been posting rooms keys when leaving the vessel, the Germans seemed to do it without fail…just another cultural difference to keep in mind if you want to blend in countries in Europe, and apparently Egypt as well.

Egyptian humor does exist, both in Mahmoud , one of our very playful and prank-laden waiters, and in Mohammed, our tour guide. Mahmoud for example, likes to jokingly reply “no” when a simple, straightforward request is made, and Mohammed loves to point out anything and everything sexual in any of the pictographs, especially when an erect male organ has been chipped off by jealous “little boys.”

We had another special event tonight: Belly-dancing in the bar after dinner, along with one of the spinning Dervishes, and as a special nod to national pride I did indeed shutdown the Germans in the bar tonight! I also bumped into “Cleopatra” from the night before, and I rattled off what seemed to be a rather fluent “Sie waren sehr schoen gestern Abend” which seemed to flatter her.