Sailing on the Nile....last week in Egypt

Ok, so last I left you all in Luxor I think. Time is just going too fast, can’t believe it’s been that long! Driving south from Luxor we got to Aswan, stopped at the beautiful Edfu temple on the way, amazingly well preserved so really interesting to look at. We were based in a hotel in Aswan for a few days, 2 of which I’m not ashamed to admit were spent in the rooftop swimming pool. My back still has the sunburn to prove it. Took one day trip to Abu Simbel. Left at 3.30 in the morning to travel for a few hours in a convoy of a hundred other tourist buses to the edge of Lake Nasser (the Egyptian police insist tourists travel in convoy so they know where everyone is, only been a few years since attacks on tourists there so suppose it makes sense….). The 2 temples were built for Rameses II and his wife Nefertari. Cool temples but by far the most impressive thing is that they were under a lake 50 years ago. Lake Nasser is a vast man made lake which was flooded and many temples and Nubian (a tribal people…more to follow..) villages were submerged forever. Engineers acutally removed the temples brick by brick in the 1960s and reconstructed them on the shore. Who knows how but was well impressed!! Back to Aswan and very tired after the early start but had another outing. Got on to a felucca (wooden sail boat) on the Nile and went sailing with the group. Stopped at a beach to swim then docked on the other side of the Nile at a traditional Nubian village for dinner. Nubian are a group of people that live mainly in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. They are much darker skinned than Egyptians and have their own language, culture etc. We had a nice dinner in someones house and were told a little about the culture which was interesting. Highlight of Aswan was definitely the 2 day felucca trip on the Nile. Slept on the boats, ate traditional food and drank, well, just normal beer. So incredibly relaxing, nothing to do but sunbathe and swim in the Nile. Docked at a beach night one and had a bonfire and a party! Night two we docked at a not so scenic location beside Kom Ombo temple . Lots of children begging and people harassing you into buying things. Unfortunately getting harassed is something you get used to after a while in Egypt. So we left Aswan and so Egypt early on the Monday morning….which leads us to the next blog and the ‘interesting’ journey that was the ferry to Wadi Halfa, Sudan!