Felucca

We start on our felucca ride mid morning.

Our bags are loaded into our boat while we finish breakfast.

I am fighting Egypt belly. I am hoping that this ride wont be too uncomfortable for me.

The felucca is where we are to spend about the next 24 hours.

Shoes off for this journey. We all climb up and bend over and find our lounge spot on the cushions. Since the boat is stationary it is kind of warm. Fortunately it cools down as we start to sail.

We do a loop in the water, during that time we gather with the other boat, the other tour of the younger travelers. We always have them in our sight.

After a couple hours we dock to eat lunch. Lunch is served in the middle of the boat. It is a nice mix of mashed potatoes and vegetables, shashuka, pita, and babbaganoush.

I am still fighting nausea and cramps. Because I skippped dinner the night before and ate a very light breakfast I give it a go, all except the babbaganoush.

My stomach isn’t happy with the food because the nausea continues.

People get off the boat for a swim. My stomach pains make me decide to just chill on the boat, best to be close to a bathroom.

Then we are off again. Beautiful views of the Nile. The boat sails in a zig zag fashion to grab the wind.

Someone plays music from their phone onto a Bluetooth speaker. It is relaxing. Definitely a better option for someone with stomach issues vs sightseeing at a very hot site for the day.

Some on the boat torture our tour guide. He is a good sport about our teasing.

Finally we dock for dinner and the night. We go onto shore to see the donkey and dogs that are hanging around. A man has been riding the donkey and he offers rides to some in our group. The group of dogs are cute. They are dirty and you can tell they survive on the daily scraps from tourists on the felucca boats.

It is back to the boat for dinner which is served on the roof off the boat. I skip dinner because my stomach is still angry at me from lunch. I ask for the guides to set aside some pita for me for later in case I get hungry and am willing to eat. I do try to eat a little bit a couple hours later. Best to not go to bed starving.

We are winding down for the night and the young group in the boat next to us is just getting the party started. Karim our tour guide convinces us to go out to the fire and sing some songs with a drum circle. He insists it is too early to go to bed. I think it is only 9 pm. I am also not drinking alcohol (except 1 beer I tried) because of my stomach pains. We have fun singing random songs by the fire. Some are Nubian chants, some are pop hits. After a little while we are done and head back to the boat to get ready for bed.

I find a nice spot at the end of the boat where I have access to fresh breeze. At first I am warm but as the night progresses I get chilly. I grab one of the provided blankets and snuggle up for a good nights sleep. Ear plugs are necessary because the party is never ending from the other boat.

Most of us wake around 6 am and get ready for breakfast. Breakfast is thin crepes, Boiled eggs, and bananas. I eat. It is about time I join the living again.

We will see how my stomach responds.

Now off to our 3 hour drive to Luxor. I am hoping we first have a stop at our hotel for a shower and some teeth brushing before we do our daily sightseeing.

Nubian Village

One activity I really enjoyed in Aswan when we took the boat to have dinner in a Nubian Village. We got to meet locals, see the village, and learn local customs such as marriage customs. They graciously prepared us a very appetizing dinner.

Our Nubian host meets us at our hotel and takes us to his island on a very calm boat ride on the Nile.

Once off the boat we walk through the village to get to his house where a table is set up for us.

While we wait for dinner they take us to the roof so we can see how the house is constructed.

Soon it is time for dinner. All the dishes are delicious. I feel very grateful they share them with me. While we eat our Nubian host describes local customs concerning marriage and such.

I feel very lucky that our tour included such an experience.

Philae Temple

Built for in Osiris 7th or 6th century BC Philæ temple

Temple deconstructed and moved due to flood risk before 1970.

During Ptolemaic times carvings were scratched out, you can also find crosses added later when the structure was used by the Christians.

Train from Cairo to Aswan

After a long day of sightseeing we rushed to the train station where we wait for a train that shows up whenever it decides to show up for our overnight to Aswan.

This is my first overnight train ride after many years. I have a private cabin as one of the perks of paying for the single supplement. My cabin during this route isn’t too terrible and I take a Benadryl at the beginning of the ride. People on my tour complained about the ride but I found it to be very peaceful and restful. I didn’t quite enjoy the bathroom or breakfast and dinner for that matter but things could have been worse. But the ride back to Cairo on the other hand was terrible (talk about that later).

It is on the train that I suspect I got my Egypt belly bug because a day after this is when I start to have really bad cramping and you know what. When I arrive in a country that has bacteria that is incompatible with my body is I early on tend to start brushing my teeth with the local water. The theory here is that it’s going to eventually get you in some form or another why not get it at the beginning and get it over with. However this time I think it backfired a bit because Egypt bacteria is a worthy opponent. When I was in India it didn’t take me too long to recover but my body really did not like Egypt bacteria.… Or it could’ve been just run-of-the-mill food poisoning. Luckily my worst day and night happened to coincide with a comfortable hotel night and a felucca ride that required very little physical activity and a very strong dose of Imodium A.D.

Egyptian Museum

Cairo has undertaken in multi year project to build a new Egyptian museum. The new museum will be very large and contain everything at the current Egyptian museum plus more. I have heard that items have been transitioning to the new Egyptian museum. In fact some stuff has already moved which led me to have anxiety about whether or not the king Tut’s exhibit was still on display. I tried to research before hand came up empty handed with any details of what actually exists in the old museum. I am pleasantly surprised to find the king Tut exhibit is still at the old Museum so I can see it in all it’s glory (more on that later).

Time is limited so we do a quick tour of some important items downstairs. One could spend days here but we were lucky we at least had a tour guide to point out some hot things.

I purposely changed the lighting in his photo so you would notice the “i stole someone’s soul and will steal more” eyes in the statue.

King Tutankhamen

I will not go into all the details on King Tutankhamen but basically he ascended to the throne very young and ended up dying super early. In fact he died so early that he did not have a proper tomb ready for him. His rushed burial led to an inconspicuous tomb site which probably led to it being so intact after all those years. Some looting had occurred but everything was still untouched in the sealed back chamber. This find in the 1920’s remains the most important find of this type.

The most spectacular part of the exhibit were the jewels on display. The detail on all the different pieces were amazing. There were no photos inside but I am sure photos can be found online.

Before I left I tried to explore some more. I didn’t get very far. This museum is definitely worth a return – or return when the new museum finally opens.

“You have a knife in your bag”

When visiting the Egyptian museum you get checked through security twice: once when you enter and once when you leave. I imagine the X-ray at the exit is to make sure you have not stolen anything. After spending a couple hours with my tour guide in the museum, we are given some free time to wander around. After spending extra time at the exhibits that peeked my interest I headed to the exit to meet with the tour guide and wait for the others. I put my bag on the X-ray belt and walked through the exit. Security singles me out and asks me about the knife in my bag. What knife in my bag? I know I have a wine bottle opener in my backpack in the hotel but there isn’t anything closely resembling a knife in my day pack. When I say to him there is no chance he points to the X-ray screen with my bag and very clearly an outline of the knife. I am confused. I tell him I have no idea what that is. There are some slight smiles and then they say they’ll run the bag through again. The second time it comes up clean. More smiles from the security guards and I am on my way. I am very confused. One must assume that they have this knife trick they play on gullible looking tourists to make their job more interesting. That was weird end to my visit but the important thing is that there is no knife in my bag.