Day 5 - Cairo/Aswan

Breakfast is served in our fabulous hotel room with the fabulous view of the Nile River and the Khufu and

Khafra pyramids in the distance. The view compares favourably with the one we enjoyed eating dinner at a rooftop restaurant with a terrific view of the Taj Mahal in the distance.

We walk along the river and across the bridge to a coffee place on the river. The cafe was part of a larger restaurant/discotheque and very modern with white Mies van der Rohe style chairs and tables and no view of the river. We sit next to a couple of ladies in full burka, one lady stylishly dressed in brown who answers two different iPhones that are constantly ringing. The other has sun glasses smashed inside her head dress so that they hung in place above her nose.  Now I wouldn't have thought any more about these ladies except that they ordered food and I'd never  considered the difficulty they would have eating. Basically, the veil must be lifted for every bite. That can't be fun, I thought. 

Camels & Blue House - Fantastic

After a harrowing experience crossing the road, we return to our 39th floor to pack up our stuff to leave for the airport and Aswan. To my surprise when I look out the window and what do I see but, not Santa but the pyramids in Giza. Amazing.

We get to the airport in time to sit for 2 hours, me nursing the Egyptian version of Stella beer and Nicola to Facebook for a half hour and then put her head down on the table and sleep.

When we get off a plane, I discover that the majority of passengers are Chinese and we are two of three passengers of European descent. The land around is Aswan completely desolate, mostly sand with outcrops of rock. From my readings, I understand that this part of the Nile Valley is narrow with steep banks where the annual flood did not irrigate the land to the extent it did in the north. 

Our hotel is on the west bank of the river. It's made of cement painted a sea blue with arched doorways and a

Another pic of camels on in West Aswan

vaulted ceilings with Arabic style furnishings. At least that's how I think it would be described. Ottomans fill the sitting areas and the beds are the sling type you see being used by the Bedouins. The large bathroom is painted bright yellow, is large and incredibly clean.

Along with two Alsatians and a very rotund retriever wagging their tails like crazy, we are greeted by a very friendly, good looking Nubian man in a long brown robe. Her shows us to our room and asks if we need dinner. Nicola declines saying that we would have it in town. 

Aswan  is one place with two towns. The Aswan where our hotel is located on the west side of the Nile can best be described as a Nubian village. Cement houses are scattered haphazardly along a road that follows the Nile. A young guy on a camel gallops up the road ahead as we make our way to the ferry to the

Felluca & East Aswan 

other side. Anther two guys on camels trot toward us through the desert. On the hill just to the south of town we see remnants of a burial site called the Tombs of the Nobles which look like caves dug into the side of a rocky outcrop. A house that consists of four or five domed tent-like enclosures made of cement sits on the west side of the road just before the ferry.

Nicola grabs my arm as I walk right by the guy taking money for the ferry, two Egyptian pounds each or 14 cents. The ferry is just for people with benches around the edge of the boat and four across the middle. When it lands we all step on with both men and women dressed in robes, some in burqas and all with their hair covered. 

About half way across, Nicola says to me, "Have you noticed that all the men are on one side of the boat and the women are on the other?” 

Hmm, I think. “Do you want to move over?” I ask.

“I’m okay,” she replies.

The other side couldn’t be a bigger contrast to the west. A double lane paved road lines the river with hotels and clothing stores and cell phone outlets and big tourist style restaurants crowded along the far side. Touts badger us to ride in their horse-drawn carriage, buy their book, their postcards, their taxi ride, their boat ride, their tour. Being tired and suffering from post-nasal drip, I desperately need drugs, a break from these assholes and caffeine. And then, we see it. Macdonald’s. We purchase two medium Cokes and sit on their deck beside the river, obviously verboten to salesmen. I say

Ferry arriving

salesmen because there are no women selling, serving, driving, policing, soldiering, guarding,  (except for Susie I haven’t seen another. Nicola says she’s seen one other at the pyramids.)

Nicola checks her email using the restaurant’s wifi and discovers that the driver who’s taking us to Abu Simbel is expecting to pick us up on the east side of the river at 4:30 a.m.. She replies to him saying that the ferry doesn’t start until 8:00 so that’s just not possible. 

She has a couple of ideas for a restaurant, one slightly further away than the other, so we pick the closer one. After a 25 minute walk we learn that it’s full. They can’t get us in. It’s already 7:30 and I’m tired and we have get up at 4:15 so we walk back toward the ferry hoping to find any place to eat. If nothing else, Macdonald’s. And it all turns to crap. We stop at an Egyptian café and the food is almost inedible. Fatty fish. I've never tasted the like. 

So, with having had very little to eat and feeling miserable, we head back to our guesthouse, At the ferry, we notice that not only do women and men sit in different places on the boat, they sit in different places in the waiting area. Nicola refuses to move and the people don't seem to care. It's something they do. The Nubians seem very live and let live however I don't get to know more about them because we have to leave on a boat tomorrow for Luxor.