Egypt Day 9 a long way for a long day

Our Ninth day started with an early wake up call for our trip to Abu Simbel. A ticket on egypt air from aswan to Abu Simbel get's you a bus ride over to the temple, and we'd arranged with Sayed to meet a friend of his for a tour. On final approach to the airport, people sitting at the window on the left side of the plane get an eyeful. As you can see, I was one of those lucky people. Growing up the grandchild of a librarian meant that my house was filled with hundreds of cast off National Geographics. One of which I distinctly remember was May 1969 (I remember the cover picture, not the date). If I had my time machine I'd go back and tell myself to save those, but alas they're long gone. If you've been following along this far, then I know you're already a fan of Hatshepsut, who just happens to be on the cover of the April 09 National Geographic. Our guide Eba met us at the airport jumped on the bus with us and began our tour of the temple. Having known about Abu Simbel for all this time, means that as I stood at the feet of the colossi, I was having one of those I can't believe I'm actually standing here moments. There are some tourist sites that are so over hyped as a must see, that when you get there you think to yourself, Meh. Abu simbel is not one of those places. It is every bit worth the hype. As you walk around the temple you know just how ammazing the setting, with the huge statues overlooking sweeping views of lake Nasser. An earthquake shattered the 2nd statue during Ramses II lifetime, and he assumed it was because the gods were angry, so the statue was never rebuilt. The inside of the temple is actually really nice too, but of course, you don't get to take any pictures inside. You don't hear too much about the second temple that's here, the temple built for Nefertari, who I introduced you to in the valley of the queens. After our tour we went back to the airport to wait a while for the cairo flight, and then off to cairo we went. On Egypt Air flights there is a Qur'an behind glass prominently displayed as you come in the main door, and I did not have the stones to ask if in an emergency you should break the glass. We attempted to arrange the guy who took us to the cairo airport to come back and get us and be waiting, and after collecting our bags, there he was holding up a sign with Herron in big letters on it. Yes we overpaid, but it was nice to have it already taken care of. Back at the cairo marriott, we made a beeline to the lobby bar, where they serve absolutely the coldest sakkaras in all of Egypt, and have really comfy chairs. We spent way too much time and money there. Ever since we'd left Cairo the first time we'd been dreaming about eating at egyptian nigts again, so there was no keeping us away from the bread and the cold Mezze platter that night. Then it was off to bed, for an early start the next day seeing Cairo's most important sites. There are two towers at the Marriott, and the one we were in for our second stay had a much nicer view from it's balcony, but also overlooked a very busy road. If you were out on the balcony with the sliding door open you couldn't hear what was going on in the room at all. You could see bustling cairo and a long way down the nile from our room, and listen to the busy honking of all the cars below. In Egypt, you use your horn as a turn signal, warning, pedestrian motivator, and possibly a radio. Sometimes I think drivers on empty roads honk their horns just out of habit. There was one place in Luxor where there was a no honking sign, that we stood around and watched for a few minutes just to see if drivers obeyed. Of course not.

Egypt Day 8 Returning to Land

We got them to give us a 9:00 check out on the boat, and slowly packed up all our junk and prepared for our departure. We'd been told what a cab ride should cost to the hotel and actually managed pretty easily to find 2 cabs and negotiate the correct rate. We were moving to the Pyramisa Isis Island Hotel. You have to take a boat to get there, and we rode over with our huge pile of luggage, and an Egypt Air flight crew. As soon as we set foot on the island we realized we'd made a serious error in judgment by not booking for more days. The hotel is gorgeous, and the service was really awesome there. We were most excited by the pool and swim up bar, but the weather never cooperated enough to make swimming a viable long term option. We had arranged with our new best friend Sayed to take us out for lunch, so after we got settled and enjoyed a drink outside we met sayed back on the mainland. He put us on another boat and off we went to the Dokka Nubian restaurant. I was still hoping this would be a little less touristy, but when you go inside there are long tables already set up, and you can tell who's going there, the big groups. That's ok though, because the food is actually worth the effort here it's cooked in a metal bowl and you can choose among fish beef or chicken cooked in an amazing tomato sauce. Of course your meal starts with the standard breads and dips, and they serve these really wonderful fruit drinks. When you go there, spring for the Nubian coctail; a mix of gauva, mango and strawberry juice. We ate until we were absolutely stuffed, and then saw a coffee making demonstration, so we could see how the delicious Turkish coffees we'd been drinking were handcrafted by Nubians. After gorging ourselves we planned on spending a full day at the pool. There was sunning and nap time and not a whole lot else going on for the rest of the day. We had to rest up, because we had a full agenda planned for the next day. Nobody else was hungry for dinner, so W and I had dinner outside on the patio (the mezze platter and some fish and chips) and crashed early. there was a 4 am wakeup call waiting for us the next morning.

Egypt Day 7 Gone with the wind

An interesting thing happened at the end of day 6, we were headed out to the upper deck at night, when the guy at the gift shop says, don't stay out there too long, it's going to get windy. We laughed, thinking how bad could it be? Just as we settled into some chairs, the winds began to gust, and of course the winds carry desert sand with them. We lasted about 2 minutes before the lounge seemed like a better location. So now, I've experienced a real Sahara Desert sandstorm. Overnight the boat pulled itself into Aswan, and after breakfast we were told it might still be too windy to take our outing for the day. We did eventually leave, and met up with Sayed for a trip out to the Aswan High Dam. The air was still really stirred up, and it was downright cold out there, but it's one of those been there done that sort of things. That's the story of my travel life; whenever I have one morning someplace the weather there will be crappy. After our walk on the dam, it was off to see the unfinished obelisk. If you're interested in ancient construction methods, this is actually pretty interesting, but visually it's not all that exciting. The important thing to note here is that an obelisk has to come from a single piece of stone, and this one cracked while they were getting it our of the bedrock, so it just got left there. With a couple more hours there I could have gotten myself some nice granite counter tops, but alas I forgot to bring my measurements with me. The last part of our journey took us to Philae temple which is out on an island and requires a little boat ride to get to. You sit around the outside the boat, and running down the middle there was something suspicious covered by a cloth. Once we were underway, it gets uncovered, and you get to shop while you're riding out to the temple. There were lots of bead necklaces and bracelets and things made out of camel bone. The temple itself is really beautiful, and the setting of the island itself is gorgeous. We took a short hop back on the boat, and then we made a stop at a perfume factory. This is one of the difficult parts of Egypt tourism, frequently as part of your tour you'll stop at a factory where they make something tourists typically like to take home. You get a little demonstration of how the product gets made, you get the obligatory coffee or mint tea, and then the hard sale on whatever product is being made there. In all of our touring we visited a papyrus shop, a stone works, a rug factory, and this perfume shop, where they pin you into a little booth, or even try to separate you so you won't be influenced by the rest of the group and really press you to buy. The perfumes were way expensive, and we ended up not buying, and ran as quickly as we could for the door. It's part of all the tours, as soon as you leave another bus pulls up. The tour guides must get a kickback, so you just learn to play along, drink your tea, and not to ever show too much interest. We went back to the boat for lunch after that, and were all excited about our planned felucca ride. Unfortunately the winds were still too high for feluccas to sail that day, so we got a motorboat instead to cruise around the islands and the cataract. Sayed had talked us into a little side trip to a Nubian village and camel ride, so we took a ride farther south in our motorboat, and it dropped us off for our camel ride. The ride was beautiful, right next to the river and through the village. Getting up and down on a camel is a wobbly experience, and there's no stirrups, and sometimes you're awfully close to the edge of the river. When the dam was built, Lake Nasser flooded the former nubian lands, so they were all moved to this area. We visited a Nubian home, ate some typical foods that included an interesting bread, some really delicious cheese and some thick dark honey that tasted like a honey/molasses mix and some sort of crystalline sweet thing that I still don't understand what it was, and of course a cup of mint tea. We got to hold a nile crocodile, and the little girl in the house would let you take her picture (she was adorable) but would insist on reviewing your photographic work for quality, it was the cutest thing. Angie of course looks sort of Nubian so she was quite popular in the village, and people who wanted us to come shop at their place would immediately invoke the name of Obama to get our attention. We went to a school too and got a little Arabic lesson. I got points for knowing the correct response to the Arabic greeting, but lost points for not memorizing my numbers quickly. We did a little shopping buying up some spices including some saffron that I'm not entirely sure is real, and then finally made it back for our little motorboat ride. On the way to the villaige there were lots of rocks, and the current moves faster than anyplace else, so I was a little nervous navigating all those rocks on the way back. On the cruise they had a set menu for the night, and it was a welcome relief from 4 days worth of buffet. We had to make a run out to town to meet Sayed to get some cartouches made, and he got us a Turkish coffee at one of Aswans many outdoor coffee places. The coffee shops are mostly the realm of men, so with a mixed group you should make sure you know where you're sitting. We were due to leave the boat by nine the next morning, and after a full day we were back to the ship to crash.